He would go, in his broken-heartedness, into the woods every day, as if he had an appointment to talk for an hour to God, speaking in Yiddish, or maybe not speaking, but only repeating one word, or less than a word, a syllable, a single vowel, a howl, a pure vocalization, from which he expected little result. "Zimzum," God's apartness, or say, His withdrawal, requires drastic, desperate measures, and Rabbi Nachman's keening out in the woods he believed would work like water that can wear away a stone. The stone, he said, is the heart -- not God's, but his own, that little by little he might contrive to soften to open again, soothed, or even healed. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest... |