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Prompt: "שמחת עולם" vs "שפחת עולם"
Are they mutually exclusive?
Explanation: Many communities sing the poem Yedid Nefesh during Friday night prayer and the third meal on Shabbat. The poem is, in a general sense, about our relationship with God. Different sidduriim (prayer books) have different versions of the poem, but for this contest we are focusing on the second stanza. The second stanza talks about how the soul is love-sick for God, and that it will be healed with God's light. The two versions we will focus on are as follows:
Artscroll siddur
Koren siddur
While there are many differences between the two versions, we focused on the second stanza. In the Artscroll siddur, the second stanza concludes that the soul will be forever happy if HaShem heals it. The version in the Koren siddur concludes that the soul will forever serve HaShem if He heals it. The question is, are the two mutually exclusive? Does serving HaShem come at the cost of happiness? Does happiness come from serving HaShem? Does serving HaShem mean we must be happy? These are the questions that we asked the writers to consider. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did!
Click on the links below to read the winning pieces!
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