Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The Girl Who Could Not Kneel


And when the turmoil becomes too great and I am completely at my wits’ end, then I still have my folded hands and bended knee. A posture that is not handed down from generation to generation with us Jews. I have had to learn it the hard way. It is my most precious inheritence from the man whose name I have almost forgotten but whose best part has become a constituent of my own life. What a strange story it really is, my story: the girl who could not kneel. Or its variation: the girl who learned to pray. That is my most intimate gesture, more intimate even than being with a man. After all one can’t pour the whole of one’s love out over a single man, can one?

Etty Hillesum

 

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