Nireh Or from Abitah by Yosef Goldman

from Abitah, track released August 17, 2023
Words: Psalms 18:29, 36:10, 67:2
Music: Yosef Goldman

Yosef Goldman - vocals
Yoni Battat - viola
Gal Hever - oud & qanun
Roy Smila - kamanche
Orel Oshrat - piano
Omri Ido Bar Giora - acoustic guitar
Roni Iwrin - percussion
Yoni Sharon - percussion
Yankale Segal - electric bass

Production & Arrangement: Yankale Segal
Engineering & Mixing: Shlomi Gvili
Recorded at HaOgen Studios, Kibbutz HaOgen, Israel
Mastered by Matthew Agoglia, The Ranch Mastering
Artwork by Lizzie Sivitz, Nireh Or.

Each of us experiences periods of darkness in our lives. We may feel like we are living under the burden of deep hardship and suffering, of loss and grief, or that the weight of our life experiences has crushed some of our dreams. A job or relationship that nourished or defined us, may have lost its sense of meaning or come to an end.

In times of personal darkness we can feel utterly alone. We call to the divine and the answer is not clear. The path forward may be inscrutable and we don’t know how to move on, how to get unstuck. It may be time to allow ourselves to adjust to night vision, to live in the mystery.

In moments when we find ourselves at the edge of what we can control, we come face to face with the unknown. There, at the edge, we find life waiting for us. Jewish wisdom teaches that there is great power in the mystery — to transform, comfort, and heal. The unknowable darkness itself can be a pathway to a lived experience of the sacred and encounters with the Source of Life that are only accessible in those times in life.

When Moshe tells Israel the story of Revelation 40 years later, he says, “You heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire” (Devarim 5:20). We need not dispel the darkness to reconnect to our sense of aliveness.