Black-throated Sparrow : Mercy Complemented with Justice

This is a Black-throated Sparrow, perched on the spines of a Prickly Pear cactus. This little bird, from its exquisitely fragile legs to its wispy feathers, is a study in gentle tenderness. The cactus is quintessentially the opposite. Its lancing spines, the gnarled toughness of its sprawling pads - everything about it says, “Take heed, or you will pay.” To find this Sparrow, you look for cactus.

Judaism has an incredibly rich vocabulary for naming the Unnamable. In just the Shema’s first six words, we use two names, Adonai and Eloheinu, which our Sages say represent the inclusion of both mercy and justice in the world. That justice and mercy are in tension (at human scale) drives home that rather than being contradictory, the different names are aspects of a whole Oneness. To be Everything requires incorporating everything.

This Sparrow and its cactus home give us a living metaphor. In the first seven days, the world was established on a rooted foundation of order and Justice - by Elohim. This is the world as it ought to be. As the world developed, suffused with free will, the need for mercy arose too. We address Adonai in that context. The Sparrow atop the cactus, Mercy complemented with Justice, these inextricable relationships between the two - remind us to appreciate the infinite facets of the One.