White-eyed Vireo : Sweetness in the Gaps

This is a White-eyed Vireo. These little bug-eaters spend most of their time hidden away in tangles and bracken. Whether intended as a reassurance or a taunt - or maybe both - they sing to us all morning. But every now and again, they’ll pop into the gap and let a delighted photographer take their picture. These brief revelatory glimpses are enough to inspire yet another day’s hunt.

Jewish textual study is a fascinating combination of learning what is present in front of us as well as delving into the gaps, the “missing parts.” Midrash and Talmud extrapolate from divine sources to fill in the spaces, to provide context, and to peer behind apparent meanings. World-renowned scholars have offered entire lives and entire millennia, testimony to the unparalleled richness of their source material and its enduring fertility.

Embracing the ambiguities this way is more like turning a 3D object in your hands than skimming static pages. This deep dialog invites ancient lessons into our contemporary lives. What’s behind here? How else could this be made? If I reverse it, how would it appear? And if I pick this up, what must I put down? It’s in these metaphorical synapses, the gaps, where we encounter the emptiness’s sweet songs - from both our tradition and the Vireo.