Hole in the Heart
Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, so that I will not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?” and that I will not become impoverished and steal, Proverbs 30:8b-9a NASB
Impoverished – What does it mean to be impoverished? Poor? Financially destitute? The Hebrew is yāraš, in the Nif’al meaning “come to poverty, impoverish, be poor.”[1] It is important to notice that the root verb, yāraš, means “to take possession of, to inherit, to occupy.” The Nif’al form indicates a passive sense, that is, something that happens to the subject. This explains the connection to the root. Impoverishment occurs when some other person or event takes possession of what is yours or should be yours. You are dis-inherited, dis-possessed, or pushed into poverty. The imagery is clear, but the application might not be.
“Human beings only become addicted when they cannot find anything better to live for and when they desperately need to fill the emptiness that threatens to destroy them.”[2]
Addiction is impoverishment. Something vital for your fulfillment has been taken from you. Your greater purpose, that commitment that pushes you beyond yourself, the thing you would die to live for, is missing. The hole in your heart is your reminder of the inner emptiness, forcing you to grasp for things to fill it or forget it. You steal in order to survive. Oh, I don’t mean you become a thief. I mean you take whatever you can to fill the hole. You steal that divine intention of God’s graceful benevolence in order to fill the empty space left behind by your disinheritance. Like the poor man who steals, you take whatever you can in order to survive.
You’ll notice that abundance is not the solution. More of the same emptiness will not fill you. What is necessary is neither plenty nor lack. What’s missing is something you can’t grasp: attachment to something beyond our grasp. This is the role of Torah, not to draw up the rules for an obedient life but to point us beyond ourselves, to provide a discipline that leads us out of our emptiness. “In the light of faith we do not seek to unveil or to explain but to perceive and to absorb the rarities of mystery that shine out from all things; not to know more but to be attached to what is more than anything we can grasp.”[3] To yearn to be more than we are, more than our reminders of impoverishment. Fortunately, Torah understands our plight. That’s why it’s so difficult. “The virtue of Torah is exceedingly great, but there are times when a person cannot draw near to the Holy and Blessed One except through afflictions.”[4] There are times when impoverishment is so intense that the practiced discipline of Torah is all we can muster to keep going. The joy of affliction is the realization that we are on the healing path; not numb to our struggle but primed for redemption.
Topical Index: impoverishment, yāraš, disinherit, Proverbs 30:8a-9b
[1] Hartley, J. E. (1999). 920 יָרַשׁ. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 409). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Bruce Alexander cited in Johann Hari, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, p. 180.
[3] Abraham Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, pp. 93-94.
[4] Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, p. 132.
