Solitude: The encounter with the inner point no one can touch

Source: Adon Olam: The solitary oneness

"Master of the universe who reigned – before any creature was created, / When all was made by His will – then His name was called King, / And after all is ended – He alone will reign in awe, / And He was, and He is, and He will be – in glory. / And He is one, and there is no second to liken to Him, to join with Him – / Without beginning, without end, and His is the strength and the dominion..."

(From the liturgical poem **Adon Olam**).

Explanation: Solitude as the image of God

The pinnacle of Jewish thought is divine oneness. God is the ultimate solitary essence—"He alone... And He is one, and there is no second." Could it be that human solitude is not a flaw in the image of God, but the very image of God within us? Just as God sits alone, so too a person sometimes sits alone.

Perspective: The Holy of Holies of the soul

At the end of the day, when the lights go out, we return to the source. Being "alone" is not a social status; it is a sacred state. The Hebrew word for alone, levad, contains the root bad—a single branch, but also the cloth of a garment, the covering of the essence. The more a person refines themselves, the more they discover that at the center of their being lies a point that no one can touch. This is the "Holy of Holies" of the soul. Whoever fears being alone fears meeting the God within them. The catharsis comes in understanding that solitude is not a wall separating us from the world, but the doorway through which we enter into the world and into eternity. To be alone is to resemble the Creator, yet to lead, and to desire human flourishing and well-being, is also part of the image of God.

Going Deeper: Tzimtzum: Making room to create

In Kabbalah, this is called tzimtzum (divine contraction). To create a world, God had to "make room" within Himself, withdrawing inward to grant space. Human solitude is also a necessity: a need to make room, to contract. We clear space to make room for another, and to step back from the distractions of the world so we can recreate ourselves anew. This is the "void" out of which everything is brought forth (Ex Nihilo).

Culture: Message in a bottle: Sending a message from solitude to solitude

The famous song "Shir Lelo Shem" ("Song Without a Name"), written by Shalom Hanoch and performed by Yehudit Ravitz, is a voice calling out to the wind, a message in a bottle adrift on stormy waters—reaching out from one solitude toward another, knowing no encounter will occur, only words traveling into the unknown, like prayer and longing. Solitude is the human condition, and every so often we venture outside ourselves. In the well-known film Message in a Bottle, a love note cast adrift sparks a romance between two lonely people—a love that ends in tragedy, returning once more to solitude.