BROKEN WORLD
Yom Hadash
Ruach 5765

Words/Music by Josh Nelson

In Israel, the Middle East, and the world over, religious consciousness is all too often a source of conflict, but it can just as easily be a source of healing. The title “Broken World” reflects the belief of the 16th century Lurianic Kabbalists, who lived in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), that each moment in life is an opportunity to engage in the work of tikkun olam, the repair of the world. When people see religious and racial diversity as a problem instead of something to celebrate, we can find hope in two ideas: that we all inhabit and are part of the same created world, and that we can all experience the world as broken and in need of repair. As we hope and work for better times in Israel, awareness of these facts can give us strength and hope for ourselves and humanity.

- Cantor Alane Katzew
URJ Dept. of Worship, Music and Religious Living

- Yonatan Glaser
ARZA/URJ Shaliach

Can you explain this? Give me an answer.
These questions are haunting me.
Stare across these borders. How are we so different?
The same color when we bleed.
For time has brought us life, brought us love,
Brought us face to face, but …

CHORUS

We breathe the same air, see the same sky,
But you and I live in a broken world.
I see my dreams within your eyes,
But you and I live in a broken world.

VERSE 2

These cuts run deeper than darkened waters.
They draw an invisible line.
For all this anger and cold frustration,
is your peace the same as mine?
For time has brought us life, brought us love,

Brought us face to face, but…

CHORUS

VERSE 3

May your children and may my children
Never know this world we see.
Our time is passing in fleeting moments
like a mirror of memories.
For time has brought us life, brought us love,
Brought us face to face, but …

CHORUS

© 2004 Yom Hadash (BMI)