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Era of Hidden Faces
After the tragic Erev Shavuos scaffold collapse in Stolin that left three dead and dozens injured, there was a message on social media I found particularly poignant: “Lag B’omer wasn’t Lag B’omer, and Shavuos wasn’t Shavuos, halevai that Tishah B’Av won’t be Tishah B’Av.”
Well, here we are, and Tishah B’Av is Tishah B’Av.
To say we are living in a time of great hester Panim would be a gross understatement. I have long struggled to understand what “hester Panim” truly is. On some level I understand what galus is and even what churban is. Rav Avrohom Schorr said in a passionate address a few years ago that when we hear statistics from Chai Lifeline, “es darf unchapen a tziter,” it must cause us to shudder. “There is no such thing as we can’t feel churban, this is churban! These bitter, bitter tzaros, this is galus!”
Allow me to share with you an important family secret about the tefillah of Nishmas.
That Nishmas is one of the most powerful and significant tefillos is not a secret. That this tefillah is traced back to the generation of the Tannaim is also no secret. It is also well known that the tefillah has been recommended by many gedolim throughout the generations as a powerful segulah.
So then what is this “important family secret” about Nishmas I am about to share? First, let me offer some important background.
There are various opinions as to who composed this important tefillah. The first letters of four of the primary pesukim spell the name “Shimon” (backward), a hint that this is the author’s name. But which Shimon is it? Some hold that it was the Tanna Rabi Shimon ben Shetach. Others say it was Rav Shimon ben Pazi. A third opinion has it that the famed Rabi Shimon bar Yochai composed it while he and his son Rabi Elazar were in the cave for 13 years. Rabi Shimon wanted