Читать книгу Hebrew Daily Prayer Book - Jonathan Sacks - Страница 15

We owe to the scientist Benoit Mandelbrot the concept of fractals, the discovery that phenomena in nature often display the same pattern at different levels of magnitude. A single rock looks like a mountain. Crystals, snowflakes and ferns are made up of elements that have the same shape as the whole. Fractal geometry is the scientific equivalent of the mystical ability to sense the great in the small: “To see a world in a grain of sand / And a Heaven in a wild flower, / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour.”

The first of the “request” prayers in the daily Amidah is a fractal. It replicates in miniature the structure of the Amidah as a whole (Praise-Request-Thanks). It begins with praise: “You favour man with knowledge and teach humanity understanding”, moves to request: “Favour us with knowledge, understanding and insight”, and ends with thanksgiving: “Blessed are You, O LORD, the gracious Giver of knowledge.” You will find many other fractals in the Siddur.

The existence of fractals in the Siddur shows us how profoundly the structures of Jewish spirituality feed back time and again into the architectonics of prayer.