Yotzer Or/Maariv Aravim

From our first breath to our last, we travel perpetually between two worlds: between the daylight of noise and activity and the night darkness of  silence and dreams.  

           The yotzer or, morning creation prayer, sings of the sunlight and awakens us to daily life.  The maariv aravim, the corresponding prayer in the evening service, tells of the spreading darkness, revealing the unfathomable depths of time and space, and returning us to the stars and their ancient ordered peace.

            The Torah begins by beating out the diurnal rhythm “there was evening and there was morning,” and the Talmud’s very first question is “how do we know when evening begins?”  So, too, the evening and morning creation prayers speak of our daily journey between light and darkness, the most familiar and profound transformation of our lives.