Barukh She'amar: What Good Can a Good Word Do?

What Good Can a Good Word Do? Under the right conditions, a pebble can unleash an avalanche, a puff of gentle wind can wind itself into a tornado, a word can change the world. Not every word of prayer will undergo such revolutionary amplification, but one might. Some do. This process of unexpected self-amplification has been the recurrent theme of how these prayers have been collected. Each phrase has, at some point, generated strong feelings; a great number of them have influenced or created new societies, thus affecting whole eco-cultures. This process of irregular, unexpected change is a part of nature, a part of human nature, part of our nature . TT B 'rukha sheh-amra v 'ha-ya ha-olam Blessed is that which spoke a word, and the world came to be. Blessed is the source of creation. ,~lWI One of the principles of nature which help to give a theoretical background to this phenomenon is called feedback, and is described by John Briggs in ;fractafs-'IfiePatterns of Cliaos p. 19: "One reason that the elements in chaotic dynamical systems are so sensitive ... is that these complex systems are subject to feedback. Systems fraught with a variety of feedback called "positive feedback" will often undergo revolutionary changes of behavior such as when a microphone is placed besides a speaker and the microscopic static generated blows up into a deafening screech ... Systems that change radically through their feedback are said by scientists to be nonlinear.... Nonlinear systems are so webbed with positive feedback that the slightest twitch anywher may become amplified into an unexpected con sion or trans