Poetry Inspired By the Talmud

‘MEY’AYMATAI’

From which point in time does one recite the Shema-Hear O Isreal-God is One-You shall love the Lord…in the evening?

1. When priests eat their terumah-gifts

2. From the time of the appearance of the stars-

3. From the time the poor man eats his bread with salt.

Darkness descends

I cannot see,

I grope for a way to go

Not to stumble and fall,

Not to encounter the bogie –man of my fears,

As long as there is light

There is no fear.

We say words,

torches in the night,

divine letters dancing along the corridor of night,

eyes filled with the flame’s glow,

and from the eye to the heart in a skip and a jump,

the beating is silenced by the sacred word.

Shema –Hear, listen, not to your fear,

Pay no attention to the despair of the night,

You have words , words that transport to realms of calm.

As long as we give the terumah, the tithe of elevation,

The twinkle of stars stands firm and true

And even the poor man can enjoy his bread and salt,

bringing his sacrifice,

Embraced by the Oneness of the universe,

a Oneness orbiting the circle of love.

God's Prayer

If prayer is possibility,

The potential of pregnant prospects,

What can God, always and real, pray for?

I am what I am-not as yet to be,

If so, why pray?

Or I will be what I will be,

And if I pray, I shall be what I wish to be-

I groan under the burden of My Power,

I cry out for relief, the ease that comes with imperfection

Omnipotence offers little hope,

Just disappointment, unmet expectation.

And so I pray:

May it be My will

That My mercy,

Suppress My anger…

Ah this is My God-

The God who prays for His own forgiveness,

Whose compassion trumps all attributes-

I can now hope

To transform my rage

Into a flowering of love,

Taking the thorns of hostility

And shaping their sharpness into petals of gentle roses.

Imitatio dei! Emulate God,

Take His image into your soul

Look mercifully upon your anger

and in this mindful caress of your fury

the heart will open its iron gates and let

the light of mercy shine in

All Godly groaning will be silenced

And the universe will echo the divine sigh

of Self- redemption.

A God That Roars

A mother dove looks for her nest,

Asking where, ku? Where, ku?

Where the lion lies down

Where any man or woman goes to cry.

Rumi

The night sky drapes the earth with silence.

Mortal man sleeps as if in death,

A graveyard hush hovers over the deep.

Above, in heaven’s realms,

Infinity’s blackness is riddled

By a roar, like that of a lion, the king of beasts,

Bursting through branches of wooded forests.

It is the roar of God,

The King of Kings,

Sitting on His throne , raising His majestic roar above

The muffled and mournful moaning of a broken heart,

“Woe to the children , on account of whose sins I destroyed my House…”

Below there is silence, His children hear not a single

Syllable of rageful pain. God roars alone.

A ruin, a place of hidden dangers, real and imagined,

A rabbi there dares to pray-it is Jerusalem after all, a place of

Sacred security.

As he prays a divine voice is heard-“Woe to the children on account of whose sins I destroyed My house…”

Not a roar reserved for the angels of silent Emptiness

But a cooing like a dove, gentle and sweet, soothing the breast of a shattered people in ruins.

In the desolation of my heart, give me, I pray, a God who coos,

And keep the God who roars far away from us.

Grateful for Sitting Up

Her eyes were level with mine. No longer did she have to look up, eyes pleading for a moment of well-being, of physical normalcy.The nurses got her off the bed, the first time in many weeks. Now she sat erect on the wheel chair, her skin color no longer an ashen white; now her skin radiated the tinge of some faint color-light tan mixed in with a barely perceptible pink.

A smile returned to her face while her voice articulated words of strength and confidence.

We sat opposite her, her son and brother, and we rejoiced in this one hour of renewal. I quietly recited the morning blessing said during daily Jewish prayer-"Praised are You, God, Sovereign of the Universe, who raises up those who are bent."

Imagine, I thought-the gift of one's ability to sit up in a chair-how precious beyond all price.

Another small step, but in fact a large stride toward eventual recovery and improvement.

Another reason to be grateful.

Gratitude or Guilt: A Challenging Choice

I was on the treadmill, doing my daily 50 minute jogging exercise. I was in a large Canadian city, Toronto, visiting my sister who was hospitalized and currently bed-ridden. She is unable to walk, even to stand, for fear of collapsing on to the floor, the result of a deterioration of the bone tissue in her spine.

I, by contrast, was speeding along on two sturdy legs. Our age difference is minimal; yet the gap in our physical conditions is virtually unbridgeable. As I jogged, there was no television set to distract me, no music to listen to, no other exerciser to chat with; left to my own devices, I proceeded to "meditate," focusing on my mantra of "modeh" -I thank, in Hebrew. I paid attention to the gift of strong enough legs and body to allow me to put forth this kind of energy on this particular day. I felt badly for my sister, on the verge of entering a state of feeling guilty for my "good" fortune in light of her unfortunate physical disabilities. How can you be happy , I thought, when your sister is in such a state of medical hardship? For a few moments, my energy level began to wane, the result of my guilt's successful intrusion into my exercise experience. My gratefulness meditation was able to help me reorient my thinking to a recognition of gratitude that returned me to a state of continued good feeling and inner desire to complete my exercise routine.

How, I asked myself, would guilt be of any help to my sister? All guilt could accomplish was to interfere with my desire to stay healthy and strong! Why not help my sister from the vantage point of gratitude, one which exhibited health and hope, rather than guilt and hopelessness?

In the final analysis, gratitude acts as an energizing instrument to bring greater optimism and good feeling to those most in need of support and inner strengthening.

I completed my exercise and soon after was at my sister's bedside, feeling fine yet concerned for her well-being, able to be engaged with her in such a way as to brighten her spirits and hopefully make the time spent with her a little less tedious, frightening or sad. Gratitude did in fact translate itself into a response of goodness and care. I was thankful for this gift, as I am sure , was my sister.

Grateful for a Stranger's blessing

She stands alone , against a wall of wood boarding up an empty Manhattan lot . A stretch of midtown Broadway, almost abandoned at 7:00 am on a wintery January morning. Across the way, closely nestled buildings soon to bustle with business, offering trinkets and pocket books, costume jewelry and tee shirts at discounted prices. " Koreaville", dotted with store signs identifying owners in the squarish characters of the Korean language.

I approach the lonely figure, a young woman neatly dressed, huddled against the blistery wind, in back of a suitcase which serves as table or platform, on which rest several tiny stuffed animals and an empty coffee cup.

My mind fills with doubt-should I give her something? A brief debate begins in which arguments are registered for and against giving.

I draw nearer and the cold pierces my heart, forming an opening of spontaneous pity and generosity.

I place a dollar bill into her cup. With joyful surprise she faintly utters:"God bless you!"

I continue walking toward my destination persuaded that I've done the "right" thing.

Echoes of "God bless you" linger in my memory. I feel grateful for her blessing . After all, I have so much to be grateful for. My coffee cup is quite full.

Grateful for Gift-Wrapping

The season of gift giving has just passed. Hannukah has come and gone, and as the celebration of the holiday has become increasingly influenced by the general American environment, the exchange of gifts, especially among children, has become not only widespread but a newly established obligation in so many Jewish families.

X-Mas too is behind us; the gift-giving mania has morphed into another frenzy of visits to the mall but this time to return unwanted gifts. The season to be jolly has stretched into the post X-Mas week with prospects of once in a lifetime bargains preserving the upbeat mood of our celebrations. Observing my surroundings during the past several weeks I could not help but notice how colorful was the human landscape. Nature's majestic hues of autumn have drifted into a drabness of pre-winter months of bare branches and greying skies, anticipating the arrival of winter's caressing blanket of snow, sheets of white to brighten December's dullness. And then the splurge of color that girds gifts with care and generosity of spirit.

To complete a gift, wrappings of color and beauty are indispensable, packages that please the eyes, that pry open spaces of surprise and excitement.

Whether shades of blue and white of Hannukah, or the greens and reds of X-MAs, all suggest a dimension of the colorful in our celebration of significant moments in our lives. Most likely quickly discarded as children hurriedly tear open lovely layers of color to greedily grasp the coveted inside , and adults likewise are prone to overlook the outside trappings in their eagerness to take hold of objects of love and friendship, for me these images of color and esthetically pleasing decoration bring to mind a metaphor for the feeling of gratitude that encircles and houses the many gifts of our everyday lives. Each day we are showered with gifts; when we touch our feelings of gratitude it is as if we have lovingly wrapped our lives in canopies of care and significance.The awareness of what is ours envelops our hearts with wrappings of thankfulness which brushes our ordinary experience with lively colors of inner joy and a deep sense of gratitude for simply being alive.