Category Archives: Poetry

Heritage – by Hayim Gouri – Yom Hashoah 2020

20 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by in Art, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Poetry

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Five years ago, I led a Jewish tour of a number of Central European cities with members of my congregation. As historic and meaningful as those cities are in Jewish and European history, the ghosts of millions of murdered Jews haunted me everywhere. The memorials for the Jewish victims overwhelmed me with sadness at our people’s enormous loss in that darkest era in Jewish history.

The Akedat Yitzhak (The Binding of Isaac – Genesis 22) came to hold new meaning for me since that tour, powerfully captured here by Hayim Gouri in his poem “Heritage.”

“The ram came last of all. And Abraham / did not know that it came to answer the / boy’s question* – first of his strength when his day was on the wane.

The old man raised his head. Seeing / that it was no dream and that the angel / stood there – the knife slipped from his hand.

The boy, released from his bonds, / saw his father’s back.

Isaac, as the story goes, was not / sacrificed. He lived for many years, / saw what pleasure had to offer, / until his eyesight dimmed.

But he bequeathed that hour to his offspring. / They are born with a knife in their hearts.”

זכרונם לברכה

*In Genesis 22:7 Isaac says, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the young beast for the sacrifice?”

Hayim Gouri, a renowned Hebrew poet (1923-2018), served in the Palmach, the Haganah and the Israeli Defense Forces. After the war he was sent to Europe where he visited Displaced Persons’ Camps. He wrote of the ordeal for survivors in seeking to reconstruct their lives in the so-called normal world, in the Hebrew novel, The Chocolate Deal, New York, 1958.

From Holocaust Poetry, Compiled and Introduced by Hilda Schiff, (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), p. 5.

 

 

The Sun of Auschwitz – for Yom Hashoah 2020/5780

19 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by in Beauty in Nature, Holidays, Poetry, Tributes, Uncategorized

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“You remember the sun of Auschwitz / and the green of the distant meadows, lightly / lifted to the clouds by birds, / no longer green in the clouds, / but seagreen white. Together / we stood looking into the distance and felt / the far away green of the meadows and the clouds’ / seagreen white within us, / as if the colour of the distant meadows / were our blood or the pulse / beating within us, as if the world / existed only through us and nothing changed / as long as we were there. I remember / your smile as elusive / as a shade of the colour of the wind, / a leaf trembling on the edge / of sun and shadow, fleeting / yet always there. So you are / for me today, in the seagreen / sky, the greenery and / the leaf-rustling wind. I feel you in every shadow, every movement, and you put the world around me / like your arms. I feel the world / as your body, you look into my eyes / and call me with the whole world.”

Tadeusz Borowsky (Translated by Tadeusz Pioro), from Holocaust Poetry, Compiled and Introduced by Hilda Schiff, (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), p. 119.

Tadeusz Borowsky was a Polish poet and prose writer (b. 1922) in Ukraine. He was imprisoned in Dachau and Auschwitz (1943-1945) but survived by helping, in a lowly capacity, to administer the death regimes in these institutions as did many other survivors. Having survived the war and given expression to his agonized view of the human condition, he committed suicide in 1951.

 

Naomi Shemer’s Al Kol Eleh sung by 12,000 Israelis

09 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Poetry, Uncategorized

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The well-known popular song Al Kol Eleh, written by Israeli poet and songwriter Naomi Shemer in 1980, was sung in a Tel Aviv stadium celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Israeli statehood in 2018.

As we approach an unprecedented third Israeli election in one year this March (2020) and in the wake of a dead-on-arrival Trump “Deal of the Century” that did not include Palestinians in the negotiations, that denies Palestinians a contiguous, independent, and viable state and a Jerusalem capital, this chorus of 12,000 Israeli Jews singing their hearts out expresses Israeli hope for the future and joy in the Land!

Despite the complexity of Israeli politics and the cessation of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for a two-state solution that preserve Israel’s democracy and Jewish character and bring justice to Palestinian national aspirations, watch and sing along in this 5-minute video and allow your heart to open with love and joy – Davke!

Note Israeli President Reuven Rivlin singing in the crowd.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity” – William Butler Yates

28 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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David Leonhardt in today’s NY Times talks about the shrinking of Europe’s traditional political parties reminding me of William Butler Yeats famous poem quoted by Churchill in the darkest of days during WWII (see below)

“The shrinking of Europe’s traditional political parties continues.
In Britain, the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, finished in third place and fifth place in this weekend’s European Parliament elections. The populist right-wing Brexit Party finished first, with close to 32 percent of votes.
In Germany, the two establishment parties — one center-right and one center-left — lost more than quarter of their combined seats. The biggest gainers were the left-leaning Greens.
In France, the Greens gained as well, although the right-wing National Rally (known until recently as the National Front) finished first. The two traditional parties finished fourth and sixth.
Many people felt relief that far-right parties — which traffic in xenophobia — didn’t do better in this weekend’s elections. Instead, candidates who support the idea of the European Union combined to win a majority of seats. I share that relief.
But I think it’s important not to lose sight of the main story line. Across much of Europe and the United States, dissatisfaction with the status quo remains the dominant political mood. That’s why so many European parties that were powerful only a few years ago now finish well outside the top two spots. It’s also why Donald Trump was able to take over the Republican Party and win the presidency — and why control of Congress has flipped back and forth in recent years.
In the 2020 presidential campaign, Trump will no doubt attempt to tap into this anti-establishment mood once again. He will be the incumbent, which will make that strategy trickier for him. But he will be an incumbent like no other, one who constantly shows his disdain for the status quo.
Democrats will need their own plan for speaking to this desire for change, especially if they nominate the decidedly establishment Joe Biden.”

 “Things fall apart;  the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, / And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

-William Butler Yeats

Weeping and alone in a field

24 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Israel and Palestine, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Stories

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Chayei Sarah is a monumental Torah portion in the Book of Genesis (23:1-25:18) that establishes Hebron as one of our people’s holiest cities in the land of Israel.

The sidra begins by telling the story of Abraham buying burial space in the Cave of Machpelah for his wife Sarah. That site would become holy to Judaism and Islam through the generations, and the city of Hebron, which is overwhelmingly Arab with a small enclave of right-wing Jewish religious extremist settlers, is a hot spot between Israel and the Palestinians today.

The parashah also tells the moving story of Isaac’s and Rebekah’s meeting, betrothal and marriage arranged by Abraham through his servant Eliezer who his master sent to find a wife for his son Isaac.

For the first time in Jewish history we witness the passing of the baton of inheritance and leadership from one generation to the next.

I offer here a poetic Midrash on Isaac’s and Rebekah’s encounter leading to their marriage. It is based loosely on the Torah story as amplified by rabbinic Midrash and is a revisiting of a poem I wrote a few years ago and posted on this blog.

I love this story because Isaac’s and Rebecca’s meeting is simple and sweet. It offers a the hope of what’s possible between individuals and tribes that make up the Jewish people today and the peoples of the Middle East who suffer too much polarization, suspicion, distrust, and hatred of each other.

Imagine the scene – Isaac is alone meditating in an open field and Rebecca and Abraham’s servant Eliezer approach from afar in a camel caravan. I shift voices in the poem between Isaac, Rebekah and Eliezer. I begin with Isaac:

“To be alone amidst shifting wheat and rock, / Beneath the sun and stirred-up clouds / Hearing singing angels audible in the wind.

I’ve secluded myself as my father did / When he went out alone leaving all he knew / For a place he’d never been that God would show him.

I can do nothing else / Because Father broke my heart and crushed my soul / When he betrayed me by nearly offering me to his God / Stealing me away one morning before my mother Sarah awoke.

When my mother learned her soul passed from the world./ O how she loved me! / And filled me up with laughter, love and tears. / Bereft now I’m desolate in this field.

Compassionate One – / Do You hear me from this arid place / Filled with snakes and beasts, / Polluted by hatred and vengeance?”

As if in response from afar / A caravan appears of people and camels, / Led by Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, / With a young girl.

Isaac, burdened in grief neither looks nor sees. / He sits still lasuach basadeh / Meditating and weeping / Beneath the afternoon sun / And swirling clouds / And singing angels / Whom he cannot hear.

Rebekah asks: / “Who is that man crying alone in the field?” / Eliezer says: / “He is my master Isaac, your intended one, / Whose seed you will carry and make the future.”

“Vatipol min hagamal – And she fell from her camel” / Shocked and afraid onto the hard ground.

She veiled her face and bowed her head. / And Rebekah and Isaac entered Sarah’s tent, / And Rebekah comforted him.”

Poem by Rabbi John L. Rosove based on traditional Midrashim

 

 

The Bitter and the Sweet – Naomi Shemer

18 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Poetry

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Naomi Shemer’s beautiful song Al Kol Eleh (“For all these things”) was written after the Yom Kippur War. It remains one of my favorite Hebrew poems and Israeli songs.

23,646 Israelis have died defending the State of Israel, and many more injured. Trumpeldor put it poignantly before he was killed in the early 20th century – “Tov lamut b’ad Arzenu – It is good to die for our Land.” His courage, the courage of these Israeli martyrs, and the ultimate sacrifice that they gave to build and secure the State of Israel as a Jewish homeland will be forever impressed upon the memory of our people. Zichronam livracha – May they all be remembered for a blessing!

Yom Haatzmaut-Israel Independence Day is a time for massive Jewish celebration even with all the challenges internal and external that Israel and the Jewish people continue to face. Shemer’s words ring true and whenever I hear this song, my heart at once breaks and is fortified.

“Every bee that brings the honey / Needs a sting to be complete / And we all must learn to taste the bitter with the sweet.

Keep, oh Lord, the fire burning / Through the night and through the day / For the man who is returning / from so far away.

Don’t uproot what has been planted / So our bounty may increase / Let our dearest wish be granted: / Bring us peace, oh bring us peace.

For the sake of all these things, Lord, / Let your mercy be complete
Bless the sting and bless the honey / Bless the bitter and the sweet.

Save the houses that we live in / The small fences and the wall / From the sudden war-like thunder / May you save them all.

Guard what little I’ve been given / Guard the hill my child might climb / Let the fruit that’s yet to ripen / Not be plucked before its time.

As the wind makes rustling night sounds / And a star falls in its arc / All my dreams and my desires  / Form crystal shapes out of the dark.

Guard for me, oh Lord, these treasures / All my friends keep safe and strong, Guard the stillness, guard the weeping, / And above all, guard this song.”

 

“Zionism was once a pretty young thing…” Aharon Shabtai

18 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Poetry

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As Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s 70th Anniversary approaches) I offer this poem (and more to come throughout this week) to express both the beauty our people have brought to world Jewry as well as the moral and ethical challenges that come with sovereignty.

This poem written by the Israeli poet  Aharon Shabtai expresses the aspirations of Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and the political means by which Israel may enhance the dignity of all the people of the Land.

“Zionism was once a pretty young thing / like my cousin Tsila. / Boys caught sight of (her) – / and were ready to die. / Ahh, what days we spent among the cypresses / not far from Wadi Faleek! / What proud, honest mounds of manure I lifted / with Joseph Mintser at Kibbutz Merhavyah! / But political theses can turn into stinking corpses too, / And it’s better to leave them behind – / before we sink into an ethical mire – / In order to take up a new idea that might enlist / the stores of goodness within our hearts: / Namely, that equal rights be granted / to the children of this land as one, / That two cultures should flourish with dignity, / side by side, like beds in a single garden. / Let this be the girl whose beauty thrills us / And about whom we dream towards the summer’s end, / and through the months of winter.”

Aharon Shabtai (b. 1939)

We Jews are always betwixt and between – especially in these days

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Poetry

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Last week the Jewish people commemorated Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), and this Thursday we Jews mourn those killed defending the people and State of Israel on Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day). On Friday, we turn our mourning into celebration on Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s 70th Anniversary of Independence).

Throughout the week I will offer poetry that evokes the essence of these days. Here are words of the Russian Jewish poet Shaul Tschernichovsky  (1875 – 1943):

“Laugh, smile upon the dreams / It is I, the dreamer, who is speaking / Laugh, for I still believe in humankind / for I still believe in you.

For my soul still yearns for freedom / I have not sold it to a golden calf / For I still believe in humankind /  in his strong spirit.

I believe also in the future / even if the day will tarry / Yet, it will come and nation from nation / will carry peace and blessing.”

A Celebration of Love

02 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by in Art, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Poetry

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“The world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

So said Rabbi Akiva (2nd century Palestine), who understood that The Song of Songs is an allegory between two lovers, God and Israel.

The Kabbalistic tradition teaches that the love in the Song reflects higher events inside God’s metaphysical structure. It is read each year on the Shabbat during Pesach, and we at Temple Israel of Hollywood will celebrate the Song of Songs and our community’s milestone wedding anniversaries this Friday evening, April 6 at 6:30 PM in our Shabbat services.

Shelly Fox, our Director of Music and Cantorial Soloist, with our quartet and pianist Michael Alfera will present some of the most beautiful musical settings for the Song of Songs. Many of the melodies were composed in pre-statehood Palestine.

Our milestone wedding couples (celebrating 5 to 65 years of marriage will read love poetry.

If you live in Los Angeles, come and celebrate with us.

From the Song of Songs

O for your kiss! For your love / More enticing than wine, / For your scent and sweet name -– / For all this they love you. /

Take me away to your room, / Like a king to his rooms — / We’ll rejoice there with wine. / No wonder they love you! /

 

Like a mare among stallions, / You lure, I am held /

            Your cheeks framed with braids / your neck traced with shells /

I’ll adorn you with gold / And with silver bells“

 

How fine / you are, my love, / your eyes / like doves’. /

How fine / are you, my lover, / what joy / we have together. /

How green / our bed of leaves, / our rafters of cedars, / our juniper eaves./

 

Marcia Falk, The Song of Songs – Love Poems from the Bible (New York & London: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1977). Pages 1, 4, 6.

Moadim L’simchah!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three poems for Seder Musings

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Poetry

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“Not with a strong hand / And not with an outstretched arm / And not with great awe / And not with signs / And not with wonders / Rather hesitantly, with small steps, terrified by darkness / Softly / Dedicated / Purposefully / with accuracy / And love / Carrying little signs like the wrinkles of passing time, / The transition of seasons, my changing body, the pearls of my longings. Getting out of Egypt (Exodus)

—- by Hagit Ackerman

 

Reflections on Seder night, Mah nishtanah, we asked, / “How is this night different from all other nights”  / ”How changed?” Most of us are grown up now and have stopped asking, but some / go on asking all their lives, the way one asks / How are you, or what time is it, and keep on walking / without waiting for an answer. Mah nishtanah kol Layla, “How changed is every night,” / Like an alarm clock whose ticking is soothing and soporific. / Mah nishtanah, ha-kol yishtaneh, “What has changed, all shall be changed.” Change is God. / Reflections on Seder night. Of four children does the Torah speak: one wise, one wicked, one simple and one who knows / not how to ask. But nothing is said there / about a good one, or a loving one. / And that’s a question that has no answer, / and if there were an answer I wouldn’t want to know. / I who have passed through all the phases of the children / in their changing constellations, I’ve lived my life, the moon shed its light / on me for no reason, the sun went on its way, the Passovers / passed without an answer. Mah nishtanah. “What has changed?” Change is God, Death is his prophet.

—- by Yehuda Amichai (Translation: Channah Bloch and Chana Kornfeld)

 

Look around me now / I can see my life before me / Running rings around the way / It used to be

I am older now / I have more than what I wanted / But I wish that I had started Long before I did

And there’s so much time to make up / Everywhere you turn / Time we have wasted on the way

So much water moving / Underneath the bridge / Let the water come and carry us away

Oh when you were young / did you question all the answers / did you envy all the dancers / Who had all the nerve

Look round you now / You must go for what you wanted / Look at all my friends who did / And got what they deserved

And there’s so much love to make up / Everywhere you turn / Love we have wasted on the way

So much water moving / Underneath the bridge / Let the water come and carry us away

—-Graham Nash