Category Archives: Poetry

Moses and God’s Tears – A Poetic Midrash for Vayikra

16 Friday Mar 2018

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

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So often God called Moses. / Three times they met / at the flaming bush / on Sinai and before the Tent of Meeting / that Moses might intuit God’s mind / and soothe God’s heart / as a lover comforts his beloved.

Since creation / God yearned to bridge the chasm / when the Creator pulled away / and opened space / to share the universe.

Yet the Almighty remained alone / exiled within the Divine Self / when the vessels shattered / and matter was flung to the far reaches of the universe.

The upper spheres were divorced from the lower / male from female / the primal Father from the primal Mother / Tiferet from Malchut / Hakadosh Baruch Hu from Shechinah / Adonai from K’nesset Yisrael.

Before time and speech / God appointed the soul of the Shepherd-Prince Moses / to be prophet / and endowed him with hearing-sight / wide-ranging wisdom and intuitive knowledge.

No one but Moses / had ever been so chosen or / to come so near to God.

Moses saw with his ears / heard with his eyes / tasted with his mind / and remained whole in the Light.

The prophet descended the mountain aglow / the primordial Light shielding him behind a veil / bearing on his forehead divine ink-drops / illuminating the earth’s four corners.

Moses descended upon angel’s wings / weightless and cradling the lettered-stone / inside the eye of raging winds.

Though a Prince in Egypt / Moses’ destiny was as a lonely shepherd / gathering sheep / and drawing the children of Israel to God.

God needed much from Moses / to bring the plagues / and show that there is no God but God / and liberate the people / and bring them to Sinai / and inspire with the Word / and create God’s house / that light might abide within every heart / and restore wholeness in the world.

After all of God’s expectations and demands / we might expect Moses’ strength to be depleted / to be exhausted to the bone and ready to say / “Enough! O Redeemer – find a new prophet / I can no longer bear the burden / and be Your voice and create bridges / You are Almighty God / I am but flesh / My strength is gone / My time expired!”

“Nonsense!” proclaimed the Eternal / “I am not yet ready for your retirement! / My world remains shattered / My light obscured / my heart aching / I need you to teach My people / and all people / instill in their hearts / a love that heals My wound / for I cannot do this for Myself.”

Alas, the Creator-Redeemer’s needs were clear / to be close to Moses and the people / that the prophet and Israel together / might wipe away God’s tears / and restore God’s heart to wholeness / and heal God’s Name to Itself / and bring peace.

Poem composed by Rabbi John L. Rosove

Notes about this poetic Midrash:

The first word that appears in this week’s Torah portion Vayikra (vav – yud – kuf – resh – aleph – “And God called Moses…”) ends with an unusually small aleph. This anomaly in what is called the k’tiv (written text) gave rise to much rabbinic interpretation over the centuries.

Rashi explained that the small aleph teaches the humility of Moses. Others said that the aleph is an introduction to the Levitical laws of sacrifice, which requires humility. A Midrash suggests that when Moses descended from Mount Sinai carrying the tablets of the law, he emitted a keren or (“a ray of light”) compelling Moses to shield his face with a veil because the people could not look upon him in such a state. The source of that ray of light was divine ink left over when Moses wrote a small aleph instead of one of normal size. The Midrash explains that Moses had sought to lessen his own stature by using a small aleph, but God restored the extra drops of divine ink by placing them upon Moses’ forehead.

The Midrashic literature comments at length about Moses’ experience meeting panim el panim (lit. “face to face” – metaphorically “soul to soul”) with God. Moses was first among God’s prophets. Though each prophet spoke God’s words, there never was another prophet like Moses nor, as the Torah explains, was there ever again a more humble human being on earth than Moses.

It is my fascination with prophecy that inspired me to write this poetic Midrash.

For those of you wishing more insight into Biblical prophecy, I recommend Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s “The Prophets” – publ. Jewish Publication Society, New York, 1962.

Shabbat shalom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let America Be America Again

01 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Poetry, Uncategorized

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Langston Hughes

In light of the corruption in this Presidency and in this Congress, the words of Langston Hughes (poet, novelist, playwright, columnist, and social activist – 1902-1967) are particularly poignant:

“Let America be America again. / Let it be the dream it used to be. / Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed – / Let it be that great strong land of love / Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme / That any man be crushed by one above.”

 

The Ebb and Flow of Night and Day – a poem by Leslie Kaplan

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Poetry

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The following poem was written by Leslie Kaplan. Leslie grew up at Temple Israel and is now in her early 40s. She has struggled with mental illness throughout her adult years. She is a smart and talented young woman.

Her father, Michael, read this poem today at our Men’s Torah Study. The theme of Leslie’s poem reflects the 9th plague in this week’s Torah portion Bo – Darkness.

Leslie granted me permission to share it with you and I do so here:

“Balance is achieved between the ebb and flow of night and day / The opposites of land and sea.

One cannot achieve enlightenment by merely staring at the sun / The stars also need their say.

You cannot achieve goodness by showing only your attractive attributes / The shadow will grow into a beast if not shown in the light.

The fire will burn your eyes if not cooled by cold blackness of closed lids.

If you want to be awakened you must know yourself / Know not only who you were or who you want to be but also the you right now / Old and charted / Grimed and calloused.

Find compassion for your tainted soul before it is too late.

Fight the monsters of your psyche with all the strength you can muster.

Untangle that which threatens to strangle the goodness still remaining.

And please, I beg, face the darkness within before the darkness becomes your face.

 

Living in the Light, Being in the Light to Others – D’var Torah Bo

18 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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“I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went and came, and brought no day,
And [people] forgot their passions in the dread 
Of this desolation; and all hearts 
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:…”

Lord Byron describes well what must have been the experience of the Egyptians when the 9th plague of darkness befell them, as described in our Torah portion, Bo, this week.

This was not an ordinary darkness. So dense it was that a person couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. The Midrash says that this darkness, choshech, wasn’t of the natural world. It wasn’t a solar eclipse nor the darkness that comes on a moonless night. While it oppressed the Egyptians guilty of enslaving the Israelites, the sun and universe operated normally. It was as if each Egyptian was imprisoned in a black box of isolation.

This darkness catapulted the Egyptians back to a time before creation itself when “darkness covered the face of the deep.” (Genesis 1:2)

From where did this darkness come, and what did it mean?

In Psalms (105:28) we read: “Shalach choshech va-yach’shich – God sent darkness and it became dark.”

In our portion, God instructs Moses: “N’tei yad’cha al ha-shamayim vi-hi choshech… – “Hold your arm over the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.” And Moses did so.

This darkness of heart and soul reflected the debased spiritual and moral condition of the Egyptians.

The Psalms (18:12) tell us something else as well: “Yashet choshech sitro s’vivotav sukato – He makes darkness be His screen round about him,” suggesting that the light that could not enter the Egyptian heart is always hidden, only with them it was nearly extinguished because they were slave-masters.

The Divine light, however, shone in all the Israelite dwellings. In its purest form it was a luminosity so brilliant that no one could see it and live. The mystics say that the Torah is a veil shielding the light which is revealed to each of us according to our capacity to fathom it.

Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher (14th century Spanish Kabbalist) taught that God shut off every Egyptian’s antenna to receive this Godly light without interfering with the source of its transmission. But the Israelite antennae were open because our hearts were not hard.

What does all this mean for us?

If we live long enough we will suffer broken hearts. Some suffer chronic biochemical imbalances that need medical attention. Everyone needs love and support when we or our loved ones become ill, when we divorce and when a cherished loved one dies. Others among us lose our jobs and income. All these losses necessarily bring with them a pall of darkness.

Rabbi Isaac Meir Alter (19th century Poland) taught that the worst darkness of all is that blindness in which one person will not “see another,” and will refuse to look upon another’s misery and to help him. Such a person who can’t see another will become incapable of “rising from his/her place,” that is, of growing spiritually and emotionally.

Rabbi Yochanan taught that every eye has an area of white and black. We might think that the human being sees out of the white part. But no; we see out of the black part, which means that when we’re in the dark we’re capable of seeing what is in the light, but when we’re in the light we cannot see what is in the dark. (Yalkut Shimoni 378).

In other words, there is always hope, and there is always light, even when we suffer our darkest moments. In Egypt, wherever a Jew went, light also went because the light was in them. That is what it means to be a Jew. To live the light, to be a light to others, and to hope.

Shabbat Shalom!

A Pure Soul – Moses’ Selection as Prophet

04 Thursday Jan 2018

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

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Moses at the Burning Bush – Marc Chagall

The Book of Exodus is the story about God’s saving love for the oppressed Israelites. It begins with the birth of Moses, follows him as a young prince, as a rebel and outlaw, a shepherd, and THE prophet of God.

Why Moses? What was so unique about him that God chose him to be his most intimate prophet?

Moses was complex, passionate, pure, just, humble, at home nowhere, carrying his people’s burdens while hearing God’s words.

He was unique, the only prophet to speak panim el panim (“face to face”) with God. That is what my drash-poem is about. Moses is the most important Jew in our history and our gold standard of a religious, moral, and political leader.

In our time the world has benefited from Mahatma Gandhi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela. Nevertheless, Moses continues to stand alone.

A Pure Soul

I walk in a daze / Eyes sunk in creviced faces / Fettered to worldly tasks / Unable to glimpse rainbows.

I imagine Moses in Midian like that / Brooding in exile / Burdened by his people’s suffering / Knowing that each day / They scream from stopped-up hearts / Shedding silent tears.

A simple shepherd Moses / Staff in hand / Counting sheep / Until one day weaving among rocks / And bramble bushes / The shepherd / Heard thorns popping / Turning his head / His eyes opened / And he would never be the same.

God had from his birth taken note of him / And waited until this moment / To choose him as prophet.

Dodi dofek pitchi li / A-choti ra-yati yo-nati ta-mati. / Open to me, my dove / my twin / my undefiled one. (Song of Songs 5:2)

Moses heard God’s voice / And beheld angels, / His soul flowing in a sacred river / Of Shechinah light.

‘Why me? / Why should I behold such wonder? / Unworthy am I!’

God said / ‘Moses – I choose you / Because you are soft / Because you weep / Because your heart is burdened and worried / Because you know this world’s cruelty / And you have not become cruel / Nor do you stand idly by.

You are a tender of sheep, / And you will lead my people / With the shepherd’s staff from Egypt / And teach them to open their hearts / Without fear.’

Trembling, Moses peered a second time / Into the bush aflame / Free from ash and smoke.

His eyes opened as in a dream / And he heard a soft murmuring sound / Like the sound breath makes / Passing through lips. 

MOSHE MOSHE!—HINEINI!

Two voices—One utterance! / He hid his face / The more Moses heard / The brighter was the light / And he knew he must turn away / Or die.

The prophet’s thoughts were free / Soaring beyond form / No longer of self / To this very day / There has not been a purer soul than his.

God said ‘Come no closer, Moses! / Remove your shoes / Stand barefoot here on this earth / I want your soul.

I am here with you and in you / I am every thing / And no thing / And You are Me / I see that which is and which is not / And I hear it all.

Take heed shepherd-prince / My people‘s blood / Calls to me from the ground / The living suffer still / A thousand deaths.

You must go and take them out / Every crying child / Every lashed man  / Every woman screaming silent tears.

And Moses know this / “With weeping they will come / And with compassion will I guide them.” (Jeremiah 31:8) / The people’s exile began with tears / And it will end with tears.

I have recorded their story in a Book / Black fire on white fire / Letters on parchment / Telling of slaves / Seeing light / Turning to Me / Becoming a nation.

The Book is My spirit / The letters are My heart / They are near to you / That you might do them / And teach them / And redeem My world / That it might not be consumed in flames.

Poem composed by Rabbi John Rosove

 

In the Black Night – A Poem for Vayishlach

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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In the black night / the river runs cold / slowly passing me by / over formerly sharp edged stones / worn smooth by centuries of churning  / as if through earthy veins / and I Jacob, alone / shiver and wait / to meet my brother / and daylight.

Will there be war? / And will the angels carry my soul / up the ladder / leaving my blood / to soak the ground?

A presence!? / And I struggle / as if in my mother’s womb / and my dreams.

We played together as children / my brother Esau and me / as innocents / and I confess tonight / how I wronged him / and wrenched from him his birthright / as this Being has done to me / between my thighs.

I was so young / driven by ego and need / blinded by ambition / my mother’s dreams / and my father’s silence.

I so craved to be first born / adored by my father / to assume his place when he died / that my name be remembered / and define a people.

How Esau suffered and wailed / and I didn’t care; / Whatever his dreams / they were nothing to me / my heart was hard / his life be damned!

I’ve learned that Esau and I / each alone / is a palga gufa / half a soul / without the other / torn away / as two souls separated at creation / seeking reunification in a great spiritual sea / the yin missing the yang / the dark and light never touching / the mind divorced from body / the soul in exile / without a beating bleating heart / and no access to the thirty-two paths / to carry us up the ladder / and through the spheres.

It’s come to this / To struggle again / To live or die.

Tonight / I’m ready for death / or submission.

Compassionate One / protect Esau and your servant / my brother and me / as one  / and return us to each other.

El na r’fa na lanu! / Grant us peace and rest / I’m very tired.

 

This poem was composed by Rabbi John L. Rosove and was originally published in the CCAR Journal: Reform Jewish Quarterly, Spring, 2010, pages 113-115

 

 

 

Filling My Children’s Cups – Toldot

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Poetry

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Kiddush cup - Shevach shevach Jerusalem

I am Isaac / Tradition doesn’t esteem me / as my father and son.

To our people’s cynics / I’m a passive placeholder / set between two visionaries / one hearing God’s voice / the other communing with angels.

To them I’m the do-nothing / dull-witted middle-man / neither here nor there / coerced into submission by a father / tricked by a son / abandoned by God / who willed me slain / to test my father’s faith / thus becoming history’s most misunderstood near-victim.

My father was driven by voices / left home on a promise / and journeyed to a Place he’d never seen / a low-lying mountain shielded round about / by a cloud / beneath heavenly fire.

My son dreamed of angels / ascended ladder rungs / from land and form / into spirit and spheres.

Tradition diminishes me insinuating / that I merely built a worldly fortune / on my father’s wealth.

Dear ancestors / I’m more than this / the wellsprings I uncovered / are more than you know / greater that waters deep, calm, cool, and tranquil / their streams flow to the Source of souls.

I dug anew my father’s wells / the same the Philistines / with stopped-up hearts / and clogged souls / filled in when he died.

I and my servants dug / our thirst unquenchable / passions unleashing / hearts expecting / souls soaring / on angels’ wings.

After our digging / we found the well / and the spring / flowing in earthly and heavenly wetness.

The inflowing fountain never dries up / The well is replenished continually / and whoever drinks from its waters / merges into Oneness through supernal faith.

The wells I dug / are the same as my father’s / That is our gift to you!

I yearn that you / pour the waters into your cups / dig anew / and pour the same / into your children’s cups.

 

Poem composed by Rabbi John Rosove – The Kiddush Cup was created by Shevach Silversmiths of Jerusalem (Mamilla Mall)

 

 

A love story – Rebecca and Isaac

10 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Poetry, Stories

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To be alone in shifting wheat / On rocks in the sun / Beneath stirred-up clouds / And singing angels / Audible in the wind.

I’m alone / Like my father/ When he went out / Leaving what he knew / For a place he’d not been / That God would show him.

My father broke my heart /  Betrayed me / Stealing me away / Before my mother awoke / To be an offering to his God.

When Mother learned / Her soul passed away / Out of the world.

How she loved me / Filling me / With laughter, love and tears.

Bereft in this field / Compassionate One – Do You hear me / From this arid place / Of snakes and beasts?

From afar / a caravan appears / Camels, men and a girl / Like sticks standing in an oasis / That Isaac does not see.

Sitting still / Meditating in the afternoon sun / Beneath swirling clouds / And singing angels / That he does not hear.

‘Who is that sitting in the field?’ Rebecca asks.

‘My master Isaac, / Your intended one, / Whose seed you will carry / And birth new worlds.’ Eliezer says.

Then she fell from her camel / Shocked and afraid / Onto the hard ground.

She veiled her face / Bowed low her head / Together they entered Sarah’s tent / And Rebecca comforted him.

 

Poem by Rabbi John Rosove

 

 

A Prayer for the Jewish New Year 5778

19 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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RH fruits and symbols
May we hold lovingly in our thoughts / those who suffer from tyranny, subjection, cruelty, and injustice, / and work every day towards the alleviation of their suffering.
 
May we recognize our solidarity / with the stranger, outcast, downtrodden, abused, and deprived, / that no human being be treated as “other,” / that our common humanity weaves us together / in one fabric of mutuality, / one garment of destiny.
 
May we pursue the Biblical prophet’s vision of peace, / that we might live harmoniously with each other / and side by side, / respecting differences, / cherishing diversity, / with no one exploiting the weak, / each living without fear of the other, / each revering Divinity in every human soul.
 
May we struggle against institutional injustice, / free those from oppression and contempt, / act with purity of heart and mind, / despising none, defrauding none, hating none, insulting none / cherishing all, honoring every child of God, every creature of the earth.
 
May the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and all peoples in The Land / know peace in this New Year, / And may we nurture kindness and love everywhere.
 
Prayer composed by Rabbi John Rosove – Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles

This is the midnight hour

17 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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At the midnight hour after Shabbat that precedes Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish community gathers as the Gates of Heaven begin to open to receive the petitions of forgiveness of the community.

Each year we change our Torah mantles to white symbolically revealing the deepest purpose of these High Holidays, to do Teshuvah, to turn away from an alienated life and to return to our loved ones, community, Torah, one’s own soul, and to God.

The moment is pregnant with possibility, as these verses suggest:

This is the midnight hour. / The Psalmist said: “At midnight I rose to acclaim you” (116:62). / We, who are his descendants, would follow this tradition. / For midnight belongs neither to today nor to tomorrow.

It is a moment alone in time. / It is an interval with a magic all its own. / As we grow weary with the weight of the late hour, / We become introspective, / Concerned with the nature of life; / Especially our own.

Time is fleeting. / Midnight becomes tomorrow. / A day is behind us / And the New Year beckons. / How shall we use our days? / What is the meaning of our lives, our goodness, our power? / Shall we use them only for ourselves / Or for the good of others? / This midnight service summons us / to the true purpose of life.  

Summer is passing. / The days grow shorter. / The sounds and colors of nature, / The stirring of the wind, / Speak to us of changes in the world, in life, / And in a human being’s course on earth.

Now is the time for turning. / The leaves are beginning to turn / From green to red and orange. 

The birds are beginning to turn / And are heading once more towards the south. / The animals are beginning to turn / To storing their food for the winter.

For leaves, birds, and animals / Turning comes instinctively. / But for us turning does not come so easily. 

It takes an act of will for us to make a turn. / It means breaking with old habits. / It means admitting that we have been wrong; / And this is never easy.

It means losing face; / It means starting all over again; / And this is always painful.

It means saying: I am sorry. / It means recognizing that we have the ability to change. / These things are terribly difficult to do.

But unless we turn, / We will be trapped forever in yesterday’s ways.

Author of above poem unknown.

 

 

 

Photographs by Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh