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VII. Orders to Live
In the Front Yard* on a splintering stool— she sits coarse brown wool dress speckled with the dirt of just-picked potatoes
takes each one from the wheelbarrow beside her wipes with a damp rag and drops into the dented pot on the ground by her bare feet hidden by ragged hem her swish-plop movements a rhythm
wind blows red— opens the gate with a crack! “Where are your sons” two policemen invade thundering
potato in hand “I have sent them to study in a far away city,” she brags, “you’ll never get them” she sneers “foolish old woman,” they yell, wipe the dust from their sleeves and retreat.
rhythm broken, she continues to wipe off the dirt deliberately from each potato as her two young sons play quietly beneath her dress draped in folds around the stool— the dirt and pebbles around her hem.
A white chicken clucks And scratches behind them. —Mindy Aber Barad
* based on true story about a friend’s great-grandmother in eastern Europe.
Of Narrators
A first-person narrator is telling a story about the thirty-six righteous men upon whom the world stands —the world that can be transformed when one acquires a holy state of mind and designs a bridge between worlds.
When Rabbi Steinsaltz gives a lesson, one can barely hear his voice. One word is hanging from the ceiling, one word is perched on a book like a bright-faced bird but they all connect and electrify the atmosphere.
Are ideas conduits of electricity? Always lightening up a room also the ever predictable revolutions of the clock
like wind power like the ferocity of the warrior always comparable to heroic hegemonies—
that throbbing with transformation. —Gretti Izak
JACOB'S DAUGHTERS
Jacob took his brother’s blessing, Leah took her sister’s place, and Jacob blessed Ephraim first. And I, I blessed my daughters and went to kiss their heads, first Me’ira Ya’akova, the older, then Yisraela, who hugged each other so fiercely, like Jacob and Esau in the womb or Jacob and the angel, that my first kiss landed on the younger one. And with that kiss, they became Jacob’s daughters as surely as Dina. —Ken Seide
“All Israel has a place in the world to come.” –Tractate Sanhedrin 90a – Pirkei Avot (Sayings of the Fathers)
All Israel has a place in the world to come All Israel: the old man with his staff, the nimble, the young The one who shrieks in the night, the one cast down and numb The one who is eloquent, whose phrases pour from his tongue The one dressed in black, the deaf, the dumb The one whose dark eyes belie her smile The trekker, the traveler, the constant wanderer, mile after mile The one we meet by chance, the one who is late The one we welcome to our home, the stranger at the gate The young man blessed with wealth and serendipity The woman of valor, of strength and generosity The secret embezzler, the pious, the fool The sinner who believes he’s the exception to the rule The ugly, the grey, the wounded in body or soul The wakeful mother, the childless aunt, the short and the small The homeless lost in the city, the farmer lost in despair The brave soldier back from war, the one who succumbed to fear Each one sharing the same doom—to face death, demise and eternity All Israel has a place in the world to come: so it is written, so we say But, pray, do tell: Do they all have a place in this world as well? —Brenda Appelbaum-Golani 24 June 2015
I DIDN’T WANT TO GRAPPLE
I didn’t want to grapple With their ghosts Who spoke Dutch / Hebrew Those Israeli / Euro Immigrant / Sabras Struck down that sweltering-hot August in the Melting-pot / smelting-hot Pizza-shop S’barro.
Yes—them—the parents and three Of their numerous children Yes—he—the father—who an un-injured nearby Eye-witness heard The father calmly lead his wife and children in The “S’hma Yisrael”as they all Together Breathlessly Altogether Bled to death.
I didn’t want to grapple with their ghosts But yesterday “they” were my hosts—as I was the Shabbat sleep-over guest in their Made-over mansion now rented out to Others.
Every doorknob I touched All the water I flushed All the dust I didn’t dust All the rust I ignored All the locks I locked—and un-locked— Made me grapple.
Jacob wrestled the Angels at Beit-El—and I— I wrestled with Neshamot from S’barro’s hell. —Sue Tourkin Komet
Elegy on the Wings of a Dove
Her flight is not the eagle’s high over the hills of Judea. Too small for heroics, hear her coo at sunrise beating short wings, pictured everywhere carrying an olive branch.
But is the branch ever picked up? Every year I find myself in a labyrinth, not the Greek of minotaur fame where one can retrace steps and sail home on wide white ships
but one where I tread a clumsy dirt-road coiled like a viper inside an astronaut’s capsule where my brief glimpses of landings shake, shift, defuse suspense and disappear.
You’re jammed inside the labyrinth the dreams of peace shattered
the wings of doves outside tap-tapping against the window. —Gretti Izak
Israel, Israel!
Israel, Israel Land of my hopes Land of my dreams Land of extremes
Israel, Israel Why won’t you wait? For fears to abate To part at your seams
Yaakov, Yaakov Fear that you played to Fear that then made you Rebel in distress
Yaakov, Yaakov A road less travelled A secret unravelled Where more is much less
A war of fear Versus stubborn action A land of starkness Resistance and traction
Dodging through puddles Wiping off mud Demanding my rights In cautious soundbites
Despite the mistakes The frustration and lows Kindness peeps out From under dark brows
Braving the storm Without hesitation Kindness that’s raw In response to frustration
The outer reality Of prickly sights Envelops sabra sweetness Of rainbows and lights —Chaiya D.
Shemesh
In 1955, in Jerusalem, when we wanted to have a good time we trooped to Shemesh, the squeezed tight eatery, where we shared our food and heard the whisper of each “I love you”. Love and humus make good companions, though I never believed love edible and perishable in those days.
With time Shemesh moved to the sunny side of the street, became posh and elegant and like all grand restaurants serves filet mignon and fancy hors d’oeuvres. When I walk in, Shemesh greets me warmly and shows me the newest sun paintings or sculptures that embellish his restaurant, for in Hebrew Shemesh means sun.
I nod my head in admiration but always ask: Where is the sun of our youth hiding in these days of terror, the sun of Joshua who said: Sun, keep shining in Gibeon so the people can see if an enemy is approaching. —Gretti Izak
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority) An October Day in Jerusalem
A cacophony of sirens rips the air.
My three-year-old thinks it is music and while police and medics tend the stabbed and murdered a minute away he continues to play in the park. —Ruth Fogelman
Teshuvuh
Adam, whose blood is all relation, his blood denied, came the Muselmann, the un-human, unspeaking, un-being, head an unlit bulb, disconnected, hands mere utensils, Mengele’s dream of perfection in horror.
That artist of suffering, the wound whose only cure is home, where Eve waits with Shekinah in binding light, under old, old orders to live. —Sean Lause [Note: This issue is posted close to the anniversary of the massacre at the Rav Kook Yeshiva, which claimed the lives of eight outstanding youths who are remembered in the heartbreaking and inspiring book Princes Among Men (Feldheim). We publish the following poem as a tribute to these eight unforgotten ones, and to those whose names—33 as of this writing since October—have been added to the roll of kedoshim who are listed in reverse chronological order at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/victims.html.—The Editors] In Memory of the Eight Victims of Merkaz HaRav Kook Massacre Too Sad! Forever Glad We Had You! Never Letting Go! By Evelyn Hayes, Author of the Plague Series. Thursday, March 6, 2008
Doron Mehereta, 26, of Ashdod Ro’i Rote, 18, of Elkanah in Samaria (Shomron) Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kokhav HaShachar (Shomron) Yochai Lipshitz, 18, of the Old City of Jerusalem Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shilo (Shomron) Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem Segev Pniel Avichayil, 15, of N’vei Daniel in Gush Etzion Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat, Gush Etzion
Eight Lives splattered into their Holy Books Life Blood into Books of Life. Eight young Jewish lives, loving, loved by parents, family, relatives, friends, classmates, school, neighbors, nation, HASHEM. Eight young loving lives, focusing, focused, a focus from such a loss. Such a loss: lives gaining, from which we gained, a corban consumed, absorbed, forever remaining amassing in our midst. Such a growing gift ripped away, stymied, a well spring, overflowing into our hearts, our souls, a maximum maximized by so much wealth, learning, knowledge, wisdom, a yearning to walk in the ways of God. Such a gift ripening and now ripe for us to preserve and to preserve us, So abruptly ripped away by hate, Now realigned to stay a prime factor in our everlasting chain of Zion, children of Abraham, Yitzchak , Yaakov, an eternal chain: Ro’i, Yonadav Haim, Yochai, Yonatan Yitzchak, Neriah, Segev Peniel, Avraham David, Students meriting, a heritage from us, for us, forevermore our heritage, a part of us.
Eight lives will live forever on and we will be their children, will carry on their path, the pathways of the Torah, our ancient books, truth, dear G-d. Each bullet was meant for every Jew, past and to be born and now we will be their bullets and beam their light from G-d.
Eight young lives, devoted to the wisdom of our sages, filled with learning from their pages, perfected in an imperfect world that cannot accept the destiny manifest for creating and relating all that was meant to be, undoing the advancement of our world for personal minimizations and meanness that is meaningless.
Eight young meaningful giving lives never growing old, holding so much of the best of our Jewish generations to generate Hashem’s Laws for the Perfection and Sanctification of His World. Eight young lives fathered by the Forefathers, never to father children of their own, they will father us, bring us whom the bullets targeted to new heights, the hilltop of our souls and hearts, the grandiose willed by G-d.
Eight young lives mingled into our nation, us, a chizuk for our hearts, a candle for our souls, a landscape, a Holy Land to enfold Just 15, 16, 18, 19, 26, Gifts of G-d, Fleeting. Repeating in our beating hearts are their beings, love, learning, meaning Creating in our minds, the Jewish ways, better than all the hating, patronizing, destroying. Creating in our souls the flames that make the universe, the energy, good life.
Eight lives lost, thousands, millions, multitudes, a people united, bearing pain in unity. We live, carrying them as they carry us. Gaining simcha in carrying on, holding in our arms their expanding beings that are making us include them into our very selves, in truth with trust that there will be a thrust that makes our nation a miracle from dust, a garden from a dessert, a manifestation from infestation, A blessing from a worthiness that is more than less and more and more, Keeping our losses, embracing all from their cherished charms, choosing each and every reminder as a binder to keep us bound to these eight young lives, our Jewish children, forefathers, us Shema Yisrael, Ani, Atar, Echad. Commemorating your lives, bigger than you, each and each, your best into a better we, us, all, Klal Yisrael. We cry as you were torn. We cry. You were a joy that was born and we will bear the knowledge of your personality, reality, actuality, a blessing blessing on. Doron Mehereta, 26, of Ashdod Ro’i Rote, 18, of Elkanah in Samaria (Shomron) Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kokhav HaShachar (Shomron) Yochai Lipshitz, 18, of the Old City of Jerusalem Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shilo (Shomron) Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem Segev Pniel Avichayil, 15, of N’vei Daniel in Gush Etzion Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat, Gush Etzion
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