Untitled VIII

(I almost forgot, but didn't. I knew this was  half-dormant, in the back of my mind, the unaccessed parts of my memory's hard drive.  Guess she deserves a day in the sun. This is unique in that I never write obviously "jewish" poems if for no other reason than spirituality isn't really like a shirt you should just put on or take off - but here she is anyway - she was originally a posted comment to a poem by a friend)

~w

Untitled VIII

(kol echad tzarich la-avod et Hashem
mi-toch yirah u-mi-toch ahavah)

Bene ha-elohim,

that verse,

and light

flickered images

swept shadows

on cave's walls,

verse like

light gossamer

sounds, and purity,

so bright,

razing sholom bayit to the ground.

I, who was new to Yiddishkeit,

grappling up steep inclined words,

stumbled, fell, down hallways,

back alleys littered with bodies,

Strained to reach that,

reach up, that...

I could meet you on your road back

from your vision quest of the

Cherubim and Seraphim,

Filling all eternity—

Adonai Elohim,

you saw,

and tasted heaven in

those words.

"Yiddishkeit" - Yiddish, meaning "Jewishness;" a word similar to Orthodoxy and Observance, but suggesting perhaps more an emotional attachment, and a feeling of identification with the Jewish People, than full commitment to a lifestyle based on observance of the "Mitzvot," the Commands of G-d, as recorded in the Torah.

"Kol echad tzarich la-avod et Hashem mi-toch yirah u-mi-toch ahavah," translates roughly as  'Everyone should serve Hashem out of fear and out of love' -- The Jewish wisdom equivalent of "carrot and the stick" so to speak. :-)