B”H Three outdoor monuments bespeak the regressive brutality of the Shoah. First, by a cobblestone road in Vienna, a statue of an elderly Jew in payos and tzitzit gleams as two Nazi policemen taunt him and jeer. Such scenes replayed in open display in the days after Kristallnacht, while the whole city witnessed the humiliation. … Continue reading
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Alwaysing
B”H Nope, I don’t I won’t I can’t Know how to love Anyone Without you You poured your motherlove Into my pores Imported me Importantly Into your whirled And I can’t I won’t Don’t want to love Without you Sometimes The liminal cries In the summertime day But I am dazed Away From your cants … Continue reading
Purim and Pesach, 5778
B”H A strong and urgent emphasis in our calendar is to have Purim land precisely one month before Pesach. In leap years with two Adars, we celebrate Purim in the second Adar—counterintuitive to the principle to fulfil any mitzvah at its first opportunity. Why? The rabbis insist on preserving a vital link between these two … Continue reading
Parshat Tetzaveh
“G-d who gave the Garden of Eden to everyone, G-d who gave us that eternal glimpse, gives us also a place to ritualize and to build in our day-to-day life our immense gift back to G-d … a place where G-d can dwell in this world. Human beings are not the plaything of G-d. Human beings are … Continue reading
Tu b’Shvat 5778: Waxing moons in waning winter (Proem)
Just like Purim and Pesach, our New Year for Trees centers upon the full moon. That light’s most unfettered moment finds itself in magnetic equipoise, with the new moon tottering on the other end. A month culminates on its fourteenth night. In the mystical instant where fourteen blends into fifteen, we source our stability in … Continue reading
Eulogy for Alice Lok Cahana
B’H To give honour to Hinda Aliza bat Yehudah v’Teri: “And G-d drove the man out, and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden the cherubim and the flaming, revolving sword, to guard and keep the way to the Tree of Life.” (Gen. 3:24) Mother’s fearless life is a testimony to a … Continue reading
Psalm 36
B”H Psalm 36: ManIsh – מאין איש (I) Declamation @ a tension You would have truth in our world Probably, dutifully so And a solaceness for each of us For we are man–enough To know the genuine want of You of our Reverence (II) She appeared The woman in me … Continue reading
