Ratzo v’shov – even numbers
for Rosh Hashanah and Tishrei, 5786, responding to Gaza onslaught
Its eight wings – half Ezekiel’s four by four
whirring whirling spinning wings
And for the hayot, just one to E’s four – ha’adam, the human
a face behind a screen behind a network behind a cam
Missing: shor nesher aryeh, ox eagle lion.
Did you know nesher might have meant vulture? people say that.
it’s a vulture cleans up after death
This bird with eightwings kills, if that’s what adam wants.
It hovers, shifting forward, tipping to fly backward, ratzo v’shov
Its chariot, aka payload: gun, bomb, missile, burning coals from between the wheels
also microphone, also sometimes megaphone, to shout out, “holy holy holy”
just kidding. to shout “flee for your lives”, or not, to keep silence
but the whirring sound, m’rachefet, always buzzing, always with, always feared.
a sound, shattering doorframes, a house, fire-filled, rubble
The mission: every-one-all videoed, from its eye; hundreds, thousands,
ten of thousands of footage hours, much even more than the numbered dead
some clips even make it on the news
a building or person getting its second of fame
before eish mit’lakachat, flaming obliteration.
There once was a people
They believed in angels, chayot, ofanim, k’ruvim,
Running returning, wheels within wheels,
Seraphim, bright-burning, wings full of eyes,
ruakh lifting, chariots teleporting behind before,
levitating right left,
the spirit of the hayot in the wheels, and the hayot were the spirit,
and thrones, as big as a planet’s orbit.
We traded in our angels, got better models, quadcopters, rakhfanim, drones
and six extra wings for ourselves,
we use two to fly away from reality, two to cover our eyes,
and two to hide our feet even from ourselves—
so we can’t know where we’re going.
We can’t know, not even on our holy days, about to come upon us.
There once was a people, Hashem,
You knew them
~ Rabbi David Seidenberg, neohasid.org ~ Ratzo v’shov (“Running and returning”, Ezek 1:14)
other refs.: four…lion, Ezek 1:6-10; eish, Ezek 1:4; sound…house, Isa 6:4; burning, Ezek 1:13, Isa 6:6; holy, Isa 6:3; m’rakhefet, Gen 1:2; full of eyes, Ezek 10:12, Rev 4:8; ruach…throne, Ezek 1:19-26; six…feet, Isa 6:2; hayot – animal angels, ofanim – wheel angels, k’ruvim – “cherubs”, seraphim – burning angels (Ezek 1, 10; Isa 6)
