ShabbatShabbat is the Sabbath day, the Day of Rest, and is observed from Friday night through Saturday night. Is set aside from the rest of the week both in honor of the fact that God rested on the seventh day after creating the world. On Shabbat, many Jews observe prohibitions from various activities designated as work. Shabbat is traditionally observed with festive meals, wine, challah, prayers, the reading and studying of Torah, conjugal relations, family time, and time with friends. in Berlin
Standing in the courtyard
of the once great New Synagogue
at dusk
As the sun sinks low, setting the golden minaret aflame
birdsong all around
the air fresh and cool
after an unbearable heatwave
unlike any before experienced here
Voices ring out from within
The joyful tunes of Shabbat
mixed with moments of profound
bittersweetness
Empty seats filled with ghosts
and choirs of spirits from the beyond
There is a weight, unspeakable
A knowledge of what happened here
It is tragically holy ground
Berlin – complex, beautiful in spite of itself, gritty, full of passion and pain, like weeds growing up through cracks in the sidewalk
like a flower that blooms in the desert, surviving in brutal conditions
pulsing with life
haunted by its past
determined to forge ahead
somehow
Energy, resilience, hope, fortitude
covering over layers upon layers of despair, horror,
mass extermination, communism, fear
barbed wire and walls
The past and the present are one here
There is no pulling them apart
Nothing makes sense in this wilderness
It is both free and caged
It is both now and yesterday
It is both ashamed
and determined
to rewrite itself
So many empty seats in the synagogues
So many echoes of the voices once there
The children who ran and played
just like anywhere else
The ancient prayers and scrolls and melodies
the doctors, the scientists, the musicians
the mothers, the fathers, the teachers, the grandparents, the ordinary people
just living their lives
saying “Gut Shabbes” and going for a stroll after lunch
eating too many sweets,
taking a Shabbes schulff
Flames snuffed out, leaving only a flicker
Church bells can be heard in the distance
lights switch off and on in modern hotels and cafes
cobblestones and memorial markers hidden by trees and graffiti
Reminders everywhere
if you’re looking for them
and nowhere
if you simply want to go about your life
You have to look for them
But something is always there, lurking in the shadows
reaching out from beyond unmarked graves
leaving behind only the poetry of memory
