God help me
manage this
painful awareness
contained within da’at:
Da’at, who conceals
Divine Light,
as if, until,
“The Light of the Eyes”*
burns ours completely open.
My eyes,
although they are stinging,
have me seeing
with the clarity of yirah,
ShekhinahThe feminine name of God, expounded upon in the rabbinic era and then by the Kabbalists in extensive literature on the feminine attributes of the divine. illuminating our life’s path.
Even as El Shaddai takes Her by the hand,
as they unite to guide
and to protect
their children.
Eternal enemy, Evil,
magnified,
bashed a battering ram
through the doorway
of our collective home.
As Eccesiastics cracked open
the chests of us all
as we watched SukkotLit. Booths or huts Sukkot is the autumn harvest Festival of Booths, is celebrated starting the 15th of the Jewish month of Tishrei. Jews build booths (sukkot), symbolic of the temporary shelters used by the ancient Israelites when they wandered in the desert. Traditionally, Jews eat and sleep in the sukkah for the duration of the holiday (seven days in Israel and eight outside of Israel). The lulav (palm frond), willow, myrtle, and etrog fruit are also waved together. burn.
We weep while singing,
“To everything
there is a season.”
In the long arc of history,
against the perennial darkness of Evil,
finally we are strong, again.
We will do battle because
we come armed
with the most supreme weapon of all;
Orli,
The Greatest of Light
that there is.
Watch us!
Eyes wide open!
We will prevail!
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* R’ Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl (1730 – 1797) is also known as the ‘Chernobyler Rebbe’ or the “Me’or Einayim” (“Light of the Eyes”), after the name of his most important book.
