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At three in the morning, Rabbi Sholem Tuvim returned home from visiting his sick father. His father was in great need of comfort, and he, Reb Sholem, would have stayed by him the entire night if the…
Dost thou sleep, my brother Abel,
That thou art so wonderfully fair?
Never have I seen thee
As beautiful before.
Does the beauty lie in my ax,
Or is it, perhaps, in thee?
Before the day is done,
Spe…
I always thought
I had been here before.
Each year of my patched-up life
I mended the fabrics
of my decrepit, tattered world.
In memory I recognized faces and smiles,
even my father and mother…
Now, when my vision turns in on itself,
My shocked eyes open, all their members see
My heart has fallen like a mirror on
A stone and shatters, ringing, into splinters.
Certainly, not every shard is…
The cartwheels rush,
quivering.
What is their burden?
Shoes, shivering.
The cart is like
a great hall:
the shoes crushed together
as though at a ball.
A wedding? A party?
Have I gone blind?
Who…
When I crossed the ocean, I carried with me the habit of speaking to the shadows, and it became my way of life. I look up at the stars that were extinguished long ago. For me they still shine with the…
In Jewish folklore the sight of a water carrier bearing one or two full pails is an omen of good fortune; empty pails foretell bad fortune. The funeral’s early, the concert is late.I go to both (such…
The Russian Revolution initially encouraged a flowering of Jewish cultural activity, lifting restrictions on Jewish publishing. Jewish theater companies experimented with modernist approaches to stage…
Without Jews, no Jewish God.
If, God forbid, we should quit
this world, Your poor tent’s light
would out.
Abraham knew You in a cloud:
since then, You are the flame
of our face, the rays
our eyes…
I weep for you with all the letters of the alphabet
that made your hopeful songs. I saw how reason spent
itself in vain for hope, how you strove against regret—
and all the while your hearts were…