Soul’s Sea Level

Is there a measure of level
compared to whom to what
Is there a Plimsoll line on the soul
Is my rock bottom the same as yours
From which ascent or descent is compared
does a draught or tsunami recalibrate
to judge the shoes that walked on parched dry land
or that exact spot through drowning deluge
though each of Israel is required to say When
Will my actions get up to those of my Patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – or – my Matriarchs,
Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, and Leah
small ascent from high up or big one from very low
Does sea level ever change as times change

In the Shade of Belief

step in to a higher dimension
step in to the Shade of Belief
step straight from home
purification process completed
necessary to enter this realm
inner cleansing, introspection charity fast
under the protective wings of the Divine Presence
where the outdoors is indoors
step through to the dimension of the Clouds of Glory
no rush rush of this world
outer calm inner tranquility
enshrouded by sides of the Shade of Belief
unscented fragrance of Belief of holiness of Source
breathe deep each breath of Belief
step in to a mitzvah with all, shoes and all
all of me all at once all limbs and senses
like a mikveh of belief, mikveh and Eretz Yisrael
can be after 70 or 120 years here the color blind
given special glasses to see all the color
they’ve been missing all their life
brilliant colors right in front of them
but could not see
dimension of Belief is this color
right here right now around us
color blind deny color to the seeing
like non-believers to all who’ve been through
the Shade of Belief dimension.

Snack Bar Verdict & APPEAL TO THE HIGHEST COURT

[the two poems that open To Cross the Line With a Bridge]

Snack Bar Verdict:
(Ingredients: Truth®Classic)

They wanted to believe in you, religion
They felt in their hearts that He ordained order and purpose
But you didn’t prove yourself
to be all you stated
and were cracked up to be
They wanted to know why
you told them how
They wanted details
you slabbed on slogan
Religion failed as a hip commodity
because it didn’t market truth effectively
They’re reading the labels, you know
They want to know what’s in it
and what it will do to them
They want to see the consumer reports
They want assurance that it works
So, the expert opinion is that you
Religion, are a true, quality product
that has been packaged unprofessionally
(Yet that does not equate with defamation.)
There are those who do not read the labels
who abuse by not consuming as directed
and they are not cause (or are they?)
They are not our target consumer
They won’t use our customer service line
or save their receipts
A good product abused
will not do good
garbage in, garbage out
They are robotic consciousness
that are programmed even to murder
to which they’ll explain they were only fulfilling orders
They beef up Satan
from their self-serving recipes of holy war
But you, Dr. Religion, are found not-guilty
of malpractice.

 

APPEAL TO THE HIGHEST COURT:
The People vs. B’nei Yisrael

COMES NOW THE PLAINTIFF (despot, alias:) PEOPLE
stoned on nostalgia
of all that good food back in bondage
“hey, no beer in the desert?…
Your Honor, it was The People, not us, who murmured
against Moses, that never-resting revolutionist
did everything against the grain
(what, believe in just one God?)
the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune
and a whole sea of troubles
he merely divided with his staff
a stuttering old geezer to challenge Pharaoh & serve the nation?
doesn’t fit The People’s textbook on leadership
The People want to be “normal” (=like the other nations)
to do anything anywhere & in front of everybody &
won’t dare jeopardize their academic, intellectual reputation on
anything Jewish (or allow its expression, damn it)
They want their personal safety
Who cares about anybody else –
especially Defendant’s dead ancestors
So bye-bye Miss American Pie
Prosecution drove his fancy Chevy to Levy
(oh, leave him alone to study Torah with Cohen)

The prosecuting People politically posted Ms. anti-B’nei Yisrael
to educate the children of Israel – objection!
sour fruit of post-Zionist policy
bad breed of self-idolatry
infesting B’nei Yisrael’s celebration of Life
with hissing self-coined definitions of Good & Evil
natural, unisexual, preservative-free Democracy
(welcoming black tie, but, Heaven forbid, black coat)
God gave the Land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
to that lineage alone: Yes, B’nei Yisrael.

Defendant is charged to make itself holy,
to be a Light for all nations,
and not darkness to itself.
& Recalibrate the politically-correct vocabulary:
Modesty is beautiful.
The spirit is in and the body out.
Good is good and evil, bad.
Heaven is up and earth, down.
the most dangerous enemy is present
the cunning camouflage of the threat
posing as us, among us
enemies of God & defaming the Defendant
red herring to them, milk & honey to us
their Clearance sign reads: “Eat me.”
The People read it all backwards, through the looking-glass
“you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast
for a long time,” our thirsty children beseech, to which
they are callously choked with very dry biscuits – for the dogs
Stop trying to run by their rules, children
Defense goes by a different book
The People are not B’nei Yisrael.
Plaintiff’s case is hereby condemned.

This World and the Others

 

(viral pic on the internet)

 

It’s a long way down
from appended Shabbes neshama
to dishes and laundry and mops and schedules
from deep concentration on worlds and sefirot
to the car’s tune up and gas pump and garage
between the art that reflects and the reflected
between the lesson and that learned
our souls started to float away upward
at Sinai returning to our Source
brought back down to here and now
from timeless eternity endless tranquility
to endless distractions and disruptions
to getting cut off on the highway, exits, honking, traffic
It’s a long way on this highway of life
on this very narrow bridge across
overtaxing fees and interest down here
aside the morals of the stories of wonder-working saints
how to divvy up finite minutes among endless errands and
the Endless
to balance and divide all time and energy and focus
It’s a very long way down
from the desired to the present
and that’s why we’re here.

 

Na’im Zemirot Yisrael – King David (2 Samuel 23: 1)

just the wind’s whistle over desolate hills
and the bleating of his sheep
he sang his soul’s fill of the Creator
solitude from without, music from within
harp and fiddle with poems of devotion
outdoors within and one with nature
not highfalutin bored white-gloved nobleman
doing his darnest to stimulate an English muse
from within an insulated conservatory
the winds carried ben Yishai’s cry his song his plea
“ken” songs the 150 nest for Ben Yishai
for all who rose up against him to persecute to kill
the first king of Israel, his very own son
the judges questioning his legitimacy, his right
all poems both the means and end to overcome
to walk with God, to succeed in total victory
above and below
the true royalty played flute to his flock
Sages say even his stones weren’t rock
but word stones, five that became One
Hear Israel, God our God is – One
that toppled the towering Goliath
by deep true devotion and faith over heavy armor.

The Story of the Decree and the Eggs

[This has to be one of my all-time favorite stories. The first time I heard it was about 25 years ago during Purim at Shoresh, outside Jerusalem, told by a Chassidic rav while he was “mevusam” and donning a Mexican sombrero!

The story is actually taken from the book Ahavat Chayim by the Rav Menachem Menashe who was discovered to have been one of the hidden 36 Tzaddikim of Eretz Yisrael only after he was niftar and this book-manuscript was discovered. Btw, I mention the Rav Menachem Menashe in chapter 6 of my book To Cross the Line With a Bridge in telling a story that involved him and the great Kabbalist Rav Petaye – check it out!].

****
This account took place on the Galician border, where one particular duke ruled a number of villages where a couple hundred Jews resided. All of the Jews were pious and had wonderful unity and ahavat achim, and among them was a talmid chacham who also served as the duke’s official. The duke knew this t.ch. (talmid chacham) was especially pious and thus used to send him gifts for all the holidays.

After a while when this t.ch. proved his continued loyalty and dependability, the duke gave him the position of the government’s treasurer with double the salary and all kinds of great perks.

But as usual, there was a bishop who saw all this grandeur and glory going to a Jew and decided to find a way to take revenge. So he went and got together a number of clergymen and told them a story that he claimed he heard from the duke. He then went to the duke and told him that it is beneath Christian dignity for a Jew to be in charge of their treasury. And, of course, he added a good measure of lashon hara and the typical smear and hate tactics. The duke, though, did not pay him any heed, but out of respect, he didn’t answer him.

A few months went by, and when the bishop saw that nothing happened, he again assembled his fellow clergymen to get them to pester the duke and not let up until he fires the t.ch. and appoints the bishop to replace him. The bishop finally persuaded the duke to present the Jew with three questions, and if he cannot answer them, then he needs to be hanged.

The three questions the bishop told the duke to ask are: (1) What am I (the duke) worth at the very moment I am talking to you (the Jew), (2) What am I thinking, and (3) Show me something I’ve never seen before. I (the duke) have traveled most of the world and have seen a lot too, so it has to be something I’ve never ever seen before.

If you (the t.ch.) can answer, all stays the same; but if you cannot, then you will be hanged, and you have 30 days. Of course, he was sure the Jew could never answer the 3 questions – how could he know what the duke is thinking? Plus, anything he shows him, he could just say he’s already seen it.

From here the talmid chacham went to the head rabbi and told him about the new decree, and special fasts and continual prayer sessions were arranged in the shul to ask Hashem for rachamim. Three days after they started this, the talmid chacham’s father came to him in a dream and said, ‘Why are you rattling all the worlds? You yourself have the zechut to annul this decree.’ And then his father told him what to do about the three questions.

On the same night that the t.ch. dreamed his father, the duke had insomnia, and started to think about what he did to the Jew who had been so trustworthy and really didn’t do anything wrong. And he began to regret what he did.

The next morning, the duke wore plain clothes and went to the t.ch.’s house incognito to ask forgiveness plus to tell him that the three questions he was now going to put to the bishop with a 15 day deadline. That year was a leap year, and that morning that the duke went to apologize was the 1st of Adar 1.

Close to the end of his 15 days, the bishop still had no idea what to do and only knew that his life was at stake. His family persuaded him to go seek council from the talmid chacham to save his life.

The Jew knew the bishop would be showing up on the 14th day, which is called Purim Katan, and so he told his wife that when the bishop comes and asks for him to say that he is extremely busy and does not have time and cannot see him. In the meantime, the Jew took a small basin and filled it with eggs, and then took a blanket and wrapped it around himself and the basin so it looked like he was sitting on the eggs.

To be expected, the bishop arrived and insisted he see the t.ch., and his wife put the bishop off. This went on back and forth until the bishop was basically pleading for help to save himself. At that point the t.ch’s wife gave in and told him that her husband was in the back room. Of course, upon opening the door to the room, the bishop was totally dumbfounded at what he saw!- the Jew was roosting eggs!

The t.ch. acted extremely annoyed, ‘Why are you coming now to distract me?!!! I don’t have time, since in exactly two hours these eggs are due to hatch and I need to make sure they’re kept warm!’ And, of course, the bishop stood totally confuddled just at the sight of this Jew – that any human could be – sitting on eggs.

But then the t.ch. said that he saw how distraught the bishop was and he was willing to help him if he took off his clergy garb and got into the basin to sit on the eggs himself. Having no choice, the bishop took off his frock and hat, sat on the eggs, and the Jew covered him with the blanket, and then on himself put on the bishop’s clothes and a mask he had specially prepared of the bishop and went to the duke. On his way, the t.ch. bought a small cross for two coins.

When the t.ch., who was dressed as the bishop, walked into the duke’s room, he held up the cross and the duke bowed. Then the Jew said that the duke had given him 15 days to answer the three questions and he has come to answer them. The first question is How much are you worth?, and the answer is 1 coin. Of course, the duke got very angry and yelled how he dare say such a thing, to which the t.ch. answered with a question: ‘If one bows before another, how much less is he worth than the one he bowed to?’ The duke answered, ‘The one bowing is worth half.’ ‘Exactly,’ said the t.ch. ‘And I just bought this cross for 2 coins. You just bowed, so you are worth exactly half of it, being 1 coin.’

As for the second question, What are you thinking? – I can tell you that right now you are thinking and wondering who I am, the bishop or the Jew. The duke hesitantly nodded yes, and the t.ch. took off his mask and revealed that he is the Jew and not the bishop.

As for the third question, to show you something you’ve never seen before, please come with me and I will show you something you have never ever seen before, and I apologize for inconveniencing the duke in having you come with me, but to see this wonder will make it worth the while. And with that, the Jew took the duke to his house and to the back room and opened the door, and lo and behold the duke saw none less than the bishop in a basin roosting on eggs. The duke then exclaimed that no one in the world would ever believe this – that the big revered bishop would be in the Jew’s house, and unbelievably…sitting on eggs!

This was one of the few happy endings for Am Yisrael, where, instead of a pogrom or expulsion resulting, the bishop was actually the one to be hanged.

[Ahavat Chayim, Parshat Tetzaveh]

KHamat

burnt-orange fuzzy carpet is the mountains
looming straight up from the downtown buildings
background color of all picture frames
of this ancient city, hidden
caves which housed tannaim escaping Romans
florescent pinks, reds, and oranges
tossed by the handfuls of flowers’ arms
beyond the light aqua blue white tips sea
flat-top Golan base sea border across the lake
sphinx-like legs dropping to the shores
I am alive with your colors, Tveria
KHamat Kinneret the Romans called Tiberius
then clusters of date palm groves south
sea & sky, holiness & history
tombs of masters, resting spot of Miriam’s Well
one of the four holy cities
from your fields Israel’s King will come.