KEYS (10k)

   7 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
   2 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
   1 Sufi saying
   1 Source:
   1 Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
   1 Rabbi Rami Shapiro
   1 Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
   1 Rabbi Moshe
   1 qul ya ayyuha 'n-nasu qad ja'a-kumu 'l-haqqu min Rabbi-kum
   1 Hassidic Rabbi -
   1 Matsuo Basho
   1 Confucius
   1 Abraham Joshua Heschel

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   9 Rabbi Akiva
   9 Lewis Carroll
   8 Richard Adams
   8 Anonymous
   7 A A Milne
   5 John Steinbeck
   5 Janet Evanovich
   4 Tillie Cole
   4 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
   4 Beatrix Potter
   3 T J Klune
   3 P G Wodehouse
   3 Mehmet Murat ildan
   3 Jonathan Safran Foer
   3 Confucius
   2 Stephen Richards
   2 Stephen King
   2 Seth King
   2 Rodger Kamenetz
   2 Robert Jordan

1:Every end is very close to God." ~ Hassidic Rabbi -,

2:Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

3:Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

4:This world is like the shore and the World to Come like the ocean ~ Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, (RaMCHaL),

5:Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

6:Everyone who has studied the Psalms, Every Jewish Rabbi, Every Christian priest. Who is she? - the Truth." ~ Sufi saying,

7:Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

8:The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

9:Say: "O mankind, the truth has come to you from your Lord." (10:108) ~ qul ya ayyuha 'n-nasu qad ja'a-kumu 'l-haqqu min Rabbi-kum, @Sufi_Path

10:In this day and age, the greatest devotion, greater than learning and praying, consists in accepting the world exactly as it happens to be." ~ Rabbi Moshe , from "There Is A Season" by Joan Chittister,

11:The Creator desired that the Light be veiled in order to grant existence to the lower beings, which could not otherwise survive in its full presence. ~ Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, General Principles of Kabbalah,

12:Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

13:A sharp mind will find a truth for itself. A humble spirit will find a truth higher than itself. Truth is not the property of intellectuals, but of those who know how to escape their own selves. ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,

14:Soon after the death of Rabbi Moshe, Rabbi Mendel of Kutsk asked one of his disciples, 'What was most important to your teacher?' The disciple thought and then replied, 'Whatever he happened to be doing at the moment.'" ~ Source:,

15:A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

16:[Aren't all religions equally true?] "No, all religions are equally false . The relationship of religion to truth is like that of a menu to a meal. . . When we mistake the menu for the meal, we do it and ourselves a grave injustice." ~ Rabbi Rami Shapiro, (b. 1951),

17:Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art." ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, (1907-1972) a Polish-born American rabbi and mystic. Wikipedia.,

18:Whatever tends to lighten one's burden must be examined carefully. For although such alleviation is sometimes justified and reasonable, it is most often a deceitful prescription of the evil inclination, and must, therefore, be subjected to much analysis and investigation. ~ Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, Path of the Just, Mesillat Yesharim,

19:A smile costs nothing but gives much    It enriches those who receive    Without making poorer those who give    It takes but a moment,       But the memory of it sometimes    Lasts forever    None is so rich or mighty that    He can get along without it,    And none is so poor but that    He can be made rich by it       A smile creates happiness in the home,    Fosters good will in business,    And is the countersign of friendship    It brings rest to the weary,       Cheer to the discouraged,    Sunshine to the sad and it is natures    Best antidote for trouble    Yet it cannot be bought, begged,    Borrowed, or stolen, for it is    Something that is of no value    To anyone until it is given away.       Some people are too tired to give you a smile    Give them one of yours    As none needs a smile    So much as he who has no more to be give.    ~ Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch?,

20:At every stage of technique since Daedalus or Hero of Alexandria, the ability of the artificer to produce a working simulacrum of a living organism has always intrigued people. This desire to produce and to study automata has always been expressed in terms of the living technique of the age. In the days of magic, we have the bizarre and sinister concept of Golem, that figure of clay into which the Rabbi of Prague breathed life with the blasphemy of the Ineffable Name of God. In the time of Newton, the automaton becomes the clockwork music box, with the little effigies pirouetting stiffly on top. In the nineteenth century, the automaton is a glorified heat engine, burning some combustible fuel instead of the glycogen of the human muscles. Finally, the present automaton opens doors by means of photocells, or points guns to the place at which a radar beam picks up an airplane, or computes the solution of a differential equation.    ~ Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine, 1961,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:[ Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] was the greatest commentator [of the Bible] we ever had. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

2:Of course, afterward, I studied [commentary on the Bible by a Rabbi Moshe Dessauer] more closely. But, in truth, it doesn't touch me. It doesn't change my attitude toward the text. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

3:A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake? And the master of the good name said, When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

4:One day - I remember it was a Sabbath afternoon - I came to the synagogue with a book in my hand. I saw a commentary on the Bible by a certain Rabbi Moshe Dessauer, better known as Moses Mendelssohn. An elderly man came up to me - I was then maybe 10 or 12. "What are you studying?" he said. "Dessauer's commentaries," I said. So he gave me a slap on my face. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

5:You will reply that reality hasn't the slightest need to be of interest. And I'll answer you that reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but that hypotheses may not. In the hypothesis you have postulated, chance intervenes largely. Here lies a dead rabbi; I should prefer a purely rabbinical explanation; not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:A fence to wisdom is silence. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

2:Muhakkak ki dönüşün Rabbi'nedir. ~ Anonymous,

3:The paper burns, but the words fly away. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

4:Jesting and levity lead a man to lewdness. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

5:Before you taste anything, recite a blessing. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

6:He who remains unmarried impairs the divine image. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

7:Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

8:Jesus must have been married to have been called a rabbi. ~ Darrel Ray,

9:Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is granted. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

10:Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

11:The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi. ~ Brennan Manning,

12:Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq. ~ Fran Lebowitz,

13:The rabbi gets the fees, but it’s the moyl who gets all the tips. ~ Leo Rosten,

14:I wanted to be a soccer player. And then I wanted to be a rabbi. ~ Jake Epstein,

15:Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of the All-present. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

16:Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

17:there comes a time in every rabbi's life when he thinks he's Moses. ~ Silvia Tennenbaum,

18:Rabbi means teacher, and I see the role of chief rabbi as chief teacher. ~ Ephraim Mirvis,

19:I feel very privileged indeed to be appointed to be the next Chief Rabbi. ~ Ephraim Mirvis,

20:Lonely Man of Faith, which was written by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik in 1965. ~ David Brooks,

21:How can a rabbi not live with doubt? The Bible itself is a book of doubt. ~ Arthur Hertzberg,

22:If wine was my rabbi, vodka was my therapist, and I needed some sorting out. ~ Kate Canterbary,

23:There’s a rabbi in the Talmud who even says there’s no atonement for lashon hara. ~ Chaim Potok,

24:[ Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] was the greatest commentator [of the Bible] we ever had. ~ Elie Wiesel,

25:You can't appreciate a great day unless you've experienced bad ones." - Rabbi Glassman ~ Simone Elkeles,

26:If a person kills a tree before its time, it is like having murdered a soul.-Rabbi Nachman ~ Martin Buber,

27:This world is like the shore and the World to Come like the ocean ~ Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, (RaMCHaL),

28:Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

29:To me designing has never been a job or profession. It's a way of life, like a priest or rabbi. ~ Ed Benguiat,

30:A Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, and a Muslim mullah all walk into a bar, and the bartender says: ~ C S Lewis,

31:She is not for you. She is a wild one--wild, without shame. This is not a bride for a rabbi". ~ Bernard Malamud,

32:As Rabbi Heschel teaches, humanity will be saved not by more information, but by more appreciation. ~ Matthew Fox,

33:How Do I Decide? A Contemporary Jewish Approach to What’s Right and Wrong, Rabbi Roland B. Gittlesohn’s ~ Wendy Mogel,

34:Rabbi Alfred Bettleheim once said: “Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg,

35:Come on people! Somebody disagree with me! How can we learn anything if no one will disagree?" Rabbi Stern ~ Athol Dickson,

36:God answers every prayer, Rabbi Schumann once told him, years ago. Mostly His answer is ‘no’. ~ Paul Russell,

37:In the beginning, sin is like a thread of a spider's web. But in the end, it becomes like the cable of a ship. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

38:I'm not a practicing kabbalist. I'm not a spiritual master. I'm not a rabbi. I don't - but it's part of who I am. ~ John Zorn,

39:A rabbi told me that when you have two problems - one near, one not so near - concentrate on the immediate one. ~ Ariel Sharon,

40:Rabbi Marx pointed out to me that there is a verse in Isaiah that says, “You are my witness. I am the Lord, ~ Thomas L Friedman,

41:If I see any politician or a priest or an imam or a rabbi in the Paradise, I will give up believing in God! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

42:Direct religious experience is threatening to organized religion, which often mediates it with a rabbi or priest. ~ Rodger Kamenetz,

43:Where are you from, Jews?" asked the rabbi as people used to ask in the old days. An ancient grief glazed his eyes. ~ Aharon Appelfeld,

44:Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. ~ Anonymous,

45:Still, I’d like to know how you came up with that line of reasoning.” “You can thank a rabbi,” Javna said. “And a hot dog. ~ John Scalzi,

46:(“Tell me,” a rabbi asked Daniel Bell when he said, as a child, that he did not believe in God. “Do you think God cares?”) ~ Joan Didion,

47:Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

48:Everyone needs a spiritual guide: a minister, rabbi, counselor, wise friend, or therapist. My own wise friend is my dog. ~ Gary A Kowalski,

49:If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” –Rabbi Hillel ~ Timothy Ferriss,

50:Given the circumstances, I think the rabbi did a very good job. What did you think?” “It's my policy not to review funerals. ~ A M Homes,

51:If not later, when?” My father liked it. “If not later, when?” It echoed Rabbi Hillel’s famous injunction, “If not now, when? ~ Andr Aciman,

52:If you are not for yourself, who will be for you? If you are only for yourself, what are you? If not now, when? –Rabbi Hillel ~ Kathryn Lasky,

53:Orphaned at age 11 in 1755, Mayer followed the sound of clinking coins rather than his parents' idea that he become a rabbi. ~ Kenneth L Fisher,

54:Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. ~ Walter Kaufmann,

55:It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope. RABBI JONATHAN SACKS, Celebrating Life ~ John Eldredge,

56:Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. ~ Walter Kaufmann,

57:I knew there was only one place to go. I sank down into the center of my soul, grew still, and listened to the Rabbi's heartbeat. ~ Brennan Manning,

58:İnsan, Allah'ın kullarından hiçbir şey talep etmemelidir. Eğer bir şey isteyecekse göklerin ve yerin Rabbi olan Allah'tan istemelidir. ~ Hamza Yusuf,

59:Rabbi Heshel said: “A man should be like a vessel that willingly receives what its owner pours into it, whether it be wine or vinegar. ~ Martin Buber,

60:Racism is man’s gravest threat to man—the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reasons. —Abraham J. Heschel, rabbi and philosopher (1907–72) ~ Brenda Novak,

61:Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed. ~ Tony Campolo,

62:The one thing needed is the decision to live so continually in Jesus’ presence as to be always covered with the dust of the rabbi. Martha got ~ John Ortberg Jr,

63:Ironically, my rabbi was a bar mitzvah Nazi. So I got bar mitzvahed. And though I didn't want to, the theme of my bar mitzvah party was Madonna. ~ Billy Eichner,

64:Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya? ~ Martin Buber,

65:It is easy for a rabbi to establish prohibitions, but a rabbi's real strength is to teach Torah and rule on lawwith an emphasis on what is permitted. ~ Ovadia Yosef,

66:The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

67:I think Jewish history did away with a priesthood when the Temple was destroyed, and it became, supposedly, a religion of scholars. A rabbi is just a scholar. ~ Ben Katchor,

68:As the former British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks has expressed it: “If the Nazis searched out every Jew in hate, the Rebbe wished to search out every Jew in love. ~ Joseph Telushkin,

69:I would like now to shed light in your heart on the truth of things, for it was not my will, but that of the Father and my Rabbi, which was done that faithful night. ~ Judas Iscariot,

70:Like a twisted olive tree in its 500th year, giving then its finest fruit, is man. How can he give forth wisdom until he has been crushed and turned in the Hand of God. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

71:Tom looked more and more like a rabbi. As is the way of men of character in provincial towns, he tended to become a collection of mannerisms, a caricature of himself. ~ Frank O Connor,

72:Last night I didn't realize I said "abortion" in my stand up comedy act instead of "circumcision." No wonder I got blank stares at "rabbi got faint at sight of blood." ~ Ben Rosenfield,

73:In the eleventh century, a Jerusalem rabbi still recalled with gratitude the mercy God had shown his people when he allowed the “Kingdom of Ishmael” to conquer Palestine. ~ Karen Armstrong,

74:Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of God. Beloved are Israel, for unto them was given the desirable Torah ~ Rabbi Akiva,

75:The world is absurd. Ugly absurd. To repair ugly absurdity, you can't just be normal. You need an alternative absurdity. A beautiful absurdity. We call it 'divine madness'. ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,

76:Of course, afterward, I studied [commentary on the Bible by a Rabbi Moshe Dessauer] more closely. But, in truth, it doesn't touch me. It doesn't change my attitude toward the text. ~ Elie Wiesel,

77:Oh, you’re the Marble Rye Lady!” Her rabbi went out of his way to greet her now, she told People magazine, and he had a sizable congregation. This was no small show. ~ Jennifer Keishin Armstrong,

78:Thank you, Carol Lynn Pearson, for reminding us that the task of any religion is to teach us whom we're required to love, not whom we're entitled to hate. - Rabbi Harold Kushner ~ Carol Lynn Pearson,

79:I had a life experience that most of my - that none of my friends had. I remember I became everybody's rabbi. Everybody who needed advice would talk to me, and it became an obvious thing. ~ Jeff Ross,

80:And on the wedding contract, before me and my parents and the rabbi, and Wanda and Sergey for our witnesses, in silver ink he signed his name. But I won't ever tell you what it is. ~ Naomi Novik,

81:Cinta kalau bahasanya hati... itulah cinta hakiki. Kasih jika dasarnya Rabbi...itulah kasih sejati. Cinta ini pasti diuji kerana itu sudah tradisi janji...-Jendela Hati 1993 ~ Pahrol Mohamad Juoi,

82:In my neighborhood, everyone had an opinion on the local cantor. You didn't go to a synagogue to listen to the rabbi's sermon. You went to listen to the cantor. It was like a concert. ~ Alan Dershowitz,

83:So our hotheaded rabbi sought authorization to arrest followers of Jesus in Damascus and return them to Jerusalem. He was on his journey when God intervened and knocked him off his donkey. ~ Beth Moore,

84:The Creator desired that the Light be veiled in order to grant existence to the lower beings, which could not otherwise survive in its full presence. ~ Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, General Principles of Kabbalah,

85:Love has nothing whatsoever to do with deserving. We may not like it, and I don’t much, but that is what our Rabbi teaches. If we are disciples, that is the discipline we must practice ~ Elizabeth Cunningham,

86:Do you wish to speak in Provençal, French, or Latin? They are all I can manage, I'm afraid." "Any will do," the rabbi replied in Provençal. "Splendid. Latin it is," said Pope Clement. ~ Iain Pears,

87:I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929) ~ Albert Einstein,

88:Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

89:As you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise,” or Rabbi Hillel’s statement, “What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary thereof. ~ Paul Bloom,

90:I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929) ~ Albert Einstein,

91:Christians often ask why God does not speak to them . . . the rabbi was asked . . . nowadays nobody sees God . . . the rabbi replied" "Nowadays there is no longer anybody, who can bow low enough." P. 92 ~ Carl Gustav Jung,

92:If an audience kept complete silence during a challenge parable from Jesus and if an audience filed past him afterward saying, 'Lovely parable, this morning, Rabbi,' Jesus would have failed utterly. ~ John Dominic Crossan,

93:A sharp mind will find a truth for itself. A humble spirit will find a truth higher than itself. Truth is not the property of intellectuals, but of those who know how to escape their own selves. ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,

94:Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said, "Where there is no money, there is no learning." The rabbis explain that unless people's stomachs are full and satisfied, they cannot study, grow spiritually, and do good works. ~ H W Charles,

95:It's easy to feel like the bunny rabbi frozen in terror. And it's easy to feel like one of the fire balloons, at the whim of the wind, either rising up out of sight or burning down. Blow one direction or another. ~ Ava Dellaira,

96:Consider three things, that thou mayest not come within the power of sin. Know what is above thee--a seeing eye, and a hearing ear, and all thy deeds written in a book." 2. Rabban Gamaliel, the son of Rabbi Judah, the ~ Anonymous,

97:In a Jewish theological seminar there was an hours-long discussion about proofs of the existence of God. After some hours, one rabbi got up and said, "God is so great, he does not even need to exist." ~ Victor Frederick Weisskopf,

98:I refuse to stand up in front of a rabbi and my friends and the woman I love - who I will tell you I can love with all my heart - and promise she will be the only one I will ever have until the day I die. Thats a lie. ~ Gene Simmons,

99:I don’t think it’s nice of you laughing.” − Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood, A Fistful of Dollars “I’m glad you’re laughing, because now all kinds of holocaustic things will be happening up in here.” – Cowboy Rabbi ~ Austin Dragon,

100:I would become a priest or a rabbi or a monk or whatever the hell was necessary to perform miracles such as taking money from someone else's pocket and putting it into mine, still remaining within the confines of the law. ~ Lenny Bruce,

101:This is what the Sabbath should feel like. A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause. Not just lowering the volume, but a muting. As the famous rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time. ~ A J Jacobs,

102:he was embarrassed he wasn’t wearing a kippah in front of the rabbi. The rabbi said, ‘I’m a short man. My head only reaches your shoulders. I can’t see what’s on top of your head. I can only see your heart.’” Doctor ~ Ruchama King Feuerman,

103:When the great theologian and philosopher Rabbi Hillel was challenged to explain the Torah in the time he could stand on one foot, he replied, “Do not do unto others that which is repugnant to you. All else is commentary. ~ Edward O Wilson,

104:I'm twelve years old. I run into a synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life but he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don't understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me $600 for Hebrew lessons. ~ Woody Allen,

105:Inside was the holy place, a huge candelabra, some incense stands, and then the curtained Holy of Holies where the Ark of Covenant housed their god Yahweh. Or at least that is all Longinus had been told by his rabbi informant. ~ Brian Godawa,

106:163. Prisoners We are all prisoners. But we sit on the keys. Finitude is our cell. The universe is our prison. Our jail keeper is the Act of Being. The keys to liberation are clenched tightly in the fists of our own egos. ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,

107:As a Jewish rabbi put it, "A man should carry two stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, ‘I am but dust and ashes.' On the other, ‘For my sake was the world created.' And he should use each stone as he needs it."7-11 ~ Philip Yancey,

108:A rabbi challenged his followers one day: “Where does God exist?” Puzzled by what almost seemed to be a heretical question, they answered: “God exists everywhere.” “No,” the rabbi responded: “God exists wherever man lets Him in. ~ Dennis Prager,

109:There was reference made to a book written in Greek by a former Rabbi who had been converted to Christianity. There was reference to a publication of a high clergyman of Milan. Not even did Jews raise objections to that book. ~ Julius Streicher,

110:If a rock, though extremely hard, can be hollowed out by water, how much more so should it be possible for The Light, which is compared to water, to change my heart. I will begin to study it, and try to become a scholar of The Light. ~ Rabbi Akiva,

111:I see the role of a rabbi or a pastor in general sort of like the role of a quarterback who throws the ball a little bit ahead of the receiver - that is you want to make people run just a bit to catch up to the message that you offer. ~ David Wolpe,

112:Rabbi Aviner, an early Kook disciple wrote, Israel was called “to be holy, not moral, and the general principles of morality, customary for all mankind, do not bind the people of Israel, because it has been chosen to be above them. ~ Max Blumenthal,

113:I know I would have learned a huge amount had I read the bible with my rabbi. But I also would have missed a huge amount, and I would have been guided down the narrow paths where the rabbi led me, not the paths that I chose for myself. ~ David Plotz,

114:A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

115:You've been the rabbi here for thirty years and these guys who've never set foot here want to decide who should be rabbi or not. And to lead prayer in Hebrew for Jews who speak Arabic, they want you to write in French. So I say they're nuts. ~ Joann Sfar,

116:In 1921, a New York rabbi asked Einstein if he believed in God. "I believe in Spinoza's God," he answered, "who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. ~ Jim Holt,

117:It stung me when he finally came out with it. Only someone who had completely figured me out would have said it. "If not later, when?" My father liked it. "If not later, when?" It echoed Rabbi Hil-lel's famous injunction, "If not now, when? ~ Andr Aciman,

118:The twelfth-century poet Abraham ibn Ezra, whom you encountered in high school as Browning’s Rabbi ben Ezra (may his tribe increase), limpidly described the shlimazl’s lot when he wrote: If I sold lamps, The sun, In spite, Would shine at night. ~ Leo Rosten,

119:Most significant of all, perhaps, is that, of the 613 laws in the Torah, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, not one uses the word obey. God, the rabbi says, does not impose the intractable on Israel. God uses the word shema. Attend to. ~ Joan D Chittister,

120:In my life are many windows and many graves. Sometimes they exchange roles: then a window is closed forever, then by way of a gravestone I can see very far. (Hebrew-to-English translation by Rabbi Steven Sager) ~ Yehuda Amichai,

121:Their mystery is: God my only One in them my heart will be worthy. And their mystery is Enough! Enough! Enough! [1741.jpg] -- from Meditation and Kabbalah, by Aryeh Kaplan ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, Their mystery is (from Life of the Future World) ,

122:She’s more like a New Ager. Do you know what that is?” “It’s a person who worships chandeliers.” Decker smiled. “Crystals, Rabbi. Not chandeliers.” “There’s a difference?” Schulman waved his hands in the air. “It’s all avodah zorah—idol worship. ~ Faye Kellerman,

123:What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him,  f “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” 52[†]And Jesus said to him, “Go your way;  g your faith has  h made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. ~ Anonymous,

124:The rabbi of Chelm visited the prison, and there he heard all but one of the inmates insist on their innocence. So he came back, held a council of wise men, and recommended that Chelm have two prisons: one for the guilty and another for the innocent. ~ Leo Rosten,

125:He [Rabbi Menasha Levartov] was one of those men who, even in the years of peace, would have advised his congregation that while God may well be honored by the inflexibility of the pious, he might also be honored by the flexibility of the sensible. ~ Thomas Keneally,

126:He [Rabbi Menasha Levaartov] was one of those men who, even in the years of peace, would have advised his congregation that while God may well be honored by the inflexibility of the pious, he might also be honored by the flexibility of the sensible. ~ Thomas Keneally,

127:The dangers is that every religion, including the Catholic one, says "I have the ultimate truth." Then you start to rely on the priest, the mullah, the rabbi, or whoever, to be responsible for your acts. In fact, you are the only one who is responsible. ~ Paulo Coelho,

128:The same point is made by the Hasidic Rabbi, Susya, who shortly before his death said, "When I get to heaven they will not ask me, 'Why were you not Moses?' Instead they will ask 'Why were you not Susya? Why did you not become what only you could become? ~ Irvin D Yalom,

129:If he'd [Jesus] been a little more concerned for his own safety and well being he may have toned things down a little bit and probably at best he'd be remembered as a Rabbi who said some cool things but that nobody really reads anymore. There's tons of them. ~ Brad Warner,

130:So know this, little one. Whether you are the Messiah, or you become a rabbi, or even if you are nothing more than a farmer, here is the sum of all I can teach you, and all that I know: treat others as you would like to be treated. Can you remember that? ~ Christopher Moore,

131:And this is what your son said,’ the angel told the man. ‘These are the words he said to the rabbi at that point, and they have never been forgotten: “My Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. But only speak a word and my servant will be healed. ~ Paulo Coelho,

132:telling the jokes—was the setups. Why were that priest, that rabbi, and that minister walking down that street? Where were they headed? How had they happened to come together? What odd chance had put ex-presidents Bush, Clinton, and Carter on that same plane? ~ Donald E Westlake,

133:And I believe there was a rabbi who wrote that the Holy Scriptures were specifically destined, predestined, for each of its readers. That is, it has a different meaning if any of you read it or if I read it, or if it is read by men in the future or in the past. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,

134:The rabbi stated: When you look into the face of the person who is beside you, and you can see that person is your brother or your sister, then finally the night has ended, and the day has begun. Hastening that heavenly day, is the moral work of our generation. ~ Thomas L Friedman,

135:the rabbi comes in to read the Psalms with you and hear you say the Vidui, that terrible confession in which you admit your responsibility not only for the sins you have committed, whether by word, deed, or thought, but also for those you may have caused others to commit. ~ Elie Wiesel,

136:It's not about terror or anything else, it's about politics, and so it becomes more about politics than it does about faith. Orthodox rabbis - that is about faith. There's not a single Orthodox rabbi on this list. This is all Reformed rabbis that were - that made this list. ~ Glenn Beck,

137:With two children of my own, I know what it means to balance the demands of family and career - and let's not even talk about finding a date for myself. Rabbi Shmuley keeps telling me he'll find me the perfect woman. My response is, 'As long as she's not a journalist'. ~ Michael Jackson,

138:By the way, Reb, about the singing. What gives? Walt Whitman sang the body electric. Billie Holiday sang the blues. You sang…everything. You could sing the phone book. I would call and say how are you feeling, and you’d answer, “The old gray rabbi, ain’t what he used to be… ~ Mitch Albom,

139:No, no. Absolutely not. We had a talk with the rabbi, and now we’re fully in salvage-the-bar-mitzvah mode.” “You had a talk? You think talk got us out of Egypt or Entebbe? Uh-uh. Plagues and Uzis. Talk gets you a good place in line for a shower that isn’t a shower. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer,

140:The gentle Rabbi reminds us that few things really matter and only one thing is necessary ... Martha found it in the gentle reminder to slow down, let go, and be careful of challenging another woman's choices, for you never know when she may be sitting at the feet of God. ~ Rachel Held Evans,

141:I was thinking a lot about the aftermath of bad choices, how people deal with the trauma of having survived trauma, if that makes sense, and so I wrote about this character's last day on the job, how after spending 15 years pretending to be a rabbi, he'd in effect become a rabbi. ~ Tod Goldberg,

142:Rabbi, I feel no despair anymore. For seventy years I had only nightmares, but I have no nightmares anymore. I feel only gratitude for my life, for every moment I lived. Not only the good moments. I feel gratitude for every moment of my life. I have seen so many miracles. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer,

143:Each generation of rabbis is necessarily less perfect than the rabbis that came before, since each generation is more removed from the perfection of the Garden. Therefore, no rabbi is allowed to overturn any of his forebears' wisdom, since they are all, by definition, smarter than him. ~ Cory Doctorow,

144:Isn’t this the whole meaning of life in this world: To choose between bondage to the material world and believing that your life comes from those many forces, , or to choose true life and to believe that all your needs and all your concerns come only from the one Source of All Life. ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,

145:In mid-career, I was at one and the same time the rabbi of a major congregation, writing books, and teaching at Columbia. I didn't spend enough time with my children. Now, when I get an all-important call, I sometimes say that I'm having lunch with my granddaughter. And I do not apologize ~ Arthur Hertzberg,

146:Not that the study is not important. A Jewish rabbi I once studies with would often say, 'For us Jews studying the bible is more important than obeying it because if you don't understand it rightly you will obey it wrongly and your obedience will be disobedience. This is also true. ~ Eugene H Peterson,

147:The rabbi thought he saw an expression of perplexity in the golem's eyes. It seemed to the rabbi that his eyes were asking, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the secret of my being? Rabbi Leib often saw the same bewilderment in the eyes of newborn children and even in the eyes of animals. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer,

148:The Rabbi thought he saw an expression of perplexity in the golem's eyes. It seemed to the Rabbi that his eyes were asking, 'Who am I? Why am I here? What is the secret of my being? Rabbi Leib often saw the same bewilderment in the eyes of newborn children and even in the eyes of animals. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer,

149:You can’t fix grief,” said Simon. “A rabbi told me that when my father died. The only thing that fixes grief is time, and the love of the people who care about you, and Tavvy has that.” He squeezed Mark’s shoulder briefly. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “Shelo ted’u od tza’ar, Mark Blackthorn. ~ Cassandra Clare,

150:Wasn't forgetfulness a gift of the gods to the ancient world? Without it. Life would be intolerable, wouldn't it? Yes, but the Jews live by other rules. For a Jew, nothing is more important than memory. He is bound to his origins by memory. It is memory that connects him to Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiva. ~ Elie Wiesel,

151:All that can be cherished from this world, all that makes life worth living is that which is mined from its bowels through your own toil, fashioned from its clay by your own craft, fired in the kiln of your heart. Oh, how precious, how delightful a feast, the life that has been forged by its own master! ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,

152:I believed that only constant surrender would ensure our survival, but Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kokhba proved to me with a string of brilliant victories that if the nation of Israel believes in itself and unifies in a common goal, no power in the world can stand against it, just as it was in the days of the Maccabees. ~ Yochi Brandes,

153:We had no religion at all, but we were Jews in New Hampshire, and my sister - who is now a rabbi - said it best: We were, like, the only Jews in Bedford, New Hampshire, as well as the only Democrats, so we just kind of associated those two things together. My dad raised us to believe that paying taxes is an honor. ~ Roseanne Barr,

154:Whatever tends to lighten one's burden must be examined carefully. For although such alleviation is sometimes justified and reasonable, it is most often a deceitful prescription of the evil inclination, and must, therefore, be subjected to much analysis and investigation. ~ Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, Path of the Just, Mesillat Yesharim,

155:Gökleri ve yeri yaratan, hem gayb hem de şehadet âlemini bilen, her şeyin Rabbi ve Sahibi olan Allahım! Şehadet ederim ki, Senden başka ilah yoktur. Nefsimin ve şeytanın şerrinden, onun her türlü tuzağından, günah işleyerek kendi nefsime zulmetmekten veya bir başka Müslümana kötülük dokundurmaktan Sana sığınırım. (3 defa) ~ Anonymous,

156:“It’s not my job to be God’s lawyer,...I’m his salesman. I do believe he’s the greatest thing that ever existed, and I encourage people to get to know him without trying to explain what he’s doing or why.” ~ Rabbi Chaim Bruk in Is the coronavirus an act of God? Faith leaders debate tough questions amid pandemic, USA Today April 2, 2020.,

157:The Hasidic Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772–1810) taught, ‘If you are not going to be better tomorrow than you were today, then what need do you have for tomorrow?’ To which Telushkin has added: ‘And if no one feels comfortable criticizing you, the likelihood that you will be better tomorrow is most probably nonexistent. ~ Dennis Prager,

158:In recent years, astronomers have discovered that not all stars shine. There are some stars of such tremendous density, instead of radiating outwards they only draw light in. Therefore, they have named these stars, “Black Holes.” Fortunately, the universe has enough Black Holes already. If you have light, shine forth. ~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman,

159:Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth says in the Times London that multiculturalism was intended to create a more tolerant society, one in which everyone, regardless of colour, creed or culture, felt at home. But, he says, multiculturalism's message is "there is no need to integrate". ~ Citizen One,

160:As the hand held before the eye conceals the greatest mountain, so the little earthly life hides from the glance the enormous lights and mysteries of which the world is full, and he who can draw it away from before his eyes, as one draws away a hand, beholds the great shining of the inner worlds. RABBI NACHMANN OF BRATZLAV ~ Peter Matthiessen,

161:Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Every golem in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina's delectable goat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat -- was, literally, talked into life. ~ Michael Chabon,

162:When my mother was in the hospital,” I say, “her rabbi told her a story. In Heaven and Hell, people sit at banquet tables filled with amazing food, but no one can bend their elbows. In Hell, everyone starves because they can’t feed themselves. In Heaven, everyone’s stuffed, because they don’t have to bend their arms to feed each other. ~ Jodi Picoult,

163:A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. “Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake?” And the master of the good name said, “When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake. ~ Elie Wiesel,

164:We all have a responsibility, and as Rabbi Heschel, one of my prophets, has put it: "Those who condone, or are silent, in the face of injustice, are more guilty than the perpetrators." And so, to the degree we pretend to be a democracy, we have a corresponding duty to be activist enough to prevent our human rights form being infringed upon. ~ Ray McGovern,

165:The illusion of the seventh veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To think for you. To hang on your cross. The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the swami, the philosophical novelist were traffic cops, at best. They might direct you through a busy intersection, but they wouldn't follow you home and park your car. ~ Tom Robbins,

166:No, no, no." The Rabbi raised his hands. "The loan is free. Just return the eighteen hundred after the IPO. If you want to give me anything more, then you decide however to repay me. Give to tzedakah--a gift to charity. Give to Bialystok Center. Or give nothing. This is an investment. Your are investing in Veritech. And I am investing in you. ~ Allegra Goodman,

167:Think about that: at a time when it was inconceivable to have a woman rabbi or a woman scholar of Christian theology or canon law, the Islamic civilization boasted hundreds of women who were authorities in Islamic law and Islamic theology and that taught some of the most famous male jurists and left behind a remarkable corpus of writings. ~ Khaled Abou El Fadl,

168:Rabbi Hiyya advised his wife, “When a poor man comes to the door, be quick to give him food so that the same may be done to your children.” She exclaimed, “You are cursing our children [with the suggestion that they may become beggars].” But Rabbi Hiyya replied, “There is a wheel which revolves in this world.” —Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 151b ~ Joseph Telushkin,

169:A BASIC TENET OF QUAKERISM WAS THAT IF A MAN or woman tended the divine fire that burned within each human breast, one could establish direct relationship to God without the intercession of priest or rabbi. Songs and shouted prayers were not necessary to attract God’s attention, for He dwelt within and could be summoned by a whisper. Nevertheless ~ James A Michener,

170:Yosef Tversky, the son of a rabbi, despised religion and loved Russian literature, and found a great deal of amusement in what came out of the mouths of his fellow human beings. His father had turned away from an early career in medicine, Amos explained to friends, because “he thought animals had more real pain than people and complained a lot less. ~ Michael Lewis,

171:One day - I remember it was a Sabbath afternoon - I came to the synagogue with a book in my hand. I saw a commentary on the Bible by a certain Rabbi Moshe Dessauer, better known as Moses Mendelssohn. An elderly man came up to me - I was then maybe 10 or 12. "What are you studying?" he said. "Dessauer's commentaries," I said. So he gave me a slap on my face. ~ Elie Wiesel,

172:His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society of friends. ~ James Joyce,

173:Only in America, Rabbi Golden, do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedalpushers and mink stoles - and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn't their fault they were given a gift like speech - look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic. ~ Philip Roth,

174:The Rabbi’s condemnation of Israelites was all too acceptable to Simon. But then, to eat meals with sinners and harlots, to touch the unclean, and to embrace the godless Kittim was incomprehensible to Simon. It was like making the unclean clean and the clean unclean. It was like saying that God would adopt his enemies and disinherit his own children. The opposite of ~ Brian Godawa,

175:There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside. ~ Anne Lamott,

176:When Grant made Edward S. Salomon governor of the Washington Territory, it was the first time an American Jew had occupied a gubernatorial post. (When Salomon proved corrupt, Grant handled his case leniently, letting him resign.) Elated at this appointment, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise said it showed “that President Grant has revoked General Grant’s notorious order No. 11. ~ Ron Chernow,

177:becoming one's self: Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: `Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: Why were you not Zusya?"'= If you doubt that we all arrive in this world with gifts and as a gift, pay attention to an infant or a very young child. A few years ago, my daughter and her newborn baby came to live ~ Parker J Palmer,

178:When I was three, I fell and I got Bell's palsy in my face. My mom said the first day she called the rabbi, and he said a prayer for me but nothing happened. The second day she called the Mormons, and they said a prayer for me and my face was healed, so my whole life was going around as a Jew who was giving talks in Mormon churches about being healed by the Mormons. ~ Roseanne Barr,

179:One day [Rabbi Spear] talked about his theory of happiness. He proposed that human feelings respond only to contrast and change, not to constancy, just as eyesight responds to contrasts of light and dark and to movement. The rabbi speculated that if emotions are similar to eyesight and other senses, then perhaps emotions were developed by nature as a survival mechanism. ~ Alan Lightman,

180:Rabbi Scnhuer Zalman said it clearly when he wrote: “A broken heart is not the same as sadness. Sadness occurs when the heart is stone cold and lifeless. On the contrary, there is an unbelievable amount of vitality in a broken heart.” In the middle of the mystery of pain, I harvested this precious jewel. I also harvested the love and beauty right here, in this world. ~ Elizabeth Lesser,

181:Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135–1204, also known as Maimonides), put it: Every time you find in our books a tale the reality of which seems impossible, a story which is repugnant both to reason and common sense, then be sure that tale contains a profound allegory veiling a deeply mysterious truth…and the greater the absurdity of the letter the deeper the wisdom of the spirit.16 ~ Dean Radin,

182:You will reply that reality hasn't the slightest need to be of interest. And I'll answer you that reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but that hypotheses may not. In the hypothesis you have postulated, chance intervenes largely. Here lies a dead rabbi; I should prefer a purely rabbinical explanation; not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,

183:Jesus was a rabbi, schooled by rabbis, who thought like rabbis. Rabbis, upon being asked a question by a disciple, usually answer with a paradoxical inquiry or a story. This can be annoying and time-consuming for those of us looking for neat, simple answers. But truth is too wild and complex to be contained in one answer, so Jesus often responded with a question or a parable. ~ Anne Lamott,

184:From the start, Jesus appeared to be a different kind of rabbi. He seemed to disregard the many customary laws that defined proper behavior for Jewish people. He put people before laws. His “new way” was forgiving and kind. Jesus didn’t come off as a rabble-rouser but as a friend to people on the outside, people suspected of not being pure, people most religious leaders disliked. ~ Anonymous,

185:He freely chose instead to see even the worst acts of his enemies as a form of service to the Creator. They had provided him with an opportunity to comport himself with courage and certainty, and thereby to reveal more Light in the world. By no means was Rabbi Akiva blind or oblivious to evil. On the contrary, he had the strength to see it for what it truly was and still is. There ~ Michael Berg,

186:The Chief Rabbi of Poland, American-born Michael Schudrich, greeted Mr. C. and the students. “You know,” the rabbi said to them. “This moment is the ultimate revenge on Hitler. Protestant kids, celebrating a Catholic rescuer of Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto, performing in a Jewish theater in Warsaw. And they are being filmed by German television.” * * * * * * * * * * Before ~ Jack Mayer,

187:You said you have a soul, you deceived yourself; you said there was life after death, you deceived yourself; you followed the priest, you followed the imam, you followed the rabbi, you ran after the gurus, you always deceived yourself! You betrayed yourself and humanity for not understanding the truth! And what's left in your hand in the end? A fake happiness and perishment! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

188:An American tourist went to Cairo to visit the famous Polish rabbi Hafez Ayim. The tourist was surprised to see that the rabbi lived in a simple, book-lined room, in which the only pieces of furniture were a table and a bench. ‘Rabbi, where’s all your furniture?’ asked the tourist. ‘Why, where’s yours?’ retorted Hafez. ‘Mine? But I’m just passing through.’ ‘So am I,’ said the rabbi. ~ Paulo Coelho,

189:Earning Money Is Moral “For better or worse, humans are holistic. Even the human body does best when its spiritual and physical sides are synchronized… People’s bodies perform best when their brains are on board with the program… Helping your mind to believe what you do is good, noble, and worthwhile in itself helps to fuel your energies and propel your efforts.” — Rabbi Daniel Lapin ~ Benjamin P Hardy,

190:How one in the modern world views Jesus's miraculous actions is irrelevant. All that can be known is how the people of his time viewed them. And therein lies the historical evidence. For while debates raged within the early church over who Jesus was—a rabbi? the messiah? God incarnate?—there was never any debate, either among his followers or his detractors, about his role as an exorcist and miracle worker. ~ Reza Aslan,

191:My mom, for most of her life, was a Holocaust denier. And it was terrible for the entire family to have to deal with until, finally, a couple years ago, we had an intervention. And we had a rabbi come into the home, had him walk her through the history of the Jewish people, and then he made her watch "Schindler's List." And after that, my mom did a complete 180. Now she can't believe it only happened once. ~ Anthony Jeselnik,

192:Whoever cannot survive without taking charity, such as an old, sick, or greatly suffering individual, but who stubbornly refuses to accept aid, is guilty of murdering himself…yet one who needs charity but postpones taking it and lives in deprivation so as to not trouble the community, shall live to provide for others." —Rabbi Joseph Karo (1488–1575), Shulkhan Arukh (The Code of Jewish Law), Yoreh Deah 255:2 ~ Joseph Telushkin,

193:My cheeks still bulging with wine, I properly scoped out the room. Mom? Check. Dad? Check. Ari? Check? Rabbi Abrams, here to perform the ceremony to induct my brother as the latest member in the Brotherhood of David, the chosen demon hunters? Check. I spit the wine back into what I now realized was a silver chalice and handed it to the elderly bearded rabbi. “Carry on,” I told him. Then I threw up on his shoes. ~ Deborah Wilde,

194:how can true salt stop being salt? When asked what to do with unsalty salt, a later rabbi advised, “Salt it with the afterbirth of a mule.” Mules are sterile and thus lack afterbirth; his point was that the question was stupid. If salt could lose its saltiness, what would it be useful for? Jesus compares a disciple who does not live out the values of the kingdom with unsalty salt—salt that cannot fulfill its purpose. ~ Anonymous,

195:instead of simply saying, “A rabbi, a priest, and a black guy walk into a bar,” he’d say, “The subjects of this joke are three males, two of whom are clergymen, one of the Jewish faith, the other an ordained Catholic minister. The religion of the African-American respondent is undetermined, as is his educational level. The setting for the joke is a licensed establishment where alcohol is served. No, wait. It’s a plane. I ~ Paul Beatty,

196:In the high school classroom you are a drill sergent, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw. ~ Frank McCourt,

197:Oh! Hello Josephine!” he exclaimed, turning to face us. “Who is this oysgeputst mentsch with the pitse?” he whispered noisily in her ear. “Just a friend, Isaac. Goodnight!” “Friend of yours?” I asked as we hit the second floor landing and started up the next round of stairs. Jo turned over her shoulder and smiled. “He’s a rabbi and sometimes I help feed his goldfish if he’s running late. Did you know they have Kosher fish flakes? ~ R S Grey,

198:Was this man the Messiah whom God had promised him or wasn’t he? All the miracles he performed could also be performed by Satan, who could even resurrect the dead. The miracles therefore did not give the rabbi sufficient basis to pass judgment; nor did the prophecies. Satan was a sly and exceedingly powerful archangel. In order to deceive mankind he was capable of making his words and actions fit the holy prophecies to perfection. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis,

199:The biblical passage which says of Abraham and the three visiting angels: "And He stood over them under the tree and they did eat" is interpreted by Rabbi Zusya to the effect that man stands above the angels, because he knows something unknown to them, namely, that eating may be hallowed by the eater's intention.... Any natural act, if hallowed, leads to God, and nature needs man for what no angel can perform on it, namely, its hallowing. ~ Martin Buber,

200:Raining. Oh, brother, a scratch on the fender. Damn rabbi on his unicycle. Wait a minute, where are my car keys? Could have sworn I left them in this pocket. No, just some loose change and ticket stubs from the all-black version of Elaine Stritch’ s one-woman show. Did I check my desk? Better go back inside. What’s in the top drawer here? Hmm. Envelopes, my paper clips, a loaded revolver in case the tenant in 2A begins yodelling again. ~ Woody Allen,

201:Nature is behaving with us like that elderly rabbi to whom two men went in order to settle a dispute. Having listened to the first, the rabbi says: “You are in the right.” The second insists on being heard. The rabbi listens to him and says: “You’re also right.” Having overheard from the next room, the rabbi’s wife then calls out, “But they can’t both be in the right!” The rabbi reflects and nods before concluding: “And you’re right too.” A ~ Carlo Rovelli,

202:And the letter is longing, and sky desire to know the will that moves Him and lends grace to spirit and mercy to power to rectify action, Kingdom now foremost and Law behind, now Law foremost and Kingdom behind -- and the letter and vowels and song reveal the mystery of blood... [2465.jpg] -- from The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, Edited by Peter Cole ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, And the letter is longing ,

203:She might’ve asked a rabbi or teacher to help her interpret these verses, but she never could bring herself to approach anyone. It was like sharing her mess, opening up the fridge for the world to see the spilled juice, the rotting, moldy food. So she had settled into a chronic religious anxiety while staying connected by whatever means—more meticulous observance of the laws, increased prayer—until, she hoped, she would feel differently. ~ Ruchama King Feuerman,

204:Let us take some simple examples: When you were going to be married, you had vivid, realistic pictures in your mind. With your power of imagination, you saw the minister, rabbi, or priest. You heard him pronounce the words, you saw the flowers and the church, and you heard the music. You imagined the ring on your finger, and you traveled through your imagination on your honeymoon to Niagara Falls or Europe. All this was performed by your imagination. ~ Joseph Murphy,

205:I’d never say that. I’m still Jewish, you know, even if I am a vampire. In my heart I remember and believe, even the words I can’t say. G—” He choked and swallowed. “He made a covenant with us, just like the Shadowhunters believe Raziel made a covenant with them. And we believe in his promises. Therefore you can never lose hope—hatikva—because if you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive.” He looked faintly embarrassed. “My rabbi used to say that. ~ Cassandra Clare,

206:A few years ago, I listened to a rabbi give a talk and she was explaining what a blessing is. It is a naming of something, she said. What you are blessing already has to be latent in the person, otherwise it doesn't mean anything. But if it is (latent), and you bless what hasn't yet come forth - the fruit - it is a very powerful action. Think of your writing as bestowing a blessing. I'll leave you with that. (Aimee Bender, "On the Making of Orchards") ~ Christopher R Beha,

207:You can't fix grief,” said Simon. “A rabbi told me that when my father died. The only thing that fixes grief is time, and the love of the people who care about you, and Tavvy has that.” He squeezed Mark's shoulder briefly. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “Shelo ted'u od tza'ar, Mark Blackthorn.” “What does that mean?” said Mark. “It's a blessing,” said Simon. “Something else the rabbi taught me. Let it be that you should know no further sorrow. ~ Cassandra Clare,

208:You can't fix grief,” said Simon. “A rabbi told me that when my father died. The only thing that fixes grief is time, and the love of the people who care about you, and Tavvy has that.” He squeezed Mark's shoulder briefly. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “Shelo ted'u od tza'ar, Mark Blackthorn.” “What does that mean?” said Mark. “It's a blessing,” said Simon. “Something else the rabbi taught me. ‘Let it be that you should know no further sorrow. ~ Cassandra Clare,

209:couple. It reminded him of a Talmudic tale of a yeshiva student who followed his rabbi all day long, scrutinizing him as he prayed, ate, and studied. Once, the student even entered the scholar’s bedroom at night and hid under the bed to see what he could see. When the ancient scholar peeked under his bed and found his student staring back at him, the boy said, “This, too, is Torah and I have come to learn.” Not that Isaac would ever carry things that far. But ~ Ruchama King Feuerman,

210:Everyone needs a spiritual guide: a minister, rabbi, counselor, wise friend, or therapist. My own wise friend is my dog. He has deep knowledge to impart. He makes friends easily and doesn't hold a grudge. He enjoys simple pleasures and takes each day as it comes. Like a true Zen master he eats when he is hungry and sleeps when he is tired. He's not hung up about sex. Best of all, he befriends me with an unconditional love that human beings would do well to imitate. ~ Gary A Kowalski,

211:There is a special pleasure in the irony of a moralist brought down for the very moral failings he has condemned. It’s the pleasure of a well-told joke. Some jokes are funny as one-liners, but most require three verses: three guys, say, who walk into a bar one at a time, or a priest, a minister, and a rabbi in a lifeboat. The first two set the pattern, and the third violates it. With hypocrisy, the hypocrite’s preaching is the setup, the hypocritical action is the punch line. ~ Jonathan Haidt,

212:"We are willing to worship a God only if God makes us safe. Thus you get the silly question, How does a good God let bad things happen to good people? Of course, it was a rabbi who raised that question, but Christians took it up as their own. Have you read the Psalms lately? We're seeing a much more complex God than that question gives credit for." ~ Stanley Hauerwas from the Chronicle for Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, "A Complex God" September 28, 2001 The Chronicle Review Page: B6,

213:One day in Auschwitz, a group of Jews put God on trial. They charged him with betrayal and cruelty. Like Job, they found no consolation in the usual answers to the problems of evil and suffering in the midst of this current obscenity. They could find no excuse for God, no extenuating circumstances, so they found him guilty and, presumably, worthy of death. The Rabbi pronounced the verdict. Then he looked up and said that the trial was over, it was time for the evening prayer. ~ Karen Armstrong,

214:Mo nodded toward the back room just as Rabbi Kessler shuffled out, waving an open book at Mo and grinning from ear to ear. ‘So listen to this, Mo! Here’s how Rabbi Halberstam answers your question. And what’s more, he quotes Rashi, Rabbi Akiva, and Ramban, all of whom he completely disagrees with. And you know what? I completely disagree with all of them—and him too!’ Rabbi Kessler chuckled in gleeful anticipation. ‘So roll up your sleeves, Mo. We’ve got our work cut out for us! ~ Chris Moriarty,

215:I believe it was Jean Améry who noted that the first to bow to the oppressor’s system and to adopt its doctrines and methods were the intellectuals. But not all of them. Not the rabbis and priests, who, after all, were intellectuals too. With a single exception, no rabbi agreed to become a kapo. All refused to barter their own survival by becoming tools of the hangman. All preferred to die rather than serve death. The lessons of the prophets and the sages became shields for them. On ~ Elie Wiesel,

216:Somewhere I had had a trace of faith in free will, but this morning I felt sure that man possessed as much choice as the clockwork of my wristwatch or the fly that stopped on the edge of my saucer. The same powers were driving Hitler, Stalin, the Pope, the Rabbi of Gur, a molecule in the center of the earth, and a galaxy billions of lightyears distant from the Milky Way. Blind powers? Seeing powers? It did not matter any more. We were fated to play our little games and to be crushed. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer,

217:The paradox is that both theories work remarkably well. Nature is behaving with us like that elderly rabbi to whom two men went in order to settle a dispute. Having listened to the first, the rabbi says: ‘You are in the right.’ The second insists on being heard, the rabbi listens to him and says: ‘You’re also right.’ Having overheard from the next room the rabbi’s wife then calls out, ‘But they can’t both be in the right!’ The rabbi reflects and nods before concluding: ‘And you’re right too. ~ Carlo Rovelli,

218:In that room was a battered remnant of Prague’s intelligentsia – old professors in their shabby waistcoats; long-haired poets; fresh-faced students who had been denied admission to university for their parents’ political ‘crimes’; priests and religious in plain clothes; novelists and theologians; a would-be rabbi; and even a psychoanalyst. And in all of them I saw the same marks of suffering, tempered by hope; and the same eager desire for the sign that someone cared enough to help them. They ~ Roger Scruton,

219:our prayers are rarely petitionary. We don’t so much ask for things that we don’t have as give thanks for what we have received.” “I don’t understand.” The rabbi smiled. “It’s something like this. You Christians say, ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread.’ Our comparable prayer is, ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who bringest forth bread from the earth.’ That’s rather over-simplified, but in general our prayers tend to be prayers of thanksgiving for what has been given to us. ~ Harry Kemelman,

220:Rabbi Loew of sixteenth-century Prague. He is supposed to have formed an artificial human being—a robot—out of clay, just as God had formed Adam out of clay. A clay object, however much it might resemble a human being, is “an unformed substance” (the Hebrew word for it is “golem”), since it lacks the attributes of life. Rabbi Loew, however, gave his golem the attributes of life by making use of the sacred name of God, and set the robot to work protecting the lives of Jews against their persecutors. ~ Isaac Asimov,

221:The rabbi’s point was clear: if you can never evade the watchful eyes of a supreme authority, there is no choice but to follow the dictates that authority imposes. You cannot even consider forging your own path beyond those rules: if you believe you are always being watched and judged, you are not really a free individual. All oppressive authorities—political, religious, societal, parental—rely on this vital truth, using it as a principal tool to enforce orthodoxies, compel adherence, and quash dissent. ~ Anonymous,

222:Or how he was once found on the well regarded Rabbi's front lawn, bound in white string, and said he tied one around his finger to remember something terribly important, and fearing he would forget the index finger, he tied a string around his pinky, and then one from waist to neck, and fearing he would forget this one, he tied a string from ear to tooth to scrotum heel, and used his body to remember his body, but in the end could only remember the string. Is this someone to trust for a story? ~ Jonathan Safran Foer,

223:The Talmud tells a story about a great Rabbi who is dying, he has become a goses, but he cannot die because outside all his students are praying for him to live and this is distracting to his soul. His maidservant climbs to the roof of the hut where the Rabbi is dying and hurls a clay vessel to the ground. The sound diverts the students, who stop praying. In that moment, the Rabbi dies and his soul goes to heaven. The servant, too, the Talmud says, is guaranteed her place in the world to come. ~ Jonathan Rosen,

224:She was ushered into a passage where the only light came from the tallow taper in the rabbi's hand. The house smelled of chicken soup. In the thousand miles she and Rosa and the children had traveled from Siberia, passed along like parcels from settlement to Jewish settlement, sometimes in houses, often in huts, that smell had been the one constant, as if they had followed its trail by sniffing, like dogs. However poor their hosts, a hen had been killed in their honor because hospitality demanded it. ~ Ariana Franklin,

225:All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how many people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears. Add to that the effects of physical desire-and the excitement you spoke of-and all good sense and judgement fall away. The Rabbi paused, then said, But love founded only on loneliness and desire will die out before long. A shared history, tradition and values will link two people more thoroughly than any physical act. ~ Helene Wecker,

226:Embrace it. Accept it. Don’t resist it. Change is not only a part of life; change is a necessary part of God’s strategy. To use us to change the world, he alters our assignments. Gideon: from farmer to general; Mary: from peasant girl to the mother of Christ; Paul: from local rabbi to world evangelist. God transitioned Joseph from a baby brother to an Egyptian prince. He changed David from a shepherd to a king. Peter wanted to fish the Sea of Galilee. God called him to lead the first church. God makes reassignments. ~ Max Lucado,

227:Walaupun orang Yahudi yang berpengaruh tidak mengamalkan agama Yahudi, malah, seperti Einstein, mungkin menolak agama itu sama sekali, namun kesetiaan kepada nasib dan masa hadapan bangsa Yahudi amat mendalam. Mereka mempunyai tradisi ilmu yang lama, berpunca dari kitab Taurat dan tulisan Rabbi dan cendekiawan mereka. Mereka menghayati apa yang disebut oleh Eban sebagai "satu keghairahan mencari makna" (passion for meaning) yang telah membuat mereka berusaha mengharungi segala kesusahan sepanjang sejarah. ~ Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud,

228:That would be me,” I said. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Is this a joke?” “I beg your pardon?” the older fellow inquired politely, a faint smile on his narrow face. He sounded like an English butler. “You know, a tall priest and a short rabbi walk into a pagan bookstore …” “What?” He looked down at his companion, seeming to realize for the first time that he was quite a bit shorter and in fact of a different religious order than he. “Oh, gracious, I suppose it must seem amusing at that.” He didn’t seem amused, though. ~ Kevin Hearne,

229:A Rabbi gathered together his students and asked them: ‘How do we know the exact moment when night ends and day begins?’ ‘When it’s light enough to tell a sheep from a dog,’ said one boy. Another student said: ‘No, when it’s light enough to tell an olive tree from a fig tree.’ ‘No, that’s not a good definition either.’ ‘Well, what’s the right answer?’ asked the boys. And the Rabbi said: ‘When a stranger approaches, and we think he is our brother, and all conflicts disappear, that is the moment when night ends and day begins. ~ Paulo Coelho,

230:Our hair is as much as 14 percent L-cysteine, an amino acid commonly used to make meat flavorings and to elasticize dough in commercial baking. How commonly? Enough to merit debate among scholars of Jewish dietary law, or kashrut. “Human hair, while not particularly appetizing, is Kosher,” states Rabbi Zushe Blech, the author of Kosher Food Production, on Kashrut.com “There is no ‘guck’ factor,” Blech maintained, in an e-mail. Dissolving hair in hydrochloric acid, which creates the L-cysteine, renders it unrecognizable and sterile. ~ Mary Roach,

231:Rabbi, where are you going?” After an uncomfortable silence, Jesus finally said, “Back to camp,” and he turned and walked away. The disciples caught up with him on the path along the other side of the river. Demas and Gestas overheard Jesus explaining to them, “We must prepare to go to Jerusalem soon. It will be a time of great suffering for me.” “What do you mean?” asked Peter. “I will be killed there. But the twelve of you should not despair. This was ordained and spoken of in the prophets. But on the third day, I will be raised. ~ Brian Godawa,

232:Az men krigt zikh miten rov, muz men sholem zein miten shainker,” Avi had said when he first put the rifle in Jacob’s hands. The old Yiddish proverb could be roughly translated as, “If you’re at odds with your rabbi, make peace with your bartender.” His uncle offered no explanation, but as Jacob had chewed on its meaning, he had concluded that Avi meant something like, “Always be prepared” or “Have a plan B.” The problem was, Jacob didn’t want a plan B. He didn’t want life to change. He wanted things to be the way they had always been. ~ Joel C Rosenberg,

233:(circle 5) o look here now this is the way itself (circle 6) by which you'll understand the gilgul metempsychosis complete (circle 7) the one I now write in the circle (circle 8) the intention of the explanation (center circle 9) way that may be understood as three-fold gilgul metempsychosis (spokes) the chosen way disclosing secrets of the world & man [bk1sm.gif] -- from A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, Circles 2 (from Life of the Future World) ,

234:that a new word was being used in private Jewish circles in Berlin to describe the attacks on the Jews on November 9 and 10—Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. The rabbi said Siegen’s synagogue hadn’t been the only one burned to the ground. A total of some 265 synagogues had been burned, and an estimated 7,500 Jewish businesses had been ransacked. “Der Führer even ordered his Brownshirts to desecrate Jewish cemeteries all over the country,” the rabbi said. “You should pack up your things and take your family out of Germany before it’s too late. ~ Joel C Rosenberg,

235:The Weisz family are good Germans,” he insisted. “We will never leave our home. You should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting such a thing.” The rabbi argued with him at length. He said he and his family were leaving for England within days. He was urging every Jew he could find to get out before the end of the month. Jacob found the man’s arguments compelling, but as usual he kept his thoughts to himself, and the rabbi left as quickly as he’d come. Day by day Jacob was becoming more frightened. But his father seemed to be in a state of denial. ~ Joel C Rosenberg,

236:two men jumped out from the rocks to block their way. They were naked from head to feet and unshaven, with long, ratted hair that made them look like animals. They both had shackles on their hands and wrists, one chained, the other broken clean. Simon stepped near Jesus. He could smell their rank odor even from eight feet away. Then he saw why. They had smeared their bodies with excrement. Simon gagged. The two men stood side by side, chests heaving like wolves ready to attack. Some of the disciples stepped back in fright, making sure they were behind the Rabbi. ~ Brian Godawa,

237:When something is done by Jews, that does not make it Jewish. Jewish [religion] is defined by what Torah commands. Making our own state, or oppressing other people, is forbidden by Judaism and cannot be considered “Jewish”[...]Judaism is defined by Torah, and Torah teaches Jews to be subservient to the Almighty, follow His commandments, and live peacefully alongside the other nations of the world. Torah commands Jews not to kill or steal. ~ Meir Hirsch, Chief Rabbi: Nakba, Al-Quds Days Opportunities to Express Anti-Zionist Position by Orthodox Judaism (May 2020) Fars News Agency,

238:During these past years, not being able to speak with you, I dedicated myself to reviewing, within myself, the sacred books I know by heart. I had the idea I should summarize them in a single volume. Then, in a single chapter, then in a single page, and finally in a single sentence. This sentence is the greatest thing I can teach you. It seems simple, but if you understand it, you will never have to study again." The Rabbi recited it. And life, from that moment on, changed for Alejandro. "If God is not here, He is nowhere; this instant itself is perfection. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky,

239:Mark refers to Jesus by various titles — teacher, rabbi, Son of David, Christ, Lord, Son of Man, and Son of God. Of these, the final title is unquestionably the most important. Son of God defines both the beginning and end of the Gospel: it occurs in the opening pronouncement of the Gospel, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1), as well as in the concluding and climactic confession of the centurion at the cross, “‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’” (15:39). The divine Sonship of Jesus is the theological keystone to the Gospel of Mark. ~ Anonymous,

240:I believe it is in the national interest that government stand side-by-side with people of faith who work to change lives for the better. I understand in the past, some in government have said government cannot stand side-by-side with people of faith. Let me put it more bluntly, government can't spend money on religious programs simply because there's a rabbi on the board, cross on the wall, or a crescent on the door. I viewed this as not only bad social policy - because policy by-passed the great works of compassion and healing that take place - I viewed it as discrimination. ~ George W Bush,

241:However, the breath which is from the second one is a holy tabernacle in the heart. One ascends with the Unique Name to the sky to depict with Unifications the relationship between everything that is difficult in this science of pronunciation. It alone is life in the Name. It is remembered and sealed in the Book of Life to make the individual live with passion which enlightens constantly, when every thought, every soul is concentrated on it. [1741.jpg] -- from Meditation and Kabbalah, by Aryeh Kaplan ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, A Holy Tabernacle in the Heart (from Life of the Future World) ,

242:All through the Torah, God is pictured as having hands, a face. The rabbis say, Of course God doesn’t really have hands, but the Torah uses the language of faces and hands and eyes so that we will have an easier time wrapping our minds around this infinite, handless God. That is what you say if you are a rabbi. But if you are a good novelist, you actually give Him hands and eyes by the end of the book, and that is what the Bible does. It says, in Deuteronomy, that God brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; and then it gives Him an arm in the Gospel of Matthew. ~ Lauren F Winner,

243:Irgendwo war mir ein Rest von Glauben an den freien Willen geblieben, aber an diesem Morgen war ich sicher, dem Menschen blieb so viel freie Wahl wie dem Uhrwerk in meiner Armbanduhr oder der Fliege, die auf dem Rand meiner Untertasse saß. Es waren die gleichen Kräfte, die Hitler, Stalin, den Papst, den Rabbi von Gur und ein Molekül in der Mitte der Erde antrieben, wie auch ein Sternbild, das Milliarden Lichtjahre entfernt von der Milchstraße war. Blinde Mächte? Sehende Mächte? Es war gleichgültig geworden. Es war uns bestimmt, unsere kleinen Spiele zu spielen und zermalmt zu werden. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer,

244:The matron whom we find so often arguing with Rabbi José observed one day to that sage, 'My god is surely greater than yours. When your God appeared to Moses in the bush, Moses merely covered his face, whilst when my god (the serpent) made its appearance he could not stand his ground at all, but had to run away out of fear.' 'Not so, 'returned the Rabbi, 'for in order to be out of the power of your god it sufficed for Moses to step a few paces back, but whither could he have fled from the presence of Him who filleth the earth?' ~ Exodus Rabbah 3, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 92,

245:Muslim fundamentalists have toppled governments and either assassinated or threatened the enemies of Islam with the death penalty. Similarly, Jewish fundamentalists have settled in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the avowed intention of driving out the Arab inhabitants, using force if necessary. Thus they believe that they are paving a way for the advent of the Messiah, which is at hand. In all its forms, fundamentalism is a fiercely reductive faith. Thus Rabbi Meir Kahane, the most extreme member of Israel’s Far Right until his assassination in New York in 1990: There ~ Karen Armstrong,

246:David was the son of a famous Venetian rabbi. From his youth he had been accustomed to debate good principles and right conduct with all sorts of grave Jewish persons. These conversations had formed his own character and he naturally supposed that a small measure of the same could not help but improve other people's. In short he had come to believe that if only one talks long enough and expresses oneself properly, it is perfectly possible to argue people into being good and happy. With this aim in mind he generally took it upon himself to quarrel with Tom Brightwind several times a week -- all without noticeable effect. ~ Susanna Clarke,

247:We are part of a holy community that for three thousand years and more has been formed inside and out by these words of God, words that have been heard, tasted, chewed, seen, walked. Reading Holy Scripture is totally physical. Our bodies are the means of providing our souls access to God in his revelation: eat this book. A friend reports to me that one of the early rabbis selected a different part of our bodies to make the same point; he insisted that the primary body part for taking in the Word of God is not the ears but the feet. You learn God, he said, not through your ears but through your feet: follow the Rabbi. ~ Eugene H Peterson,

248:Avigail Stern, daughter of a rabbi, and Rebekah Weizmann, whose crime against the Reich was to have a father that was a prominent Jewish industrialist. They became firm friends in a place where friendship inevitably meant pain and loss. Avigail said, “In the camp infirmary, the SS doctors subjected the prisoners to medical experiments, causing terrible wounds that imitated those sustained by soldiers on the battlefield. They treated us with various experimental medicines to prevent infections. Some worked, some did not. Testing was also done on amputation techniques and setting and transplanting bones. Most of the women died. ~ Dan Eaton,

249:The Two Caps Rabbi David Moshe, the son of the rabbi of Rizhyn, once said to a hasid: “You knew my father when he lived in Sadagora and was already wearing the black cap and going his way in dejection; but you did not see him when he lived in Rizhyn and was still wearing his golden cap.” The hasid was astonished. “How is it possible that the holy man from Rizhyn ever went his way in dejection! Did not I myself hear him say that dejection is the lowest condition!” “And after he had reached the summit,” Rabbi David replied, “he had to descend to that condition time and again in order to redeem the souls which had sunk down to it. ~ Martin Buber,

250:As nobody bothered to honor them, they very sensibly celebrated each other at fund-raising synagogue dinners, taking turns at being Man-of-the-Year, awarding each other ornate plates to hang over the bar in the rumpus room. Furthermore, God was interested in the fate of the Hershes, with time and consideration for each one. To pray was to be heard. There was not even death, only an interlude below ground. For one day, as Rabbi Polsky assured them, the Messiah would blow his horn, they would rise as one and return to Zion, buried with twigs in their coffins, as Baruch had once said, to dig their way to Him before the neighbors. ~ Mordecai Richler,

251:Oh no, we stem from different traditions, all three of us. Monsignor O’Brien is a priest in the tradition of the priests of the Bible, the sons of Aaron. He has certain powers, magical powers, that he exercises in the celebration of the Mass, for example, where the bread and wine are magically changed to the body and blood of Christ. Dr. Skinner as a Protestant minister is in the tradition of the prophets. He has received a call to preach the word of God. I, a rabbi, am essentially a secular figure, having neither the mana of the priest nor the ‘call’ of the minister. If anything, I suppose we come closest to the judges of the Bible. ~ Harry Kemelman,

252:She remembered a story she had once heard: a woman had gossiped about her neighbors and later regretted what she said. She went to the rabbi and asked how she might take back her words. He instructed her to take a feather pillow to the top of the highest hill and tear it open, letting the feathers fly every which way. Then, the rabbi said, she should return to him and he would tell her what to do. She did as he said and when she returned, he told her to go outside and gather the feathers. But that's impossible, she cried. They're already scattered all over the village. He looked at her and smiled. The same is true of your words, he said. ~ Tova Mirvis,

253:Well, Peter,” said Jesus. “Do you know of any men who will provide as much?” Peter felt like a scolded child. “No, Rabbi.” Jesus said, “We are certainly in need of finances.” Peter muttered, “I think Judas is pilfering from the treasury.” Jesus said, “Nevertheless, I see no reason to reject the help of such beautiful and resourceful women.” Jesus reached out and hugged Joanna. Another moment of discomfort for Peter. Simon thought of another comment. “What a funny irony to have Herod on the one hand hunting you, and on the other, funding you.” He immediately looked to Mary to see her reaction. She giggled. Simon felt on top of the world. ~ Brian Godawa,

254:Knows How To Forget! 433 Knows how to forget! But could It teach it? Easiest of Arts, they say When one learn how Dull Hearts have died In the Acquisition Sacrificed for Science Is common, though, now— I went to School But was not wiser Globe did not teach it Nor Logarithm Show "How to forget"! Say—some—Philosopher! Ah, to be erudite Enough to know! Is it in a Book? So, I could buy it— Is it like a Planet? Telescopes would know— If it be invention It must have a Patent. Rabbi of the Wise Book Don't you know? ~ Emily Dickinson,

255:& the secret ITS MEASURE IS RIGHT & LEFT MEASURE OF ITS RIGHT ITS LEFT MEASURE OF ITS LEFT ITS RIGHT IT HAS NO IMAGE SKIES IMAGE OF ITS RIGHT LEFT IMAGE OF ITS LEFT RIGHT & ITS BIRTHPLACE BEING FROM NON-BEING FATHERING FROM NOTHING NAMES MY NAME IS OTHER THAN WHAT HAS NO IMAGE MY IMAGE IS OTHER THAN WHAT HAS NO NAME & I HAVE NO NAME OTHER THAN IMAGE & I HAVE NO IMAGE OTHER THAN NAME EN-EY-EM-EE WRITTEN OUT FULLY MY NAME AN IMAGINING FOR MY TRUTH [bk1sm.gif] -- from A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, Circles 4 (from Life of the Future World) ,

256:An old Hasidic rabbi asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and day begun, for daybreak is the time for certain holy prayers. “Is it,” proposed one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” “No,” answered the rabbi. “Is it when you can clearly see the lines on your own palm?” “Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell if it is a fig or a pear tree?” “No,” answered the rabbi each time. “Then what is it?” the pupils demanded. “It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that they are your sister or brother. Until then it is still night. ~ Jack Kornfield,

257:He then proceeded to expound the concept that had become a fixation with him: “Thee must acknowledge that Jesus Christ was himself a Jew. Living in Palestine under the hot sun, he was probably darker than many American Negroes. And his features could not have been the sweetly simple ones of our religious calendars. He was a Jew, and he doubtless looked much as thy tailor or doctor or professor looks today. If Jews have large noses, he had one. If they are swarthy, he was swarthy. If they talk with their hands, he did so too. During much of his life Jesus Christ was a Jewish rabbi, and if we forget this, we forget the nature of Christianity.” At ~ James A Michener,

258:To gather up enthusiasm for my work, I reminded myself how our recent sages, of blessed memory, devoted themselves to the Torah. For instance, there was the story of the author of the Face of Joshua, whose disciples once arrived late. "Why are you late?" he asked them when they came. "We were afraid to go out because of the cold," they replied. He raised his face from the book—and his beard was frozen hard to the table. "True," he said. "It is cold today." Or like the story of Rabbi Jacob Emden, who hired a servant to announce to him every hour, "Woe, another hour has gone," so that the illustrious scholar should give himself an account of what he had put right during that hour. ~ S Y Agnon,

259:It was on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest of holy days, that a fly flew under the door of the synagogue and began to pester the hanging congregants. It flew from face to face, buzzing, landing on long noses, going in and out of hairy ears. AND IF THIS IS A TEST, the Venerable Rabbi enlightened, trying to keep his congregation together, SHOULD WE NOT RISE TO ITS CHALLENGE? AND I URGE YOU: CRASH TO THE GROUND BEFORE YOU RELEASE THE GREAT BOOK! But how pestering that fly was, tickling some of the most ticklish places. AND AS GOD ASKED ABRAHAM TO SHOW ISAAC THE KNIFE’S POINT, SO IS HE ASKING US NOT TO SCRATCH OUR ASSES! AND IF WE MUST, BY ALL MEANS WITH THE LEFT HAND! ~ Jonathan Safran Foer,

260:Dr. R scratches out a note on his pad. "Losing you both was only the practice pain, wasn't it? For my mum and dad..." He puts his finger on his lips, his elbow at his chest, not racked with cancer. "Yes." "And when that happens, this will seem like nothing." He nods. "When it happens," he asks me, "what will get you through?" "Friends who love me." "And if your friends weren't there?" "Music through headphones." "And if the music stopped?" "A sermon by Rabbi Wolpe." "If there was no religion?" "The mountains and the sky." "If you leave California?" "Numbered streets to keep me walking." "If New York falls into the ocean?" Your voice in my head. ~ Emma Forrest,

261:So much of that sermon was offensive to Simon’s own sense of holiness, and yet, there was something so right with this man. Simon was rethinking everything he had been taught in the Community. He was afraid of how the rabbi had affected him. He failed to return to Barabbas or even send a report, because he was drawn more to Jesus than Barabbas. If Jesus should prove to have hidden plans of revolution that opposed Barabbas, he was supposed to kill him. But Simon could never do such a thing. The Rabbi was the incarnation of Shalom, the peace of wholeness that he had sought for all his life. And it seemed to be a wholeness that worked against the division that was fomented by the revolutionaries. ~ Brian Godawa,

262:This is an organic religion. A religion of the people from heart to heart; a faith that finds the presence of the Divine within life, and nature, and ourselves. We don't have teachers and books because we are our own teachers, and our book is the sacred book of the Earth. We believe that we can connect with the God and Goddess and hear their voices, receive their inspiration directly and take responsibility for our own actions, without the intermediary of a pope or rabbi. We have a loose set of beliefs and morals and a ritual structure that is common to all Wiccans, but there is room for creativity and deep mystical experiences. This is a faith with roots as old as the earth. --Meri Fowler ~ Arin Murphy Hiscock,

263:Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined desert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe’s frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe’s massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God. ~ Michael Chabon,

264:İlahî! Kullarına ve kulların içinde de özellikle veli kullarına kolaylık bahşettiğin sırrınla bana da tecellî buyur ve benim işlerimi de kolaylaştır. Fakirliğimi gınaya çevir. Cinnî ve insî bütün hasetçilerin basarlarını alacak parlak bir nur ile beni te’yîd eyle. Her hâl ve makamda her türden düşmana karşı beni galibiyetle serfiraz kıl. Beni başkalarından öyle müstağnî eyle ki, Sana olan fakr u ihtiyacım hep sabit olsun. Muhakkak ki Sen Ğaniyy ü Mecîd, Veliyy ü Hamîd, Kerîm ü Reşîd’sin. Allahım! Efendimiz Hazreti Muhammed’e, pırıl pırıl aile fertlerine ve iyiliğin zirvedeki temsilcileri olan ashâbına salât ve selâm eyle. Ezelden ebede her türlü hamd ve övgü, şükür ve minnet, Âlemlerin Rabbi Allah’a mahsustur. ~ Anonymous,

265:No church will be required to change any of its doctrine related to marriage. No priest or rabbi or other religious official will be required to officiate a gay marriage, and people of faith will be able to advocate in the public square any particular view of marriage,” said Dale Carpenter, a University of Minnesota law professor who supports gay marriage. “All those things are a matter of constitutional law and they were reiterated today in Justice Kennedy’s opinion,” he said. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority ruling, said that “religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. ~ Anonymous,

266:Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.” The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated. As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones. “Nor am I without sin,” he says to the people. “But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it. ~ Orson Scott Card,

267:I love the healing parable of Jesus and the blind man. As he went along he saw a man blind from birth, his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?”     “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” We have been trained to think in terms of sin and punishment. These ideas disempower us by stressing that we are weak and wrong. The empowering way is to view trials as lessons and opportunities to choose differently. We can transcend the odious notion of being sinners cloaked in guilt, awaiting punishment. To access a spiritual solution to a problem involves focusing on the idea of a solution. ~ Wayne W Dyer,

268:The story of Carol's transformation evoked complicated feelings in Rose. It appalled her, of course. The idea of an educated, metropolitan woman voluntarily casting off every vestige of modernity in order to make herself over as a medieval ghetto-dweller was unconscionable - but it also inspired a sneaking envy. By submitting to the restraints of Orthodoxy, Carol had not only performed an impressive act of self-denial - an act guaranteed to appeal to Rosa's ascetic sensibility - but also freed herself from the burden of trying to improvise her own moral code. These days, she always knew what the right thing to do was - or if she didn't, she knew a rabbi who did. Every aspect of her daily life was consonant with her convictions. ~ Zo Heller,

269:A man was on a rooftop during a horrific flood. “Lord, save me,” he shouted to the heavens. After a bit, a boat came by with a rabbi in it. “Come with me, son. I can help.” “No,” said the man. “God will save me.” In a bit, another boat came by with a protestant minister at the helm. “Come with me,” he called out. “I can help.” “No, God will save me.” A third boat came by as the waters were rising dangerously close to the top of the house. From it, a Catholic priest offered a ride. Again the man declined. Not long after that, the waters reached his feet. Then his waist. He shouted up to the Lord, “I had faith you’d save me. You deserted me.” The heavens opened up and God spoke to him. “I didn’t desert you. I sent you three boats. ~ Kathryn Shay,

270:It became clear to Simon what had just happened. Jesus had shown mastery not merely over the storm, as Ba’al might, but over the forces of chaos. He tamed the untamable Leviathan. He walked upon its back as would a conqueror upon the neck of his defeated foe. When Yahweh had divided the Red Sea in the exodus, he crushed the heads of Leviathan. He pushed back the chaos of the waters to establish is covenantal order with Moses and the people of Israel. He created order out of the disorder of the cosmos, like creating the heavens and the earth. What was this amazing event but a sign of Jesus’s power to vanquish the chaos and establish a new covenantal order, a new heavens and earth? This rabbi was no mere human Messiah, he was a god-man. ~ Brian Godawa,

271:something which in itself is meaningless cannot be rendered meaningful merely by its perpetuation. However, the rabbi evaluated his plight as an orthodox Jew in terms of despair that there was no son of his own who would ever say Kaddish7 for him after his death. But I would not give up. I made a last attempt to help him by inquiring whether he did not hope to see his children again in Heaven. However, my question was followed by an outburst of tears, and now the true reason for his despair came to the fore: he explained that his children, since they died as innocent martyrs,8 were thus found worthy of the highest place in Heaven, but as for himself he could not expect, as an old, sinful man, to be assigned the same place. I did not give ~ Viktor E Frankl,

272:He used to vary the adhkaar he recited in rukoo‟. In addition to “Subhaana Rabbi al- „Azeem (Glory be to my Supreme Lord)” and “Subhaana Rabbi al-„Azeem wa bi hamdih (Glory and praise be to my Supreme Lord)”, he would say: “Subbooh, Quddoos, Rabb il-Malaa‟ikati wa‟l-Rooh (Perfect, Blessed, Lord of the Angels and the Spirit),” or, “Allaahumma laka raka‟tu wa bika aamantu wa laka aslamtu wa „alayka tawakkaltu anta Rabbi.Khasha‟a sam‟i wa basari wa dammi wa lahmi wa „azmi wa „asabi Lillaahi Rabbi‟l-„Alaameen (O Allah, to You have I bowed, to You I have submitted, in You I have believed, to You I have submitted and in You I have put my trust. Humbled are my hearing, my seeing, my blood, my flesh, my bones and my nerves for Allah, Lord of the Worlds ~ Anonymous,

273:I mean that certain fictions, chiefly Conan Doyle, Stevenson, but many others also, laid out a template that was more powerful than any local documentary account - the presences that they created, or "figures" if you prefer it, like Rabbi Loew's Golem, became too much and too fast to be contained within the conventional limits of that fiction. They got out into the stream of time, the ether; they escaped into the labyrinth. They achieved an independent existence. The writers were mediums; they articulated, they gave a shape to some pattern of energy that was already present. They got in on the curve of time, so that by writing, by holding off the inhibiting reflex of the rational mind, they were able to propose a text that was prophetic. ~ Iain Sinclair,

274:Jesus drew closer to the women and said with affection. “Greetings, Mary.” “Greetings, Rabbi. I want you to meet some other women who may be able to help fund your ministry.” She pointed to an older woman with graying hair but a bright smile. “This is Susanna, a seller of fabrics. She is a widow. I told her all about you. She has known me for many years.” Susanna said, “Thank you for what you’ve done with Mary.” Jesus placed his hand empathetically on her shoulder and said softly, “I am sorry about your husband. How long has it been?” Susanna suddenly teared up. She could barely get out, “Four years.” “You loved him deeply.” She couldn’t say anything without bursting into tears, so she just nodded her head. Jesus pulled her close and hugged her. ~ Brian Godawa,

275:DO YOU believe,” the disciple asked the rabbi, “that God created everything for a purpose?” “I do,” replied the rabbi. “Well,” asked the disciple, “why did God create atheists?” The rabbi paused before giving an answer, and when he spoke his voice was soft and intense. “Sometimes we who believe, believe too much. We see the cruelty, the suffering, the injustice in the world and we say: ‘This is the will of God.’ We accept what we should not accept. That is when God sends us atheists to remind us that what passes for religion is not always religion. Sometimes what we accept in the name of God is what we should be fighting against in the name of God.” -Chief Rabbi Emeritus [of the United Synagogues of the British Commonwealth] Jonathan Sacks ~ Jonathan Sacks,

276:As a boy, I never knew where my mother was from---where she was born, who her parents were. When I asked she'd say, "God made me." When I asked if she was white, she'd say, "I'm light-skinned," and change the subject. She raised twelve black children and sent us all to college and in most cases graduate school. Her children became doctors, professors, chemists, teachers---yet none of us even knew her maiden name until we were grown. It took me fourteen years to unearth her remarkable story---the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, she married a black man in 1942---and she revealed it more as a favor to me than out of any desire to revisit her past. Here is her life as she told it to me, and betwixt and between the pages of her life you will find mine as well. ~ James McBride,

277:An official brought the chief rabbi of a town before the Court of the Inquisition and told him, “We will leave the fate of your people to God. I’m putting two slips of paper in this box. On one is written ‘Guilty.’ On the other is written ‘Innocent.’ Draw.” Now this inquisitor was known to seek the slaughter of all the Jews, and he had written “Guilty” on both pieces of paper. The rabbi put his hand inside the box, withdrew a slip of paper—and swallowed it. “What are you doing?” cried the inquisitor. “How will the court know—” “That’s simple,” said the rabbi. “Examine the slip that’s in the box. If it reads ‘Innocent,’ then the paper I swallowed obviously must have read ‘Guilty.’ But if the paper in the box reads ‘Guilty,’ then the one I swallowed must have read ‘Innocent. ~ Leo Rosten,

278:A middle-aged man stood with one arm held tightly around what seemed to be his wife and the other around his twelve-year old daughter. From his dress, it was apparent he was a synagogue ruler. He was mid-story, speaking with a hushed tone. “While I was pleading with him, a messenger came and said, ‘Do not trouble the rabbi any further.’” He choked up. “‘Your daughter is dead.’” The ruler looked down at his daughter, obviously alive now, and kissed her head with adoration. He continued. “But Jesus told me, ‘Do not fear. Only believe.’ I led him with Peter, James and John to my house. There was already much weeping and wailing by the crowd. And then he said, ‘Why are you making such a commotion?’” This time the man choked up with amusement. “‘The child is not dead, but sleeping. ~ Brian Godawa,

279:This emphasis on verbal abuse is typical of the sages in their sensitivity to language as the creator or destroyer of social bonds. As Rabbi Eleazar notes, harsh or derogatory speech touches on self-image and self-respect in a way that other wrongs do not. What is more, as Rabbi Samuel bar Naĥmani makes clear, financial wrongdoing can be rectified in a way that wounding speech cannot. Even after apology, the pain (and the damage to reputation) remains. A stranger, in particular, is sensitive to his or her status within society. He or she is an outsider. Strangers do not share with the native-born a memory, a past, a sense of belonging. They are conscious of their vulnerability. Therefore we must be especially careful not to wound them by reminding them that they are not “one of ~ Jonathan Sacks,

280:One year, on Yom Kippur eve, Salanter did not show up in synagogue for services. The congregation was extremely worried; they could only imagine that their rabbi had suddenly taken sick or been in an accident. In any case, they would not start the service without him. During the wait, a young woman in the congregation became agitated. She had left her infant child at home asleep in its crib; she was certain she would only be away a short while. Now, because of the delay, she slipped out to make sure that the infant was all right. When she reached her house, she found her child being rocked in the arms of Rabbi Salanter. He had heard the baby crying while walking to the synagogue and, realizing that the mother must have gone off to services, had gone into the house to calm him. ~ Joseph Telushkin,

281:g But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are  h all brothers. [3] 9 i And call no man your father on earth, for  j you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor,  k the Christ. 11 l The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 m Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 13“But woe  n to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you  o shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you  p neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. [4] 15Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single  q proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a  r child of  s hell [5] as yourselves. ~ Anonymous,

282:Hannah Arendt once observed that, in every generation, Western civilization is invaded by barbarians: We call them “children.” The family is the first line of defense against this barbarian invasion. The metaphor is inapt, because parents aren’t at war with babies themselves. But parents are at war with the darker side of human nature, which we all work to trim away from for our children by inscribing in their hearts notions of decency, fair play, and self-restraint. When parents fail to do that, other institutions, including the government, try to step in and remedy what they can. But no teacher, counselor, social service worker, priest, rabbi, imam, or police officer will deny that, when the family fails to do its part, the work of every institution downstream of the family becomes that much more difficult. ~ Jonah Goldberg,

283:staying at Simon Peter’s home with Rabbi Jesus and his other disciples, and the Rabbi had just healed Peter’s mother of a fever, when a Roman lord arrived to thank him for healing his servant of paralysis. It was not the healings that he was astounded by. That was almost a daily occurrence with the Rabbi. Simon had seen epileptics calmed, fevers cooled, and even yesterday, a leper instantly cleansed. It seemed that every time they entered a new town, the Rabbi would cast out a dozen demons riled up by his presence, in addition to the dozens he would heal of sicknesses. This one had been healed remotely, without the Rabbi being in his presence. It was not this miraculous healing that astonished Simon. It was who he had healed. The lord of the servant was a Roman centurion! Not merely a Gentile, but the armed oppressor of Israel! ~ Brian Godawa,

284:Peter stepped over to him and whispered, “But rabbi, she is the Ob priestess. She is no doubt full of demons.” Jesus whispered to him, “Seven. She actually had seven demons. I already cast them out.” Peter said, “But, women? What business can we have with them?” Jesus said, “We are about to find out.” He leaned in. “Peter, I think you had better reevaluate your low opinion of women in the kingdom of God. They are your fellow heirs of eternal life. You had better get used to their valuable contributions. They may be subordinate to you in their roles, but they are going to share equally with you in your inheritance.” Peter stood dumbfounded and chastised. Jesus looked at Mary, who was staring wide-eyed at Simon. Jesus leaned over to Simon. “And you had better change your monkish views as well, Simon. I think she has an interest in you. ~ Brian Godawa,

285:A smile costs nothing but gives much    It enriches those who receive    Without making poorer those who give    It takes but a moment,       But the memory of it sometimes    Lasts forever    None is so rich or mighty that    He can get along without it,    And none is so poor but that    He can be made rich by it       A smile creates happiness in the home,    Fosters good will in business,    And is the countersign of friendship    It brings rest to the weary,       Cheer to the discouraged,    Sunshine to the sad and it is natures    Best antidote for trouble    Yet it cannot be bought, begged,    Borrowed, or stolen, for it is    Something that is of no value    To anyone until it is given away.       Some people are too tired to give you a smile    Give them one of yours    As none needs a smile    So much as he who has no more to be give.    ~ Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch?,

286:Cellar Christians!" Foyle exclaimed. He and Robin peered through the window. Thirty worshipers of assorted faiths were celebrating the New Year with a combined and highly illegal service. The twenty-fourth century had not yet abolished God, but it had abolished organized religion. "No wonder the house is man-trapped," Foyle said. "Filthy practices like that. Look, they've got a priest and a rabbi, and that thing behind them is a crucifix." "Did you ever stop to think what swearing is?" Robin asked quietly. "You say 'Jesus' and 'Jesus Christ.' Do you know what that is?" "Just swearing, that's all. Like 'ouch' or 'damn.'" "No, it's religion. You don't know it, but there are two thousand years of meaning behind words like that." "This is no time for dirty talk," Foyle said impatiently. "Save it for later. Come on. ~ Alfred Bester,

287:Simon had been sent by Barabbas to find out if the Nazarene was a fellow revolutionary, a self-proclaimed messiah, or something else. Simon’s heart had been strangely moved by this stranger and he was still trying to figure him out. But the Rabbi remained a mystery to him. The centurion had asked him to heal his servant and Jesus replied that he had not seen such great faith in all of Israel. That was shocking enough, to attribute such goodness to a filthy, unclean stranger to the covenant. But then he said that many such people would come to the feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom—in other words, Israelites—would be thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. As an Essene scribe at Qumran, Simon had spent his whole life in rituals of cleanness and separation. ~ Brian Godawa,

288:The monster gurgled out, “I adjure you by the Living God, do not torment us!” It was a common phrase of magical incantation, used by exorcists for the binding of spirits. It was followed by gibberish words that Simon recognized from the Greek magical papyrus texts he had read in his past study of magic. These two creatures knew that Jesus meant to bind them, and they were trying to reverse that curse back upon the Rabbi. It had no effect. Jesus said to them, “You will leave these men.” Suddenly, both of them screamed with the sound of a thousand furies, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” They ran full speed at Jesus. Simon and the others stepped back in fear of the impact. A moment before they hit Jesus, they stopped, as if they had collided with an invisible wall. They screeched again. The sound pierced Simon’s ears. Everyone clapped their hands over their ears, except Jesus. ~ Brian Godawa,

289:Though there were many auspicious signs that preceded and accompanied Jesus's birth that might have prepared us for something kingly and special, the birth of Jesus was of the humblest peasant parentage in an unimportant town and in the lowest conceivable of buildings, a stable. After his birth he moved from there to a despised portion of the country, Galilee, to an unsavory town, Nazareth. As he grew up, he took a blue-collar job as a carpenter. He achieved a measure of notice as an adult when he was a rabbi with several men and women following him, but even then he went out of his way to reject marks of status by touching lepers, washing the feet of his followers, befriending little children, letting women become prominent in his entourage, and finally being crucified under the most humiliating circumstances. Everything about Jesus spoke of servitude. ~ Eugene H Peterson,

290:So, as I wrote in the paperback edition of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, I started telling anyone who asked “Is God in cyberspace?” that the answer is “no”—but He wants to be there. But only we can bring Him there by how we act there. God celebrates a universe with such human freedom because He knows that the only way He is truly manifest in the world is not if He intervenes but if we all choose sanctity and morality in an environment where we are free to choose anything. As Rabbi Marx put it, “In the postbiblical Jewish view of the world, you cannot be moral unless you are totally free. If you are not free, you are really not empowered, and if you are not empowered the choices that you make are not entirely your own. What God says about cyberspace is that you are really free there, and I hope you make the right choices, because if you do I will be present.” The ~ Thomas L Friedman,

291:There was once a Cossack who saw a rabbi walking through the town square nearly every day at about the same time. One day he asked curiously: “Where are you going, rabbi?” The rabbi answered: “I am not sure.” “You pass this way every day at this time. Surely, you know where you’re going.” When the rabbi insisted that he did not know, the Cossack became irritated, then suspicious, and finally took the rabbi to jail. Just as he was locking the cell, the rabbi faced him and said gently: “You see, I didn’t know.” Before the Cossack interrupted him, the rabbi knew where he was going, but afterward, he no longer knew. The interruption (we can call it a measurement) offered new possibilities. This is the message of quantum mechanics. The world is not determined by initial conditions, once and for all. Every event of measurement is potentially creative and may open new possibilities. ~ Amit Goswami,

292:, Yiddish God pursues me everywhere, Enmeshes me in glances, And blinds my sightless back like flaming sun. God, like a forest dense, pursues me. My lips are ever tender, mute, so amazed, So like a child lost in an ancient sacred grove. God pursues me like a silent shudder. I wish for tranquility and rest -- He urges; come! And see -- how visions walk like the homeless on the streets. My thoughts walk about like a vagrant mystery -- Walks through the world's long corridor. At times I see God's featureless face hovering over me. God pursues me in the streetcars and cafes Every shining apple is my crystal sphere to see How mysteries are born and vision came to be. - from "Human, God's Ineffable Name," by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, freely rendered by Rabbi Zalman M. Schacter-Shalomi. Available from the Reb Zalman Legacy Project ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, God Pursues Me Everywhere ,

293:Whose acts are greater, man’s or God’s?” Rabbi Akiva answered that man’s acts are greater. Turnus Rufus responded that the heavens and earth are God’s creations which man cannot equal. Rabbi Akiva then brings sheaves of wheat and cakes and says to Turnus Rufus, “The sheaves of wheat were made by God while these cakes were made by man.” He explains that man is not meant to eat wheat as it grows from the ground but rather to process and develop it into a complete product. Rabbi Akiva then says, “Why does a child come out with an umbilical cord until the mother cuts it?” Rabbi Akiva is trying to communicate to Turnus Rufus that natural, God-created states are not necessarily perfect. Judaism does not believe in taking the natural world as it is; humans are meant to take the materials God provided and improve on them. There are imperfections in the world, and we need to perfect them. Successful ~ H W Charles,

294:Christians and Jews hold in common one theological basis for hospitality: Creation. Creation is the ultimate expression of God's hospitality to His creatures. In the words of on rabbi, everything God created is a "manifestation of His kindness. [The] world is one big hospitality inn." As Church historian Amy Oden has put it, "God offers hospitality to all humanity... by establishing a home.. for all." To invite people into our homes is to respond with gratitude to the God who made a home for us. In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we find another resource for hospitality. The trinity shows God in relationships with Himself. our Three-in-one God has welcomed us into Himself and invited us to participate in divine life. And so the invitation that we as Christians extend to one another is not simply an invitation into our homes or to our tables; what we ask of other people it that hey enter into our lives. ~ Lauren F Winner,

295:the idea of demonic transmigration. There were the expected Catholic texts from the Rituale Romanum, containing the rites and guidelines for major exorcisms, but also a host of more arcane materials whose origins ranged from India to Egypt. She found passages copied from the Zohar, the Jewish mystical text of Kabbalistic teachings, describing the ways in which a demon could secretly slip into a victim’s soul, and how it could only be dislodged by a minyan reciting Psalm 91 three times; if the rabbi then blew a certain melody on the shofar, or ram’s horn, the sound would in effect “shatter the body” and shake the evil spirit loose. Even the Muslims had their methods for disposing of wandering demons. The prophet Muhammad instructed his followers to read the last three suras from the Koran—the Surat al-Ikhlas (the Fidelity), the Surat al-Falaq (the Dawn), and the Surat an-Nas (Mankind)—and drink water from the holy well of Zamzam. ~ Robert Masello,

296:When you have a child, you start to dream of how this kid will grow up and make you proud. The only thing you can predict with 100% certainty is that the reality will diverge somehow from that dream. Some of our children will disappoint us by not being the scholars we hoped they would be. Some children will disappoint us by not being the athletes we hoped they would be. Some will disappoint us by coming out and telling us they are gay and they won't give us grandchildren...the real question is not, what book can I read, what technique can I use to raise a perfect child? The real question is how will you handle that gap between the child you dreamt of having and the real child growing up in your home...What I have learned is that any religion, if you do it wrong, will leave people feeling condemned and dismissed and unworthy and any religion, if you do it right, will leave people feeling cleansed and firmed. (118) Rabbi Harold Kushner ~ Carol Lynn Pearson,

297:Integrity Integrity is the ability to listen to a place inside oneself that doesn't change, even though the life that carries it may change. —RABBI JONATHAN OMER-MAN Much of our journey throughout this book has been about discovering that place inside and cultivating the ability to listen to it, while having compassion for the life that carries it. It moves me to share the story of a troubled man who, exhausted from his suffering and confusion, asked a sage for help. The sage looked deeply into the troubled man and with compassion offered him a choice: “You may have either a map or a boat.” After looking at the many pilgrims about him, all of whom seemed equally troubled, the confused man said, “I'll take the boat.” The sage kissed him on the forehead and said, “Go then. You are the boat. Life is the sea.” As we have discovered so many times, we have everything we need within us. This ability to listen inside is our oldest oar. You are the boat. ~ Mark Nepo,

298:The characteristics of this kind of reading are perhaps summed up in the word “orthodox,” which is almost always applicable. The word comes from two Greek roots, meaning “right opinion.” These are books for which there is one and only one right reading; any other reading or interpretation is fraught with peril, from the loss of an “A” to the damnation of one’s soul. This characteristic carries with it an obligation. The faithful reader of a canonical book is obliged to make sense out of it and to find it true in one or another sense of “true.” If he cannot do this by himself, he is obliged to go to someone who can. This may be a priest or a rabbi, or it may be his superior in the party hierarchy, or it may be his professor. In any case, he is obliged to accept the resolution of his problem that is offered him. He reads essentially without freedom; but in return for this he gains a kind of satisfaction that is possibly never obtained when reading other books. ~ Mortimer J Adler,

299:27. Jesus’ disciples interrupt the conversation by their return from Sychar, where they had gone to purchase food (v. 8). Their unvoiced surprise that he was talking with a Samaritan woman reflects the prejudices of the day. Some (though by no means all) Jewish thought held that for a rabbi to talk much with a woman, even his own wife, was at best a waste of time and at worst a diversion from the study of Torah, and therefore potentially a great evil that could lead to Gehenna, hell (Pirke Aboth 1:5). Some rabbis went so far as to suggest that to provide their daughters with a knowledge of the Torah was as inappropriate as to teach them lechery, i.e. to sell them into prostitution (Mishnah Sotah 3:4; the same passage also provides the contrary view). Add to this the fact that this woman was a Samaritan (cf. notes on v. 9), and the disciples’ surprise is understandable. Jesus himself was not hostage to the sexism of his day (cf. 7:53–8:11; 11:5; Lk. 7:36–50; 8:2–3; 10:38–42). ~ D A Carson,

300:The book in your hands is a small window on a large subject. Set at a private liberal arts college in the foothills of the Appalachians, it is the story of a Christian minister who lost her way in the church and found a new home in the classroom, where the course she taught most often was not Introduction to the New Testament, Church History, or Christian Theology, but Religions of the World. As soon as she recovered from the shock of meeting God in so many new hats, she fell for every religion she taught. When she taught Judaism, she wanted to be a rabbi. When she taught Buddhism, she wanted to be a monk. It was only when she taught Christianity that the fire sputtered, because her religion looked so different once she saw it lined up with the others. She always promised her students that studying other faiths would not make them lose their own. Then she lost hers, or at least the one she started out with. This is the story of how that happened and what happened next. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor,

301:A synagogue had been established in Birobidzhan in 1929, a small wooden building constructed by some of the first settlers. Twenty years later, everyone who attended the Rosh Hashanah services was arrested; the rabbi was sentenced to death. Jews returned to the wooden building in the late 1950s, but with the end of Khrushchev's Thaw, gathering there became too risky again and services moved to private apartments. In the 1970s, when the air in the Soviet Union once more grew a bit lighter, services at the synagogue resumed. But the last of the occasionally observant Jews were old, and by the mid-1980s a minyan - a quorum of ten Jewish adults - became impossible. The wooden building was repurposed. There was no synagogue in the Jewish Autonomous Region for the next twenty years - until American Jews had given enough money to erect two small stone buildings on Lenin Street, one for the synagogue and one for the Freud Jewish community center, both protected by a single metal fence. ~ Masha Gessen,

302:Do you remember Zhitomir, Vasily? Do you remember the Teterev, Vasily, and that evening when the Sabbath, the young Sabbath tripped stealthily along the sunset, her little red heel treading on the stars? THe slender horn of the moon bathed its arrows in the black waters of the Teterev. Funny little Gedali, founder of the Fourth International, was taking us to Rabbi Motele Bratzlavsky’s for evening service. Funny little Gedali swayed the cock’s feathers on his high hat in the red haze of the evening. The candes in the Rabbi’s room blinked their predatory eyes. Bent over prayer books, brawny Jews were moaning in muffled voices, and the old buffoon of the zaddiks of Chernobyl jingled coppers in his torn pocket... ...Do you remember that night, Vasily? Beyond the windows horses were neighing and Cossacks were shouting. The wilderness of war was yawning beyong the windows, and Robbi Motele Bratzslavsky was praying at the eastern wall, his decayed fingers clinging to his tales. (...) ~ Isaac Babel,

303:And YHVH spoke to me when I saw His name spelled out and merged with the blood in my heart, separating blood from ink and ink from blood: and YHVH said to me: Bohold, blood is the name of your soul, and ink the name of your spirit: your father and mother are vessels for my name and a sign. And then I fathomed the tremendous difference between my spirit and soul, and a great joy came through me. For I knew my soul was dwelling in the redness as blood, and my spirit was dwelling in the blackness as ink. And there raged a war in my heart between the blood and the ink: the blood from the wind and the ink from dust, and the black ink over the blood was victorious -- as the Sabbath subdues all days of the week. And so my heart rested within me -- and I offer praise to the Lord, to the Name in my heart forever. [2465.jpg] -- from The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, Edited by Peter Cole ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, And YHVH spoke to me when I saw His name ,

304:At every stage of technique since Daedalus or Hero of Alexandria, the ability of the artificer to produce a working simulacrum of a living organism has always intrigued people. This desire to produce and to study automata has always been expressed in terms of the living technique of the age. In the days of magic, we have the bizarre and sinister concept of Golem, that figure of clay into which the Rabbi of Prague breathed life with the blasphemy of the Ineffable Name of God. In the time of Newton, the automaton becomes the clockwork music box, with the little effigies pirouetting stiffly on top. In the nineteenth century, the automaton is a glorified heat engine, burning some combustible fuel instead of the glycogen of the human muscles. Finally, the present automaton opens doors by means of photocells, or points guns to the place at which a radar beam picks up an airplane, or computes the solution of a differential equation.    ~ Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine, 1961,

305:Aryeh looked, and his head became light. How could he have not seen? The earth on which the Almighty created the plants and the animals—in each and every illumination, it was shown as an orb. That the earth was round, and not flat, was now the opinion of a majority of theologians. Interesting that this artist of a century earlier, when Christians were being sent to the stake for this belief, espoused it. But that, alone, would not condemn the book. The illuminator had ventured further into dangerous territory. In the top right corner of three of the paintings, above the earth, was a second gold-leafed orb, clearly meant to be the sun. Its placement was ambiguous. Aryeh looked up at Vistorini. “You believe this implies the heliocentric heresy?” “‘Implies’! Rabbi, don’t be disingenuous. This is clearly in support of the heresy of the Saracen astronomers, of Copernicus, whose book is on the Index, of that man in Padua, Galileo, who will soon enough be brought before the Inquisition to answer for his errors. ~ Geraldine Brooks,

306:Jacopo, while I could still read, during these past months, I read dictionaries, I studied histories of words, to understand what was happening in my body. I studied like a rabbi. Have you ever reflected that the linguistic term `metathesis' is similar to the oncological term `metastasis'? What is the metathesis? Instead of `clasp' one says `claps.' Instead of `beloved' one says `bevoled.' It's the temurah. The dictionary says that metathesis means the transposition or interchange, while metastasis indicates the change and shifting. How stupid dictionaries are! The root is the same. Either it's the verb metatithemi or the verb methistemi. Metatithemi means I interpose, I shift, I transfer, I substitute, I abrogate a law, I change a meaning. And methistemi? It's the same thing: I move, I transform, I transpose, I switch cliches, I take leave of my senses. And as we sought secret meanings beyond the letter, we all took leave of our senses. And so did my cells, obediently, dutifully. That's why I'm dying, Jacopo, and you know it. ~ Umberto Eco,

307:In the very earliest passages of the Talmud, God was experienced in mysterious physical phenomena. The Rabbis spoke about the Holy Spirit, which had brooded over creation and the building of the sanctuary, making its presence felt in a rushing wind or a blazing fire. Others heard it in the clanging of a bell or a sharp knocking sound. One day, for example, Rabbi Yohannan had been sitting discussing Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot, when a fire descended from heaven and angels stood nearby: a voice from heaven confirmed that the Rabbi had a special mission from God.80 So strong was their sense of presence that any official, objective doctrines would have been quite out of place. The Rabbis frequently suggested that on Mount Sinai, each one of the Israelites who had been standing at the foot of the mountain had experienced God in a different way. God had, as it were, adapted himself to each person “according to the comprehension of each.”81 As one Rabbi put it, “God does not come to man oppressively but commensurately with a man’s power of receiving him. ~ Karen Armstrong,

308:If you'll cast your mind back to the situation in the early years of the Christian era and imagine the mentality of a Roman aristocrat, a person of power in Roman society. Their physics is drawn from democritean atomism, in other words they are thoroughgoing materialists. Their social theory is drawn from Epictetus and Plato. They are in fact extremely modern people by our own standards. However, among the gardeners and kitchen help and stable boys, there is news of a momentous event in the Middle East - a Jewish rabbi has triumphed over death and risen after three days in the tomb. Should the master of the Roman household have caught wind of this kind of superstitious talk among the help, he would have just dismissed it with a sneer, "What preposterous idea!" And it is a preposterous idea, nevertheless, the fact that an idea is preposterous has never held it back from making zealous converts, and within a 120 years after the annunciation of the birth of Christianity, its missionaries were beating on the gates of Rome attempting to convert the Emperor. ~ Terence McKenna,

309:Occasional Poems I Christmas Poem for Nancy Noel, Noel We live and we die Between heaven and hell Between the earth and the sky And all shall be well And all shall be unwell And once again! all shall once again! All shall be well By the ringing and the swinging of the great beautiful holiday bell Of Noel! Noel! II Salute Valentine I'll drink to thee only with my eyes When two are three and four, And guzzle reality's rise and cries And praise the truth beyond surmise When small shots shout: More! More! More! More! III Rabbi to Preach Rabbi Robert Raaba will preach on "An Eye for an Eye" (an I for an I?) (Two weeks from this week: "On the Sacred Would") At Temple Sholem on Lake Shore Drive - Pavel Slavensky will chant the liturgical responses And William Leon, having now thirteen years will thank his parents that he exists To celebrate his birthday of manhood, his chocolate Bar Mitzvah, his yum-yum kippered herring, his Russian Corona. ~ Delmore Schwartz,

310:Jesus gestured to the two men, now laying on the ground awakening from their unconsciousness. “Get them some clothes and water.” Some of the disciples did so as Jesus sat down on a rock. He looked troubled. Simon asked him, “What is wrong, Rabbi?” Jesus stared out into the void. “The Gates of Hades have been opened. The Nephilim have returned.” A wave of understanding washed over Simon. Of course, he thought. My obsession with separation and uncleanness blinded me to the spiritual truth. Peter asked, “What does that mean, Rabbi?” Jesus remained silent and distant. Simon tried to help out by explaining it to Peter and the others who listened. “The healings, the exorcisms. They are not mere tricks of magic power intended to invoke awe, like a circus spectacle. The lepers, the blind and the lame—and sinners—are all those who are not allowed in the Temple because of their uncleanness. They are cut off from the privilege of Yahweh’s holy presence by Torah. By casting out the uncleanness, Jesus is purifying the land and the people of Israel. He is preparing us for our inheritance. ~ Brian Godawa,

311:Now Christianity proposes a completely different account of how history comes to a climax and what precisely constitutes the new order of the ages—which helps to explain why so many of modernity’s avatars, from Diderot to Christopher Hitchens, have specially targeted Christianity. On the Christian reading, history reached its highpoint when a young first-century Jewish rabbi, having been put to death on a brutal Roman instrument of torture, was raised from the dead through the power of the God of Israel. The state-sponsored murder of Jesus, who had dared to speak and act in the name of Israel’s God, represented the world’s resistance to the Creator. It was the moment when cruelty, hatred, violence, and corruption—symbolized in the Bible as the watery chaos—spent itself on Jesus. The resurrection, therefore, showed forth the victory of the divine love over those dark powers. St. Paul can say, “I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God,” precisely because he lived on the far side of the resurrection. ~ Robert E Barron,

312:(circle 1 - inner rim) be very wary as your fathers warned you of the fire don't be burnt by it & water (spokes) not to drown in it & wind that it not harm you you not use (circle 2 - inner rim) it on condition anyone who takes the name for his own needs transgresses the command (spokes) about said name was formed to be for his own glory only thus the prophet said about its secret (circle 3 - inner rim) whatever has my name and I made it for my honor formed it worked it truly & concerning this the name informed (spokes) his prophets (be he blest) about his name by 3 ways of creation of the skies & earth & man (circle 4 - inner rim) & know according to the name the one most honored is the one of Israel because the name's own portion is his people & and the most honored one (spokes) of Israel is the Levite & the most honored of the Levites is the priest & the most honored of the priests is the Messiah [bk1sm.gif] -- from A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, Circles 1 (from Life of the Future World) ,

313:, Yiddish From word to word I roam, from dawn to dusk. Dream in, dream out -- I pass myself and towns, A human satellite. I wait, am hopeful, as one who waits at the rock For the spring to well forth and ever well on. I feel as bright as if I tented somewhere in the Milky Way. To urge the world to feel I walk through lonesome solitudes. All around me lightning explodes sparks from my glance To reveal all light, unveil faces everywhere. Godward, onward to the final weighing overcoming heavy weight with thirst. Constantly, the longings of all born call out, "Is anyone around?" I know each one is HE, but in my heart there writhes a tear; When of men and rocks and trees I hear; All plead "Feel us" All beg "See us" God! Lend me your eyes! I came to be, to sow the seed of sight in the world, To unmask the God who disguised Himself as world-- And yes, I wait to be the first to announce "The Dawn." - from "Human, God's Ineffable Name," by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, freely rendered by Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi. Available from the Reb Zalman Legacy Project ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Intimate Hymn ,

314:There is a special pleasure in the irony of a moralist brought down for the very moral failings he has condemned. It’s the pleasure of a well-told joke. Some jokes are funny as one-liners, but most require three verses: three guys, say, who walk into a bar one at a time, or a priest, a minister, and a rabbi in a lifeboat. The first two set the pattern, and the third violates it. With hypocrisy, the hypocrite’s preaching is the setup, the hypocritical action is the punch line. Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return. With contempt you don’t need to right the wrong (as with anger) or flee the scene (as with fear or disgust). And best of all, contempt is made to share. Stories about the moral failings of others are among the most common kinds of gossip,3 they are a staple of talk radio, and they offer a ready way for people to show that they share a common moral orientation. Tell an acquaintance a cynical story that ends with both of you smirking and shaking your heads and voila, you’ve got a bond. ~ Jonathan Haidt,

315:The apostle Paul often appears in Christian thought as the one chiefly responsible for the de-Judaization of the gospel and even for the transmutation of the person of Jesus from a rabbi in the Jewish sense to a divine being in the Greek sense. Such an interpretation of Paul became almost canonical in certain schools of biblical criticism during the nineteenth century, especially that of Ferdinand Christian Baur, who saw the controversy between Paul and Peter as a conflict between the party of Peter, with its 'Judaizing' distortion of the gospel into a new law, and the party of Paul, with its universal vision of the gospel as a message about Jesus for all humanity. Very often, of course, this description of the opposition between Peter and Paul and between law and gospel was cast in the language of the opposition between Roman Catholicism (which traced its succession to Peter as the first pope) and Protestantism (which arose from Luther's interpretation of the epistles of Paul). Luther's favorite among those epistles, the letter to the Romans, became the charter for this supposed declaration of independence from Judaism. ~ Jaroslav Pelikan,

316:These shmystal-crystals, Akiva. What do people do with them? Do they talk to them and wait for an answer? Do they hold them up to the sun and tan their faces? What?” “I’m not a crystal expert, Rav Schulman, but I think they’re used to communicate with the dead.” The old man shook his head with disapproval. “I will never understand the fascination with the dead.” “We all die.” “Yes, we do, but we all live as well. People should concentrate on bettering their lives, not trying to second-guess the other side. If they live righteously, they’ll have nothing to worry about. Boruch Hashem, I’ve made it this far. Now one might even say I have one foot in the grave—” “Rabbi—” “Not that I’m ready to die.” The old man stood and took out two shot glasses. “But if it happens, it happens. People who fear death do not fear God. Besides, Akiva, what do the sages teach us about Torah?” “It was meant for the living not the dead.” “Correct!” Schulman filled the glasses with whiskey and handed one to Decker. “So, my friend, let us live and learn and do mitzvot as Hashem commanded us.” He held his drinking glass aloft. “To life—l’chaim.” “L’chaim,” Decker said. ~ Faye Kellerman,

317:, Yiddish Each single moment greets my life, A message clear from timelessness. All names and words recall to me The word most precious: God! Pebbles twinkle up like stars, Silent raindrops echo true, What all creation echoes too, My Father, Teacher, word from You. My All, Your Name is my safe refuge. Without Your nearness I am naught, So lonely, saddening, is that thought. All I possess, is just this word -- If forgetfulness would snatch a name from me Let it be mine not Thine, So screams in dread that heart of mine. With every word I nickname You, I call you 'Woods' and 'Night' and 'Ah' and 'Yes,' With all my instants weaving sacred time A bit of ever-always is my gift to You. Would that for Eternity I could celebrate a holiday for You. Not just a day -- a lifetime. Please! How insignificant my thrift and gift Of offerings and adoration. What can my efforts do for You But this: to wander everywhere and bear a living witness that shows I care. - from "Human, God's Ineffable Name," by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, freely rendered by Rabbi Zalman M. Schacter-Shalomi. Available from the Reb Zalman Legacy Project ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Word Most Precious ,

318:The Torah, like other ancient law codes, assigns the death penalty to many proscribed behaviors besides murder—including adultery, rape of a betrothed woman, giving insult or injury to one’s parents, witchcraft, male homosexuality, and public profanation of the Sabbath. By the second century C.E., however, the Talmudic rabbis, whose debates and rulings constitute the main body of Halakha, had virtually nullified the death penalty. The Mishnah (the codification of law that forms the core text of the Talmud) states, “A Sanhedrin [governing council] that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death” (Makkot 7A). Even in murder cases, the Torah’s requirement of two eyewitnesses for a sentence of death was interpreted by the Talmudic rabbis to make capital punishment highly unlikely: the murderer’s own confession could not be accepted as evidence, and the two eyewitnesses were required also to have warned the criminal beforehand that he would be executed! Justice tempered by mercy thus became the Jewish ideal. ~ Leo Rosten,

319:Listening to the faint heartbeat of the dying Rabbi is a powerful stimulus to the recovery of passion. It is a sound like no other. The Crucified says, “Confess your sin so that I may reveal Myself to you as lover, teacher, and friend, that fear may depart and your heart can stir once again with passion.” His word is addressed both to those filled with a sense of self-importance and to those crushed with a sense of self-worthlessness. Both are preoccupied with themselves. Both claim a godlike status, because their full attention is riveted either on their prominence or their insignificance. They are isolated and alienated in their self-absorption. The release from chronic egocentricity starts with letting Christ love them where they are. Consider John Cobb’s words: The spiritual man can love only . . . when he knows himself already loved in his self-preoccupation. Only if man finds that he is already accepted in his sin and sickness, can he accept his own self-preoccupation as it is; and only then can his psychic economy be opened toward others, to accept them as they are—not in order to save himself, but because he doesn’t need to save himself. We love only because we are first loved.[9] ~ Brennan Manning,

320:The tyranny of this dictatorship isn't primarily the fault of Big Business, nor of the demagogues who do their dirty work. It's the fault of Doremus Jessup! Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups who have let the demagogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest. "A few months ago I thought the slaughter of the Civil War, and the agitation of the violent Abolitionists who helped bring it on, were evil. But possibly they had to be violent, because easy-going citizens like me couldn't be stirred up otherwise. If our grandfathers had had the alertness and courage to see the evils of slavery and of a government conducted by gentlemen for gentlemen only, there wouldn't have been any need of agitators and war and blood. "It's my sort, the Responsible Citizens who've felt ourselves superior because we've been well-to-do and what we thought was 'educated,' who brought on the Civil War, the French Revolution, and now the Fascist Dictatorship. It's I who murdered Rabbi de Verez. It's I who persecuted the Jews and the Negroes. I can blame no Aras Dilley, no Shad Ledue, no Buzz Windrip, but only my own timid soul and drowsy mind. Forgive, O Lord! "Is it too late? ~ Sinclair Lewis,

321:Alongside the viciousness of much of German politics in the Weimar years was an incongruous innocence: few people could imagine the worst possibilities. A civilized nation could not possibly vote for Hitler, some had thought. When he became chancellor nonetheless, millions expected his time in office to be short and ineffectual. Germany was a notoriously law-abiding as well as cultured land. How could a German government systematically brutalize its own people? German Jews were highly assimilated and patriotic. Many refused to leave their homeland, even as things got worse and worse. "I am German and am waiting for the Germans to come back; they have gone to ground somewhere," Victor Klemperer wrote in his diary--he was the son of a rabbi and a veteran of the First World War who chose to stay, and miraculously survived. Few Germans in 1933 could imagine Treblinka or Auschwitz, the mass shootings of Babi Yar or the death marches of the last months of the Second World War. It is hard to blame them for not foreseeing the unthinkable. Yet their innocence failed them, and they were catastrophically wrong about their future. We who come later have one advantage over them: we have their example before us. ~ Benjamin Carter Hett,

322:You remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town, and that the all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me." The waters rose up. A guy in a rowboat came along and he shouted, "Hey, hey you, you in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety." But the man shouted back, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me." A helicopter was hovering overhead and a guy with a megaphone shouted, "Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I'll take you to safety." But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety. Well... the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter he demanded an audience with God. "Lord," he said, "I'm a religious man, I pray, I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?" God said, "I sent you a radio report, a helicopter and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here? He sent you a priest, a rabbi and a Quaker. Not to mention his son, Jesus Christ. What do you want from him? ~ Aaron Sorkin,

323:Paul knew what he was talking about when he called Christians “earthen vessels.” We’re baked clay. We’re privy pots. The advance of the gospel will never occur on account of us. This helps explain why God chose none of the early preachers among the apostles because of his superior intellect, position, or prominence. As I wrote in my book Twelve Ordinary Men, these twelve were so ordinary it defies all human logic: not one teacher, not one priest, not one rabbi, not one scribe, not one Pharisee, not one Sadducee, not even a synagogue ruler—nobody from the elite. Half of them or so were fishermen, and the rest were common laborers. One, Simon the Zealot, was a terrorist, a member of a group who went around with daggers in their cloaks, trying to stab Romans. Then there was Judas, the loser of all losers. What was the Lord doing? He picked people with absolutely no influence. None of the great intellects from Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Israel was among the apostles. During the New Testament time, the greatest scholars were very likely in Egypt. The most distinguished philosophers were in Athens. The powerful were in Rome. The biblical scholars were in Jerusalem. God disdained all of them and picked clay pots instead. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

324:We sing the order of the night, a tune which reminds me of being a little girl in a new dress that, because of the season, came with an Easter bonnet, which I wore as well. It reminds me of being so studious that I took to heart my teachers' promise that for each word of the seder we recited, we would receive divine credit for a separate good deed. Now, for me, there is no counting up good deeds, no worrying about ingesting every crumb of required matzo. It's not the same seder I used to attend but an alternate one being written in the margins. There is room for the pleasure of being here with my family, telling the story we have been imparting for generations. I am still part of this story, and the story remains part of me as well - its language, its rhythms, its customs all have shaped who I am. To the rabbi who once issued the warning about partaking but not enjoying, and to the wayward yeshiva student who tried to go, I want to offer my own ending: When participation no longer feels like it might be mistaken for capitulation, when there is acceptance of who have chosen to become - then it's possible to return and enjoy parts of what you've left. Not ever leave-taking had to be absolute and entire. Orthodoxy can remain my childhood home, a place I visit but where I no longer live. ~ Tova Mirvis,

325:A New York rabbi said: ‘Einstein is unquestionably a great scientist, but his religious views are diametrically opposed to Judaism.’ ‘But’? ‘But’? Why not ‘and’? The president of a historical society in New Jersey wrote a letter that so damningly exposes the weakness of the religious mind, it is worth reading twice:   We respect your learning, Dr Einstein; but there is one thing you do not seem to have learned: that God is a spirit and cannot be found through the telescope or microscope, no more than human thought or emotion can be found by analyzing the brain. As everyone knows, religion is based on Faith, not knowledge. Every thinking person, perhaps, is assailed at times with religious doubt. My own faith has wavered many a time. But I never told anyone of my spiritual aberrations for two reasons: (1) I feared that I might, by mere suggestion, disturb and damage the life and hopes of some fellow being; (2) because I agree with the writer who said, ‘There is a mean streak in anyone who will destroy another’s faith.’ . . . I hope, Dr Einstein, that you were misquoted and that you will yet say something more pleasing to the vast number of the American people who delight to do you honor.   What a devastatingly revealing letter! Every sentence drips with intellectual and moral cowardice. ~ Richard Dawkins,

326:If a Jewess from the East – her family comes from Cairo, I gather – were to find herself in need of help in Paris, where would she go?’ ‘To her family,’ replied ben-Gideon promptly. ‘I’m not sure she has one in Paris.’ ‘Benjamin, my mother spends eleven and a half hours out of twenty-four going from sister to sister, from aunt to aunt, from the houses of her sisters-in-law and second-cousins to the grandparents of my father’s old business-partners, lugging my sisters along with her, and what do you think they all talk about? Family.’ Ben-Gideon ticked off subjects with his fingers. ‘Who’s marrying whom. Who shouldn’t have married whom and why not. Who’s expecting a child and who isn’t bringing their children up properly. Oh, was she the one who married Avram ben-Hurri ben-Moishe ben-Yakov and is now operating that import business in Prague?  . . .  No, no, that was the OTHER Cousin Rachel who married Avram ben-Hurri ben-Moishe ben-CHAIM and THEY’RE in Warsaw, where THEIR son is a rabbi  . . .  Every rabbi from Portugal to Persia will tell you that women’s minds are incapable of the concentration required for study of the Torah, yet I guarantee you that not a single word of this lore is forgotten. You can drop any Jew over the age of seven naked in the dark out of a balloon anywhere in Europe, and he or she will locate family in time for breakfast. ~ Barbara Hambly,

327:The number 6 was the first perfect number, and the number of creation. The adjective "perfect" was attached that are precisely equal to the sum of all the smaller numbers that divide into them, as 6=1+2+3. The next such number, incidentally, is 28=1+2+4+7+14, followed by 496=1+2+4+8+16+31+62+124+248; by the time we reach the ninth perfect number, it contains thirty-seven digits. Six is also the product of the first female number, 2, and the first masculine number, 3. The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (ca. 20 B.C.-c.a. A.D. 40), whose work brought together Greek philosophy and Hebrew scriptures, suggested that God created the world in six days because six was a perfect number. The same idea was elaborated upon by St. Augustine (354-430) in The City of God: "Six is a number perfect in itself, and not because God created the world in six days; rather the contrary is true: God created the world in six days because this number is perfect, and it would remain perfect, even if the work of the six days did not exist." Some commentators of the Bible regarded 28 also as a basic number of the Supreme Architect, pointing to the 28 days of the lunar cycle. The fascination with perfect numbers penetrated even into Judaism, and their study was advocated in the twelfth century by Rabbi Yosef ben Yehudah Ankin in his book, Healing of the Souls. ~ Mario Livio,

328:You can be a rich person alone. You can be a smart person alone. But you cannot be a complete person alone. For that you must be part of, and rooted in, an olive grove. This truth was once beautifully conveyed by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner in his interpretation of a scene from Gabriel García Márquez’s classic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude: Márquez tells of a village where people were afflicted with a strange plague of forgetfulness, a kind of contagious amnesia. Starting with the oldest inhabitants and working its way through the population, the plague causes people to forget the names of even the most common everyday objects. One young man, still unaffected, tries to limit the damage by putting labels on everything. “This is a table,” “This is a window,” “This is a cow; it has to be milked every morning.” And at the entrance to the town, on the main road, he puts up two large signs. One reads “The name of our village is Macondo,” and the larger one reads “God exists.” The message I get from that story is that we can, and probably will, forget most of what we have learned in life—the math, the history, the chemical formulas, the address and phone number of the first house we lived in when we got married—and all that forgetting will do us no harm. But if we forget whom we belong to, and if we forget that there is a God, something profoundly human in us will be lost. ~ Thomas L Friedman,

329:There is a moment in the tractate Menahot when the Rabbis imagine what takes place when Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. In this account (there are several) Moses ascends to heaven, where he finds God busily adding crownlike ornaments to the letters of the Torah. Moses asks God what He is doing and God explains that in the future there will be a man named Akiva, son of Joseph, who will base a huge mountain of Jewish law on these very orthographic ornaments. Intrigued, Moses asks God to show this man to him. Moses is told to 'go back eighteen rows,' and suddenly, as in a dream, Moses is in a classroom, class is in session and the teacher is none other than Rabbi Akiva. Moses has been told to go to the back of the study house because that is where the youngest and least educated students sit. Akiva, the great first-century sage, is explaining Torah to his disciples, but Moses is completely unable to follow the lesson. It is far too complicated for him. He is filled with sadness when, suddenly, one of the disciples asks Akiva how he knows something is true and Akiva answers: 'It is derived from a law given to Moses on Mount Sinai.' Upon hearing this answer, Moses is satisfied - though he can't resist asking why, if such brilliant men as Akiva exist, Moses needs to be the one to deliver the Torah. At this point God loses patience and tells Moses, 'Silence, it's my will. ~ Jonathan Rosen,

330:Constantine soon began to renege on the promise of religious freedom as far as Jews were concerned. In 315, he issued a new edict, forbidding Jews—and only Jews—from proselytizing. Much later in the fourth century, however, Judaism demonstrated its continuing appeal for outsiders by attracting large numbers of Arabs, with whom the Jews had generally lived in amity throughout the early Diaspora, in Himyar (now Yemen). The Arab converts to Judaism proved just as intolerant of Christians as Christians were proving to be of Jews in late antiquity, and expended a fair amount of effort in the fifth century trying to wipe out the Christians among them. In the end, around 525, the Arab Jews of Himyar were vanquished when a much larger force of Ethiopian Christian troops crossed the Red Sea to attack them. (Today a tiny remnant of those Arab-descended Jews—no more than a few hundred—still live in a Yemen descending into chaos as militant Shia Houthi rebels—whose slogan is “Death to America, Death to Israel, Damnation to the Jews”—have seized power. The United States and Britain, which tried to get the remaining Jews out of Yemen, both closed their embassies as a result of escalating violence in 2015. Suleiman Jacob, the unofficial rabbi of a community of just fifty-five Jews in the capital of Raida, said in a poignant interview, “There isn’t a single one of us here who doesn’t want to leave. Soon there will be no Jews in Yemen, inshallah.”8) ~ Susan Jacoby,

331:The now-famous yearly Candlebrow Conferences, like the institution itself, were subsidized out of the vast fortune of Mr. Gideon Candlebrow of Grossdale, Illinois, who had made his bundle back during the great Lard Scandal of the '80s, in which, before Congress put an end to the practice, countless adulterated tons of that comestible were exported to Great Britain, compromising further an already debased national cuisine, giving rise throughout the island, for example, to a Christmas-pudding controversy over which to this day families remain divided, often violently so. In the consequent scramble to develop more legal sources of profit, one of Mr. Candlebrow's laboratory hands happened to invent "Smegmo," an artificial substitute for everything in the edible-fat category, including margarine, which many felt wasn't that real to begin with. An eminent Rabbi of world hog capital Cincinnati, Ohio, was moved to declare the product kosher, adding that "the Hebrew people have been waiting four thousand years for this. Smegmo is the Messiah of kitchen fats." [...] Miles, locating the patriotically colored Smegmo crock among the salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, steak sauce, sugar and molasses, opened and sniffed quizzically at the contents. "Say, what is this stuff?" "Goes with everything!" advised a student at a nearby table. "Stir it in your soup, spread it on your bread, mash it into your turnips! My doormates comb their hair with it! There's a million uses for Smegmo! ~ Thomas Pynchon,

332:Simon explained, “Demons are the spirits of the Nephilim. You will remember the readings in synagogue from the Scriptures that in the days of Noah, the fallen Sons of God mated with the daughters of men. Their unholy offspring were the Nephilim, giant hybrid bastards of angel and human essence. This unholy mixing of heaven and earth, was a violation of the separation of creation. But it was also the attempt to corrupt the human bloodline of the promised Messiah who would crush the head of the Serpent.” Peter interjected, “The Nephilim were killed in the Flood.” Simon nodded. “Yes, but their seed rose again to occupy the land of Canaan that was promised as Israel’s inheritance by Yahweh. Joshua used the holy wars of Yahweh to cleanse the land from the evil filth of the Nephilim, whose descendants were the mighty Anakim and Rephaim. It was not until King David that they were fully subdued and wiped out.” Peter asked Jesus directly, “Well, then what do you mean that the Nephilim are back, Rabbi?” Jesus sighed. “The god of this world, and his principalities and powers know that I am here. So they have awakened the spirits of the Nephilim to occupy the Land. The holy wars of Yahweh are renewed in the heavenlies.” Simon added for clarification, “Rabbi is cleansing the land for inheritance by Messiah.” “In the synagogue,” said Jesus, “I did not quote the entire passage from Isaiah. I left out the last line.” “What was the line, Rabbi?” asked Peter. Jesus said somberly, “To proclaim the day of vengeance of our God. ~ Brian Godawa,

333:(circle 10) so are the letters in their true essentials & when joined to people & to books that carry them are made intelligible as wholes to world & public: forms that the lowly asses carry though their existence is eternal: so then manchild you be careful that you not forget that you are working transformation of the Torah (circle 11) making it exist inside your soul in its particulars: so turn through it o turn through it & what of it is fit for your fulfillment let your hand fulfill: do what I tell you here it is your life your length of days from which you come to know what isn't fitting that a wise man be without & then your ways will be successful (circle 12) & then you will be wise: the way that you must cleave to & be strong in all your days will be the way of turning letters & combining them: & understanding what is understood rejoicing in your understandings & eternally rejoicing this rejoicing further wakening your heart to keep on turning them & understanding: joy & pleasures as you rush to turn (circle 13) like one who turns the sword the flame that turns itself toward every side & wages war against the enemies around you: for the empty images & forms of thought born of the evil impulse are the first emerging into thought surrounding it like murderers to foul the gnosis of the lowly tortured man [bk1sm.gif] -- from A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg ~ Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, Circles 3 (from Life of the Future World) ,

334:No one wanted the job. What had seemed one of the least challenging tasks facing Franklin D. Roosevelt as newly elected president had, by June 1933, become one of the most intransigent. As ambas-sadorial posts went, Berlin should have been a plum—not London or Paris, surely, but still one of the great capitals of Europe, and at the center of a country going through revolutionary change under the leadership of its newly appointed chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Depending on one’s point of view, Germany was experiencing a great revival or a savage darkening. Upon Hitler’s ascent, the country had undergone a brutal spasm of state- condoned violence. Hitler’s brown- shirted paramilitary army, the Sturmabteilung, or SA—the Storm Troopers—had gone wild, arresting, beating, and in some cases murdering communists, socialists, and Jews. Storm Troopers established impromptu prisons and torture stations in basements, sheds, and other structures. Berlin alone had fi fty of these so- called bunkers. Tens of thousands of people were arrested and placed in “protective custody”— Schutzhaft—a risible euphemism. An esti-mated fi ve hundred to seven hundred prisoners died in custody; others endured “mock drownings and hangings,” according to a police affi davit. One prison near Tempelhof Airport became especially no-torious: Columbia House, not to be confused with a sleekly modern new building at the heart of Berlin called Columbus House. The up-heaval prompted one Jewish leader, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York, to tell a friend, “the frontiers of civilization have been crossed. ~ Erik Larson,

335:Do not worry,” the Rebbe told me, or rather I told myself using the image of that aged Jew who was dressed as a rabbi. “Loneliness means not knowing how to be with oneself.” Of course, I do not mean to imply that a child of seven years can speak in such a fashion. But I understood these things, albeit not in a rational manner. The Rebbe, being an internal image, put things into my mind that were not intellectual. He made me feel something that I swallowed, in the way that a newly hatched eaglet, its eyes still closed, swallows the worm that is placed in its beak. Much later as an adult I began to find words to translate things that were, at that young age—how can I explain it?—openings into other planes of reality. “You are not alone. Remember last week when you were surprised to see a sunflower growing in the courtyard? You concluded that the wind had blown a seed there. A seed, though it looks insignificant, contains the future flower. This seed somehow knew what plant it was going to be, and this plant was not just in the future: although immaterial, although only a design, the sunflower existed there, in that seed, blowing in the wind over hundreds of kilometers. And not only was the plant there, but also the love of light, the turning in search of the sun, the mysterious union with the pole star, and—why not?—a form of consciousness. You are not different. All that you are going to be, you are. What you will know, you already know. What you will search for, you are already seeking: it is in you. I may not be real, but the old man who you now see, although he has my inconsistent appearance, is real because he is you, which is to say, he is what you will be. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky,

336:I arrived at the house, after walking through those silent and deserted streets, in which the few who stood seemed occupied on some dark official business, and in which party slogans and symbols disfigured every building. The staircase of the apartment building was also deserted. Everywhere the same expectant silence hung in the air, as when an air raid has been announced, and the town hides from its imminent destruction. Outside the apartment, however, I encountered two policemen, who seized me as I rang the bell and demanded my papers. Dr Tomin came out, and an altercation ensued, during which I was pushed down the stairs. But the argument continued and I was able to push my way up again, past the guards and into the apartment. I found a room full of people, and the same expectant silence. I realized that there really was going to be an air raid, and that the air raid was me. In that room was a battered remnant of Prague’s intelligentsia – old professors in their shabby waistcoats; long-haired poets; fresh-faced students who had been denied admission to university for their parents’ political ‘crimes’; priests and religious in plain clothes; novelists and theologians; a would-be rabbi; and even a psychoanalyst. And in all of them I saw the same marks of suffering, tempered by hope; and the same eager desire for the sign that someone cared enough to help them. They all belonged, I discovered, to the same profession: that of stoker. Some stoked boilers in hospitals; others in apartment blocks; one stoked at a railway station, another in a school. Some stoked where there were no boilers to stoke, and these imaginary boilers came to be, for me, a fitting symbol of the communist economy. ~ Roger Scruton,

337:Rabbi Zimmerman is away this Shabbat morning, so Rabbi David Stern leads Chever Torah in his place. Rabbi Stern is young, handsome, and possessed of a lightning quick wit. He wears his hair in the style made famous by J.F.K. His energy is contagious. The morning's discussion accelerates as he asks a question worthy of Rashi, then paces back and forth in front of the hall grinning with delight as we answer and respond with questions of our own. But a few minutes later the rhythm flags inexplicably and we sit silently, staring at our Torahs. Rabbi Stern fires off another question. No one answers. He offers a provocative observation - something controversial to stir the pot. Still, we are silent. Finally, in frustration, he exclaims, "Come on people! Somebody disagree with me! How can we learn anything if no one will disagree?" We laugh. But it occurs to me that Rabbi Stern has offered the most profound observation of the day, and it is a very Jewish idea. Unfortunately, most theological conversations I have had in church have been the self-reinforcing kind: a group of people sitting around telling each other what everyone already believes. If some brave soul interjects a radical new idea or questions one of the group's firmly held views, it is usually an unpleasant experience. We shift in our seats uncomfortably until someone rises to the bait. The discussion remains civil, but it seems that any challenge to the groups' theology must be corrected, so all comments are solidly aimed at that one goal: arriving at a preconceived answer. Chever Torah has no such agenda. Or perhaps I should say all discussions have the same agenda: to explore the possibilities - all the possibilities. ~ Athol Dickson,

338:Tud ön a rossz elragadtatásában követni? Vérfagyasztó tévedés áldozatai vagyunk. Ó, boldogtalan Mirabel! Mind azt hiszik, hogy a rossz hasznosabb, mint a jó, erre mind rosszak lesznek. De ez nem elég. Mind azt hiszik, hogy a rossz érdekesebb, mint a jó, erre mind a rosszra rendezkednek be, sőt büszkék rá. De még ez sem elég. Mind azt hiszik, hogy a rossz a realitás, erre a jót elnevezik idealizmusnak, és elméletet csinálnak. Ez a hármas borzalom. Érti? Mert én nem értem. Tudja mi ez? Ellenállás nélkül minden megy tovább. Mintha semmi sem történt volna. Mintha Lao-ce és Hérakleitosz, Buddha és Szókratész, Nagarjuna és Shankaracharya és rabbi Hillél és Plótinosz és Bruno és Ramakrishna szájukat se nyitották volna ki soha. Ami van, az a zsarnokok és az őrültek és a gazfickók, a forradalmak és a háborúk és a börtönök és a munkatáborok. Ami ezen kívül van, az idealizmus. Nem történt semmi. Sem Echnaton, sem Saint-Exupéry nem szólt egy szót sem. Minden megy tovább az atombomba útján. Nincs ellenállás. Mintha semmi sem történt volna, és ezt a valamit hívják realitásnak, ezt a minden megrázkódtatásnál erősebbet és hatalmasabbat és következetesebbet hívják realitásnak, minden elvnél és áldozatnál és hajmeresztőnél és Golgotánál hatalmasabbat hívják realitásnak, ezt a széptől és nagytól és igazságtól és békétől való elhagyatottságot hívják realitásnak, azt a sötét gödröt amelybe minden keservesen kiküzdött világosság elmerül, amelybe senkinek sincs betekintése, amit senki nem ismer, ezt hívják realitásnak, amely túl van minden emberin, nem könyörületes, nem könyörtelen, nem jó és nem rossz, nem közömbös és nem résztvevő, ezt hívják realitásnak, térdre, gyarló Mirabel, hiába imádkozol, ez a realitás és ez marad. Álmaim végén vagyok. ~ B la Hamvas,

339:Capital Punishment PROUD is the state of its millions of men, And proud is the state of its name; In its borders are masters of brush and of pen, And wide as the world is its fame. It stands for the best of the blood of the years, Yet an eye for an eye is its way, And there at the base of its progress appears The chamber of murder today. It has fashioned the visions of ages long gone, What were dreams of the past now are real; Its deserts and hills men have builded upon Great structures of stone and of steel. It is proud of its colleges, splendid and true, Where its youth obtain learning and skill; It has turned from the old to the glorious new, But the death house is part of it still. It boasts of its work in humanity's cause, Of its churches with steeples and domes; And proudly it tells of its numberless laws That safeguard its millions of homes. It has stretched out its hand to the child of the mill, It has led him from labor to play; Yet the chamber of death is a part of it still, And some one must murder for pay. Choking rabbi and priest mutter fear-stifled prayers To the great God of mercy above As the ominous footfalls are heard on the stairs, And ask Him for mercy and love. Oh, mockery! Asking the Master to show Compassion, when ye of the state Stand up and insist on a blow for a blow, And murder in legalized hate! Oh, mockery! Asking the good God to spare This man on the brink of the grave, That ye, as a state, by your actions declare 168 Ye haven't found worthy to save. Ye have shaken the fetters of ages long gone, Ye have risen in glory and gain; How long must the God of us all look upon The chamber of death ye maintain? ~ Edgar Albert Guest,

340:The Soul All my mind has sat in state, Pond'ring on the deathless Soul: What must be the Perfect Whole, When the atom is so great! God! I fall in spirit down, Low as Persian to the sun; All my senses, one by one, In the stream of Thought must drown. On the tide of mystery, Like a waif, I'm seaward borne, Ever looking for the morn That will yet interpret Thee, Opening my blinded eyes, That have strove to look within, 'Whelmed in clouds of doubt and sin, Sinking where I dared to rise: Could I trace one Spirit's flight, Track it to its final goal, Know that 'Spirit' meant 'the Soul,' I must perish in the light. All in vain I search, and cry: 'What, O Soul, and whence art thou?' Lower than the earth I bow, Stricken with the grave reply: 'Wouldst thou ope what God has sealed Sealed in mercy here below? What is best for man to know, Shall most surely be revealed!' Deep on deep of mystery! Ask the sage, he knows no more Of the soul's unspoken lore Than the child upon his knee! 170 Cannot tell me whence the thought That is passing through my mind! Where the mystic soul is shrined, Wherewith all my life is fraught? Knows not how the brain conceives Images almost divine; Cannot work my mental mine, Cannot bind my golden sheaves. Is he wiser, then, than I, Seeing he can read the stars? I have rode in fancy's oars Leagues beyond his farthest sky! Some old Rabbi, dreaming o'er The sweet legends of his race, Ask him for some certain trace Of the far, eternal shore. No. The Talmud page is dark, Though it burn with quenchless fire, And the insight must pierce higher, That would find the vital spark. O, my Soul! be firm and wait, Hoping with the zealous few, Till the Shekinah of the True Lead thee through the Golden Gate. ~ Charles Sangster,

341:And I read something else," Jacob goes on. "There was this discussion of the story of Cain and Abel, from the Bible. After Cain kills his brother, God says, 'The bloods of your brother call out to me.' Not blood. Bloods. Weird, right? So the Talmud tries to explain it." "I can explain it," says William. "The scribe was drunk." "William!" cries Jeanne. "The Bible is written by God!" "And copied by scribes," the big boy replies. "Who get drunk. A lot. Trust me." Jacob is laughing. "The rabbis have a different explanation. The Talmud says it's 'bloods' because Cain didn't only spill Abel's blood. He spilled the blood of Abel and all the descendants he never had." "Huh!" "And then it says something like, 'Whoever destroys a single life destroys the whole world. And whoever saves a single life saves the whole world." There are sheep in the meadow beside the road. Gwenforte walks up to the low stone wall, and one sheep--a ram--doesn't run away. They sniff each other's noses. Her white fur beside the ram's wool--two textures, two colors, both called white in our inadequate language. Jeanne is thinking about something. At last, she shares it. "William, you said that it takes a lifetime to make a book." "That's right." "One book? A whole lifetime?" William nods. "A scribe might copy out a single book for years. An illuminator would then take it and work on it for longer still. Not to mention the tanner who made the parchment, and the bookbinder who stitched the book together, and the librarian who worked to get the book for the library and keep it safe from mold and thieves and clumsy monks with ink pots and dirty hands. And some books have authors, too, like Saint Augustine or Rabbi Yehuda. When you think about it, each book is a lot of lives. Dozens and dozens of them." Dozens and dozens of lives," Jeanne says. "And each life a whole world." "We saved five books," says Jacob. "How many worlds is that?" William smiles. "I don't know. A lot. A whole lot. ~ Adam Gidwitz,

342:A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, "What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?" and Gimzo replied, "I shall explain. There were two men on a roof, and they climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty. The other's not. Which one washed his face?" The Roman said, "That's easy, the sooty one, of course." Gimzo said, "No. The man without the soot looked at his friend, saw that the man's face was dirty, assumed that his was too, and washed it." Cried the Roman, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law. Sound reasoning." But Gimzo said, "You foolish man, you don't understand. Let me explain again. Two men on a roof. They climb down a chimney. One's face is sooty, the other's not. Which one washes?" The Roman said, "As you just explained, the man without the soot." Gimzo cried,"No, you foolish one! There was a mirror on the wall and the man with the dirty face saw how sooty it was and washed it." The Roman said, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law! Conforming to the logical." But Rabbi Gimzo said, "No, you foolish one. Two men climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty? The other's not? That's impossible. You're wasting my time with such a proposition." And the Roman said, "So that's the law! Common sense." And Gimzo said, "You foolish man! Of course it was possible. When the first man climbed down the chimney he brushed the soot away. So the man who followed found none to mar him." And the Roman cried, "That's brilliant, Rabbi Gimzo. Law is getting at the basic facts." And for the last time Gimzo said, "No, you foolish man. Who could brush all the soot from a chimney? Who could ever understand all the facts?" Humbly the Roman asked, "Then what is the law?" And Gimzo said quietly, "It's doing the best we can to ascertain God's intention, for there were indeed two men on a roof, and they did climb down the same chimney. The first man emerged completely clean while it was the second who was covered with soot, and neither man washed his face, because you forgot to ask me whether there was any water in the basin. There was none. ~ James A Michener,

343:The Killing That was the day they killed the Son of God On a squat hill-top by Jerusalem. Zion was bare, her children from their maze Sucked by the dream of curiosity Clean through the gates. The very halt and blind Had somehow got themselves up to the hill. After the ceremonial preparation, The scourging, nailing, nailing against the wood, Erection of the main-trees with their burden, While from the hill rose an orchestral wailing, They were there at last, high up in the soft spring day. We watched the writhings, heard the moanings, saw The three heads turning on their separate axles Like broken wheels left spinning. Round his head Was loosely bound a crown of plaited thorn That hurt at random, stinging temple and brow As the pain swung into its envious circle. In front the wreath was gathered in a knot That as he gazed looked like the last stump left Of a death-wounded deer's great antlers. Some Who came to stare grew silent as they looked, Indignant or sorry. But the hardened old And the hard-hearted young, although at odds From the first morning, cursed him with one curse, Having prayed for a Rabbi or an armed Messiah And found the Son of God. What use to them Was a God or a Son of God? Of what avail For purposes such as theirs? Beside the cross-foot, Alone, four women stood and did not move All day. The sun revolved, the shadows wheeled, The evening fell. His head lay on his breast, But in his breast they watched his heart move on By itself alone, accomplishing its journey. Their taunts grew louder, sharpened by the knowledge That he was walking in the park of death, Far from their rage. Yet all grew stale at last, Spite, curiosity, envy, hate itself. They waited only for death and death was slow And came so quietly they scarce could mark it. 31 They were angry then with death and death's deceit. I was a stranger, could not read these people Or this outlandish deity. Did a God Indeed in dying cross my life that day By chance, he on his road and I on mine? ~ Edwin Muir,

344:He loved to tell his students a story which summarized his attitudes on this matter of intellectual inspection: “A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, ‘What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?’ and Gimzo replied, ‘I shall explain. There were two men on a roof, and they climbed down the chimney. One’s face became sooty. The other’s not. Which one washed his face?’ The Roman said, ‘That’s easy, the sooty one, of course.’ Gimzo said, ‘No. The man without the soot looked at his friend, saw that the man’s face was dirty, assumed that his was too, and washed it.’ Cried the Roman, ‘Ah ha! So that’s the study of law. Sound reasoning.’ But Gimzo said, ‘You foolish man, you don’t understand. Let me explain again. Two men on a roof. They climb down a chimney. One’s face is sooty, the other’s not. Which one washes?’ The Roman said, ‘As you just explained, the man without the soot.’ Gimzo cried, ‘No, you foolish one! There was a mirror on the wall and the man with the dirty face saw how sooty it was and washed it.’ The Roman said, ‘Ah ha! So that’s the study of law! Conforming to the logical.’ But Rabbi Gimzo said, ‘No, you foolish one. Two men climbed down the chimney. One’s face became sooty? The other’s not? That’s impossible. You’re wasting my time with such a proposition.’ And the Roman said, ‘So that’s the law! Common sense.’ And Gimzo said, ‘You foolish man! Of course it was possible. When the first man climbed down the chimney he brushed the soot away. So the man who followed found none to mar him.’ And the Roman cried, ‘That’s brilliant, Rabbi Gimzo. Law is getting at the basic facts.’ And for the last time Gimzo said, ‘No, you foolish man. Who could brush all the soot from a chimney? Who can ever understand all the facts?’ Humbly the Roman asked, ‘Then what is the law?’ And Gimzo said quietly, ‘It’s doing the best we can to ascertain God’s intention, for there were indeed two men on a roof, and they did climb down the same chimney. The first man emerged completely clean while it was the second who was covered with soot, and neither man washed his face, because you forgot to ask me whether there was any water in the basin. There was none.’  ~ James A Michener,

345:A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife’s adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a speaker for the dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I’m going to tell you.) The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. “Is there anyone here,” he says to them, “who has not desired another man’s wife, another woman’s husband?” They murmur and say, “We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it.” The rabbi says, “Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong.” He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, “Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he’ll know I am his loyal servant.” So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder. Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob, as in the other story, and says, “Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.” The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated. As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones. “Nor am I without sin,” he says to the people. “But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it.” So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance. The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him. —San Angelo, Letters to an Incipient Heretic, ~ Orson Scott Card,

346:Which brings me back to Ecclesiastes, his search for happiness, and mine. I spoke in chapter 4 about my first meeting, as a student, with Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. As I was waiting to go in, one of his disciples told me the following story. A man had recently written to the Rebbe on something of these lines: ‘I need the Rebbe’s help. I am deeply depressed. I pray and find no comfort. I perform the commands but feel nothing. I find it hard to carry on.’ The Rebbe, so I was told, sent a compelling reply without writing a single word. He simply ringed the first word in every sentence of the letter: the word ‘I’. It was, he was hinting, the man’s self-preoccupation that was at the root of his depression. It was as if the Rebbe were saying, as Viktor Frankl used to say in the name of Kierkegaard, ‘The door to happiness opens outward.’23 It was this insight that helped me solve the riddle of Ecclesiastes. The word ‘I’ does not appear very often in the Hebrew Bible, but it dominates Ecclesiastes’ opening chapters. I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and I had homeborn slaves. Also I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. (Ecclesiastes 2:4–8) Nowhere else in the Bible is the first-person singular used so relentlessly and repetitively. In the original Hebrew the effect is doubled because of the chiming of the verbal suffix and the pronoun: Baniti li, asiti li, kaniti li, ‘I built for myself, I made for myself, I bought for myself.’ The source of Ecclesiastes’ unhappiness is obvious and was spelled out many centuries later by the great sage Hillel: ‘If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I?’24 Happiness in the Bible is not something we find in self-gratification. Hence the significance of the word simchah. I translated it earlier as ‘joy’, but really it has no precise translation into English, since all our emotion words refer to states of mind we can experience alone. Simchah is something we cannot experience alone. Simchah is joy shared. ~ Jonathan Sacks,

347:The lack of attention to Moses’s sons here and elsewhere in the Torah—essentially nothing is said about them—needs to be explained. And the explanation is probably this: They did not amount to much. This raises the interesting issue of the difficulty many children of great people face in leading successful and satisfying lives. In a book about Moses, ‘Overcoming Life’s Disappointments’, Rabbi Harold Kushner writes about this: Sometimes the father casts so large a shadow that he makes it hard for his children to find the sunshine they need to grow and flourish. Sometimes, the father’s achievements are so intimidating that the child just gives up any hope of equaling him. But mostly, I suspect, it takes so much of a man’s [the father’s] time and energy to be a great man—great in some ways but not in all—that he has too little time left to be a father. As the South African leader Nelson Mandela’s daughter was quoted as saying to him, ‘You are the father of all our people but you never had time to be a father to me.’ Kushner relates a remarkable story he read in a magazine geared toward clergy, a fictional account of a pastor in a mid-sized church who had a dream one night in which a voice said to him, ‘There are fifty teenagers in your church, and you have the ability to lead forty-nine of them to God and lose out on only one.’ Energized by the dream, the minister throws all his energy into youth work, organizing special classes and trips for the church’s teens. He eventually develops a national reputation in his denomination for his work with young people. ‘And then one night he discovers his sixteen-year-old son has been arrested for dealing drugs. The boy turned bitterly against the church and its teachings, resenting his father for having had time for every sixteen-year-old in town except him, and the father never noticed. His son was the fiftieth teenager, the one who got away.’ Of course, this was not necessarily true of Moses’s children, but the silence of the Torah concerning his children (which is not the case with the children of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Aaron) serves as an important reminder to parents who have achieved success to be sure to make time for their children. They need to try to ensure their children feel they occupy a special place in their parents’ hearts and no matter how pressing the parent’s responsibilities he or she will always find time for them. ~ Dennis Prager,

348:A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you. The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?' They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.' The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.' So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder. Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.' The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’ As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’ So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance. The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So of course, we killed him. -San Angelo Letters to an Incipient Heretic ~ Orson Scott Card,

349:As ingenious as this explanation is, it seems to me to miss entirely the emotional significance of the text- its beautiful and beautifully economical evocation of certain difficult feelings that most ordinary people, at least, are all too familiar with: searing regret for the past we must abandon, tragic longing for what must be left behind. (...) Still, perhaps that's the pagan, the Hellenist in me talking. (Rabbi Friedman, by contrast, cannot bring himself even to contemplate that what the people of Sodom intend to do to the two male angels, as they crowd around Lot's house at the beginning of the narrative, is to rape them, and interpretation blandly accepted by Rashi, who blithely points out thta if the Sodomites hadn't wanted sexual pleasure from the angels, Lot wouldn't have suggested, as he rather startingly does, that the Sodomites take his two daughter as subsitutes. But then, Rashi was French.) It is this temperamental failure to understand Sodom in its own context, as an ancient metropolis of the Near East, as a site of sophisticated, even decadent delights and hyper-civilized beauties, that results in the commentator's inability to see the true meaning of the two crucial elements of this story: the angel's command to Lot's family not to turn and look back at the city they are fleeing, and the transformation of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. For if you see Sodom as beautiful -which it will seem to be all the more so, no doubt, for having to be abandoned and lost forever, precisely the way in which, say, relatives who are dead are always somehow more beautiful and good than those who still live- then it seems clear that Lot and his family are commanded not to look back at it not as a punishment, but for a practical reason: because regret for what we have lost, for the pasts we have to abandon, often poisons any attempts to make a new life, which is what Lot and his family now must do, as Noah and his family once had to do, as indeed all those who survive awful annihilations must somehow do. This explanation, in turn, helps explain the form that the punishment of Lot's wife took- if indeed it was a punishment to begin with, which I personally do not believe it was, since to me it seems far more like a natural process, the inevitable outcome of her character. For those who are compelled by their natures always to be looking back at what has been, rather than forward into the future, the great danger is tears, the unstoppable weeping that the Greeks, if not the author of Genesis, knew was not only a pain but a narcotic pleasure, too: a mournful contemplation so flawless, so crystalline, that it can, in the end, immobilize you. ~ Daniel Mendelsohn,

350:JANUARY 10 Akiba When Akiba was on his deathbed, he bemoaned to his rabbi that he felt he was a failure. His rabbi moved closer and asked why, and Akiba confessed that he had not lived a life like Moses. The poor man began to cry, admitting that he feared God's judgment. At this, his rabbi leaned into his ear and whispered gently, “God will not judge Akiba for not being Moses. God will judge Akiba for not being Akiba.” —FROM THE TALMUD We are born with only one obligation—to be completely who we are. Yet how much of our time is spent comparing ourselves to others, dead and alive? This is encouraged as necessary in the pursuit of excellence. Yet a flower in its excellence does not yearn to be a fish, and a fish in its unmanaged elegance does not long to be a tiger. But we humans find ourselves always falling into the dream of another life. Or we secretly aspire to the fortune or fame of people we don't really know. When feeling badly about ourselves, we often try on other skins rather than understand and care for our own. Yet when we compare ourselves to others, we see neither ourselves nor those we look up to. We only experience the tension of comparing, as if there is only one ounce of being to feed all our hungers. But the Universe reveals its abundance most clearly when we can be who we are. Mysteriously, every weed and ant and wounded rabbit, every living creature has its unique anatomy of being which, when given over to, is more than enough. Being human, though, we are often troubled and blocked by insecurity, that windedness of heart that makes us feel unworthy. And when winded and troubled, we sometimes feel compelled to puff ourselves up. For in our pain, it seems to make sense that if we were larger, we would be further from our pain. If we were larger, we would be harder to miss. If we were larger, we'd have a better chance of being loved. Then, not surprisingly, others need to be made smaller so we can maintain our illusion of seeming bigger than our pain. Of course, history is the humbling story of our misbegotten inflations, and truth is the corrective story of how we return to exactly who we are. And compassion, sweet compassion, is the never-ending story of how we embrace each other and forgive ourselves for not accepting our beautifully particular place in the fabric of all there is. Fill a wide bowl with water. Then clear your mind in meditation and look closely at your reflection. While looking at your reflection, allow yourself to feel the tension of one comparison you carry. Feel the pain of measuring yourself against another. Close your eyes and let this feeling through. Now, once again, look closely at your reflection in the bowl, and try to see yourself in comparison to no one. ~ Mark Nepo,

351:He [Abraham] was sitting in the opening of the tent.... Sarah heard from the opening of the tent. (Genesis 18:1, 10) Rabbi Judah opened "'Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land' (Proverbs 31:23). Come and see: The Blessed Holy One has ascended in glory. He is hidden, concealed, far beyond. There is no one in the world, nor has there ever been, who can understand His wisdom or withstand Him. He is hidden, concealed, transcendent, beyond, beyond. The beings up above and the creatures down below-- none of them can comprehend. All they can say is: "Blessed be the Presence of YHVH in His place' (Ezekiel 3:12) The ones below proclaim that He is above: 'His Presence is above the heavens' (Psalms 113:4) the ones above proclaim that He is below: 'Your Presence is over all the earth' (Psalms 57:12). Finally all of them, above and below, declare: 'Blessed be the Presence of YHVH wherever He is!' For He is unknowable. No one has ever been able to identify Him. How, then, can you say: 'Her husband is known in the gates'? Her husband is the Blessed Holy One! Indeed, He is known in the gates. He is known and grasped to the degree that one opens the gates of imagination! The capacity to connect with the spirit of wisdom, to imagine in one's heart-mind-- this is how God becomes known. Therefore 'Her husband is known in the gates,' through the gates of imagination. But that He be known as He really is? No one has ever been able to attain such knowledge of Him." Rabbi Shim'on said "'Her husband is known in the gates.' Who are these gates? The ones addressed in the Psalm: 'O gates, lift up your heads! Be lifted up, openings of eternity, so the King of Glory may come!' (Psalms 24:7) Through these gates, these spheres on high, the Blessed Holy One becomes known. Were it not so, no one could commune with Him. Come and see: Neshamah of a human being is unknowable except through limbs of the body, subordinates of neshamah who carry out what she designs. Thus she is known and unknown. The Blessed Holy One too is known and unknown. For He is Neshamah of neshamah, Pneuma of pneuma, completely hidden away; but through these gates, openings for neshumah, the Blessed Holy One becomes known. Come and see: There is opening within opening, level beyond level. Through these the Glory of God becomes known. 'The opening of the tent' is the opening of Righteousness, as the Psalmist says: 'Open for me the gates of righteousness...' (Psalms 118:19). This is the first opening to enter. Through this opening, all other high openings come into view. One who attains the clarity of this opening discovers all the other openings, for all of them abide here. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment: (Classics of Western Spirituality), Translated by Daniel Chanan Matt ~ Moses de Leon, The Gates (from Openings) ,

352:Look, look, we tell each other. It's Tom! He's Mr. Bellamy to his history students. But he's Tom to us. Tom! It's so good to see him. So wonderful to see him. Tom is one of us. Tom went through it all with us. Tom made it through. He was there in the hospital with so many of us, the archangel of St. Vincent's, our healthier version, prodding the doctors and calling over the nurses and holding our hands and holding the hands of our partners, our parents, our little sisters - anyone who had a hand to be held. He had to watch so many of us die, had to say goodbye so many times. Outside of our rooms he would get angry, upset, despairing. But when he was with us, it was like he was powered solely by an engine of grace. Even the people who loved us would hesitate at first to touch us - more from the shock of our diminishment, from the strangeness of how we were both gone and present, not who we were but still who we were. Tom became used to this. First because of Dennis, the way he stayed with Dennis until the very end. He could have left after that, after Dennis was gone. We wouldn't have blamed him. But he stayed. When his friends got sick, he was there. And for those of us he'd never know before - he was always a smile in the room, always a touch on the shoulder, a light flirtation that we needed. The y should have made him a nurse. They should have made him mayor. He lost years of his life to us, although that's not the story he'd tell. He would say he gained. And he'd say he was lucky, because when he came down with it, when his blood turned against him, it was a little later on and the cocktail was starting to work. So he lived. He made it to a different kind of after from the rest of us. It is still an after. Every day if feel to him like an after. But he is here. He is living. A history teacher. An out, outspoken history teacher. The kind of history teacher we never would have had. But this is what losing most of your friends does: It makes you unafraid. Whatever anyone threatens, whatever anyone is offended by, it doesn't matter, because you have already survived much, much worse. In fact, you are still surviving. You survive every single, blessed day. It makes sense for Tom to be here. It wouldn't be the same without him. And it makes sense for him to have taken the hardest shift. The night watch. Mr. Nichol passes him the stopwatch. Tom walks over and says hello to Harry and Craig. He's been watching the feed, but it's even more powerful to see these boys in person. He gestures to them, like a rabbi or a priest offering a benediction. "Keep going," he says. "You're doing great." Mrs. Archer, Harry's next-door neighbor, has brought over coffee, and offers Tom a cup. He takes it gratefully. He wants to be wide awake for all of this. Every now and then he looks to the sky. ~ David Levithan,

353:As Allied forces moved into Hitler’s Fortress Europe, Roosevelt and his circle were confronted with new evidence of the Holocaust. In early 1942, he had been given information that Adolf Hitler was quietly fulfilling his threat to “annihilate the Jewish race.” Rabbi Stephen Wise asked the President that December 1942 to inform the world about “the most overwhelming disaster of Jewish history” and “try to stop it.” Although he was willing to warn the world about the impending catastrophe and insisted that there be war crimes commissions when the conflict was over, Roosevelt told Wise that punishment for such crimes would probably have to await the end of the fighting, so his own solution was to “win the war.” The problem with this approach was that by the time of an Allied victory, much of world Jewry might have been annihilated. By June 1944, the Germans had removed more than half of Hungary’s 750,000 Jews, and some Jewish leaders were asking the Allies to bomb railways from Hungary to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In response, Churchill told his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, that the murder of the Jews was “probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world,” and ordered him to get “everything” he could out of the British Air Force. But the Prime Minister was told that American bombers were better positioned to do the job. At the Pentagon, Stimson consulted John McCloy, who later insisted, for decades, that he had “never talked” with Roosevelt about the option of bombing the railroad lines or death camps. But in 1986, McCloy changed his story during a taped conversation with Henry Morgenthau’s son, Henry III, who was researching a family history. The ninety-one-year-old McCloy insisted that he had indeed raised the idea with the President, and that Roosevelt became “irate” and “made it very clear” that bombing Auschwitz “wouldn’t have done any good.” By McCloy’s new account, Roosevelt “took it out of my hands” and warned that “if it’s successful, it’ll be more provocative” and “we’ll be accused of participating in this horrible business,” as well as “bombing innocent people.” McCloy went on, “I didn’t want to bomb Auschwitz,” adding that “it seemed to be a bunch of fanatic Jews who seemed to think that if you didn’t bomb, it was an indication of lack of venom against Hitler.” If McCloy’s memory was reliable, then, just as with the Japanese internment, Roosevelt had used the discreet younger man to discuss a decision for which he knew he might be criticized by history, and which might conceivably have become an issue in the 1944 campaign. This approach to the possible bombing of the camps would allow the President to explain, if it became necessary, that the issue had been resolved at a lower level by the military. In retrospect, the President should have considered the bombing proposal more seriously. Approving it might have required him to slightly revise his insistence that the Allies’ sole aim should be winning the war, as he did on at least a few other occasions. But such a decision might have saved lives and shown future generations that, like Churchill, he understood the importance of the Holocaust as a crime unparalleled in world history.* ~ Michael R Beschloss,

354:THE GOLEM If every name is (as the Greek maintains In the Cratylus) the archetype of its thing, Among the letters of ring, resides the ring, And in the word Nile all the Nile remains. Then, made up of vowels and consonants, Encoding Gods essence, should exist some Name Whose exact syllables and letters frame Within them, terribly, Omnipotence. Adam and all the stars had known it, placed There in the Garden. The corrosive rust Of sin (cabalists say) has long effaced The Name that generations since have lost. Human innocency and human guile Are boundless: it is known that a day came When the Chosen People pursued the Name Over the wakeful ghettos midnight oil. Unlike the way of those who, as in fog, Beam a dim shadow in dim history, Green and alive remains the memory Of Judah, the Hohe Rabbi Lw of Prague. Yearning to know that which the Deity Knows, the Rabbi turned to permutations Of letters in complicated variations, And finally pronounced the Name which is the Key, The Entry Gate, the Echo, Host, and Mansion, Over a dummy at which, with sluggish hand, He labored hard that it might understand Secrets of Time, Space, Being, and Extension. The simulacrum raised its heavy, lowered Eyelids and perceived colors and forms; It understood not; lost in loud alarms, It started to take groping paces forward. And like ourselves, it gradually became Locked in the sonorous meshes of the net Of After, Before, Tomorrow, Meanwhile, Yet, Right, Left, You, Me, and Different and Same. (The cabalist from whom the creature took Its inspiration called the weird thing Golem But all these matters are discussed by Scholem In a most learned passage in his book.) The rabbi revealed to it the universe (This is my foot; thats yours; this is a log) And after years of training, the perverse Pupil managed to sweep the synagogue. Perhaps there was a faulty text, or breach In the articulation of the Name; The magic was the highestall the same, The apprentice person never mastered speech. Less a mans than a dogs, less a dogs, well, Even than a things, the creatures eyes Would always turn to follow the rabbis Steps through the dubious shadows of his cell. Something eerie, gross, about the Golem, For, at his very coming, the rabbis cat Would vanish. (The cat cannot be found in Scholem; Across the years, I divine it, for all that.) Toward God it would extend those filial palms, Aping the devotions of its God, Or bend itself, the stupid, grinning clod, In hollow, Orientalized salaams. The rabbi gazed on it with tender eyes And terror. How (he asked) could it be done That I engender this distressing son? Inaction is wisdom. I left off being wise. To an infinite series why was it for me To add another integer? To the vain Hank that is spun out in Eternity Another cause or effect, another pain? At the anguished hour when the light gets vague Upon his Golem his eyes would come to rest. Who can tell us the feelings in His breast As God gazed on His rabbi there in Prague? [John Hollander] ~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Golem ,

355:When I close my eyes to see, to hear, to smell, to touch a country I have known, I feel my body shake and fill with joy as if a beloved person had come near me. A rabbi was once asked the following question: ‘When you say that the Jews should return to Palestine, you mean, surely, the heavenly, the immaterial, the spiritual Palestine, our true homeland?’ The rabbi jabbed his staff into the ground in wrath and shouted, ‘No! I want the Palestine down here, the one you can touch with your hands, with its stones, its thorns and its mud!’ Neither am I nourished by fleshless, abstract memories. If I expected my mind to distill from a turbid host of bodily joys and bitternesses an immaterial, crystal-clear thought, I would die of hunger. When I close my eyes in order to enjoy a country again, my five senses, the five mouth-filled tentacles of my body, pounce upon it and bring it to me. Colors, fruits, women. The smells of orchards, of filthy narrow alleys, of armpits. Endless snows with blue, glittering reflections. Scorching, wavy deserts of sand shimmering under the hot sun. Tears, cries, songs, distant bells of mules, camels or troikas. The acrid, nauseating stench of some Mongolian cities will never leave my nostrils. And I will eternally hold in my hands – eternally, that is, until my hands rot – the melons of Bukhara, the watermelons of the Volga, the cool, dainty hand of a Japanese girl… For a time, in my early youth, I struggled to nourish my famished soul by feeding it with abstract concepts. I said that my body was a slave and that its duty was to gather raw material and bring it to the orchard of the mind to flower and bear fruit and become ideas. The more fleshless, odorless, soundless the world was that filtered into me, the more I felt I was ascending the highest peak of human endeavor. And I rejoiced. And Buddha came to be my greatest god, whom I loved and revered as an example. Deny your five senses. Empty your guts. Love nothing, hate nothing, desire nothing, hope for nothing. Breathe out and the world will be extinguished. But one night I had a dream. A hunger, a thirst, the influence of a barbarous race that had not yet become tired of the world had been secretly working within me. My mind pretended to be tired. You felt it had known everything, had become satiated, and was now smiling ironically at the cries of my peasant heart. But my guts – praised be God! – were full of blood and mud and craving. And one night I had a dream. I saw two lips without a face – large, scimitar-shaped woman’s lips. They moved. I heard a voice ask, ‘Who if your God?’ Unhesitatingly I answered, ‘Buddha!’ But the lips moved again and said: ‘No, Epaphus.’ I sprang up out of my sleep. Suddenly a great sense of joy and certainty flooded my heart. What I had been unable to find in the noisy, temptation-filled, confused world of wakefulness I had found now in the primeval, motherly embrace of the night. Since that night I have not strayed. I follow my own path and try to make up for the years of my youth that were lost in the worship of fleshless gods, alien to me and my race. Now I transubstantiate the abstract concepts into flesh and am nourished. I have learned that Epaphus, the god of touch, is my god. All the countries I have known since then I have known with my sense of touch. I feel my memories tingling, not in my head but in my fingertips and my whole skin. And as I bring back Japan to my mind, my hands tremble as if they were touching the breast of a beloved woman. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis,

356:Fra Pedro Golden lights and lengthening shadows, Flings the splendid sun declining, O'er the monastery garden Rich in flower, fruit and foliage. Through the avenue of nut trees, Pace two grave and ghostly friars, Snowy white their gowns and girdles, Black as night their cowls and mantles. Lithe and ferret-eyed the younger, Black his scapular denoting A lay brother; his companion Large, imperious, towers above him. 'T is the abbot, great Fra Pedro, Famous through all Saragossa For his quenchless zeal in crushing Heresy amidst his townfolk. Handsome still with hood and tonsure, E'en as when the boy Pedrillo, Insolent with youth and beauty, Who reviled the gentle Rabbi. Lo, the level sun strikes sparkles From his dark eyes brightly flashing. Stern his voice: 'These too shall perish. I have vowed extermination. 'Tell not me of skill or virtue, Filial love or woman's beautyJews are Jews, as serpents serpents, In themselves abomination.' Earnestly the other pleaded, 'If my zeal, thrice reverend master, E'er afforded thee assistance, Serving thee as flesh serves spirit, 80 'Hounding, scourging, flaying, burning, Casting into chains or exile, At thy bidding these vile wretches, Hear and heed me now, my master. 'These be nowise like their brethren, Ben Jehudah is accounted Saragossa's first physician, Loved by colleague as by patient. 'And his daughter Donna Zara Is our city's pearl of beauty, Like the clusters of the vineyard Droop the ringlets o'er her temples. 'Like the moon in starry heavens Shines her face among her people, And her form hath all the languor, Grace and glamour of the palm-tree. 'Well thou knowest, thrice reverend master, This is not their first affliction, Was it not our Holy Office Whose bribed menials fired their dwelling? 'Ere dawn broke, the smoke ascended, Choked the stairways, filled the chambers, Waked the household to the terror Of the flaming death that threatened. 'Then the poor bed-ridden mother Knew her hour had come; two daughters, Twinned in form, and mind, and spirit, And their father-who would save them? 'Towards her door sprang Ben Jehudah, Donna Zara flew behind him Round his neck her white arms wreathing, Drew him from the burning chamber. 'There within, her sister Zillah 81 Stirred no limb to shun her torture, Held her mother's hand and kissed her, Saying, 'We will go together.' 'This the outer throng could witness, As the flames enwound the dwelling, Like a glory they illumined Awfully the martyred daughter. 'Closer, fiercer, round they gathered, Not a natural cry escaped her, Helpless clung to her her mother, Hand in hand they went together. 'Since that 'Act of Faith' three winters Have rolled by, yet on the forehead Of Jehudah is imprinted Still the horror of that morning. 'Saragossa hath respected His false creed; a man of sorrows, He hath walked secure among us, And his art repays our sufferance.' Thus he spoke and ceased. The Abbot Lent him an impatient hearing, Then outbroke with angry accent, 'We have borne three years, thou sayest? ''T is enough; my vow is sacred. These shall perish with their brethren. Hark ye! In my veins' pure current Were a single drop found Jewish, 'I would shrink not from outpouring All my life blood, but to purge it. Shall I gentler prove to others? Mercy would be sacrilegious. 'Ne'er again at thy soul's peril, Speak to me of Jewish beauty, Jewish skill, or Jewish virtue. 82 I have said. Do thou remember.' Down behind the purple hillside Dropped the sun; above the garden Rang the Angelus' clear cadence Summoning the monks to vespers. ~ Emma Lazarus,

357:Don Pedrillo Not a lad in Saragossa Nobler-featured, haughtier-tempered, Than the Alcalde's youthful grandson, Donna Clara's boy Pedrillo. Handsome as the Prince of Evil, And devout as St. Ignatius. Deft at fence, unmatched with zither, Miniature of knightly virtues. Truly an unfailing blessing To his pious, widowed mother, To the beautiful, lone matron Who forswore the world to rear him. For her beauty hath but ripened In such wise as the pomegranate Putteth by her crown of blossoms, For her richer crown of fruitage. Still her hand is claimed and courted, Still she spurns her proudest suitors, Doting on a phantom passion, And upon her boy Pedrillo. Like a saint lives Donna Clara, First at matins, last at vespers, Half her fortune she expendeth Buying masses for the needy. Visiting the poor afflicted, Infinite is her compassion, Scorning not the Moorish beggar, Nor the wretched Jew despising. And-a scandal to the faithful, E'en she hath been known to welcome To her castle the young Rabbi, Offering to his tribe her bounty. 54 Rarely hath he crossed the threshold, Yet the thought that he hath crossed it, Burns like poison in the marrow Of the zealous youth Pedrillo. By the blessed Saint Iago, He hath vowed immortal hatred To these circumcised intruders Who pollute the soil of Spaniards. Seated in his mother's garden, At high noon the boy Pedrillo Playeth with his favorite parrot, Golden-green with streaks of scarlet. 'Pretty Dodo, speak thy lesson,' Coaxed Pedrillo-'thief and traitor''Thief and traitor'-croaked the parrot, 'Is the yellow-skirted Rabbi.' And the boy with peals of laughter, Stroked his favorite's head of emerald, Raised his eyes, and lo! before him Stood the yellow-skirted Rabbi. In his dark eyes gleamed no anger, No hot flush o'erspread his features. 'Neath his beard his pale lips quivered, And a shadow crossed his forehead. Very gentle was his aspect, And his voice was mild and friendly, 'Evil words, my son, thou speakest, Teaching to the fowls of heaven. 'In our Talmud it stands written, Thrice curst is the tongue of slander, Poisoning also with its victim, Him who speaks and him who listens.' But no whit abashed, Pedrillo, 55 'What care I for curse of Talmud? 'T is no slander to speak evil Of the murderers of our Saviour. 'To your beard I will repeat it, That I only bide my manhood, To wreak all my lawful hatred, On thyself and on thy people.' Very gently spoke the Rabbi, 'Have a care, my son Pedrillo, Thou art orphaned, and who knoweth But thy father loved this people?' 'Think you words like these will touch me? Such I laugh to scorn, sir Rabbi, From high heaven, my sainted father On my deeds will smile in blessing. 'Loyal knight was he and noble, And my mother oft assures me, Ne'er she saw so pure a Christian, 'T is from him my zeal deriveth.' 'What if he were such another As myself who stand before thee?' 'I should curse the hour that bore me, I should die of shame and horror.' 'Harsher is thy creed than ours; For had I a son as comely As Pedrillo, I would love him, Love him were he thrice a Christian. 'In his youth my youth renewing Pamper, fondle, die to serve him, Only breathing through his spiritCouldst thou not love such a father?' Faltering spoke the deep-voiced Rabbi, With white lips and twitching fingers, Then in clear, young, steady treble, 56 Answered him the boy Pedrillo: 'At the thought my heart revolteth, All your tribe offend my senses, They're an eyesore to my vision, And a stench unto my nostrils. 'When I meet these unbelievers, With thick lips and eagle noses, Thus I scorn them, thus revile them, Thus I spit upon their garment.' And the haughty youth passed onward, Bearing on his wrist his parrot, And the yellow-skirted Rabbi With bowed head sought Donna Clara. ~ Emma Lazarus,

358:The Death Of Raschi [Aaron Ben Mier 'loquitur.'] If I remember Raschi? An I live, Grandson, to bless thy grandchild, I'll forget Never that youth and what he did for Prague. Aye, aye, I know! he slurred a certain verse In such and such a prayer; omitted quite To stand erect there where the ritual Commands us rise and bow towards the East; Therefore, the ingrates brand him heterodox, Neglect his memory whose virtue saved Each knave of us alive. Not I forget, No more does God, who wrought a miracle For his dear sake. The Passover was here. Raschi, just wedded with the fair Rebekah, Bode but the lapsing of the holy week For homeward journey with his bride to France. The sacred meal was spread. All sat at board Within the house of Rabbi Jochanan: The kind old priest; his noble, new-found son, Whose name was wrung in every key of praise, By every voice in Prague, from Duke to serf (Save the vindictive bigot, Narzerad); The beautiful young wife, whose cup of joy Sparkled at brim; next her the vacant chair Awaited the Messiah, who, unannounced, In God's good time shall take his place with us. Now when the Rabbi reached the verse where one Shall rise from table, flinging wide the door, To give the Prophet entrance, if so be The glorious hour have sounded, Raschi rose, Pale, grave, yet glad with great expectancy, Crossed the hushed room, and, with a joyous smile To greet the Saviour, opened the door. A curse! A cry, 'Revenged!' a thrust, a stifled moan, The sheathing of a poniard-that was all! In the dark vestibule a fleeing form, Masked, gowned in black; and in the room of prayer, 247 Raschi, face downward on the stone-cold floor, Bleeding his life out. Oh! what a cry was that (Folk shuddered, hearing, roods off in the street) Wherewith Rebekah rushed to raise her lord, Kneeling beside him, striving in vain to quench With turban, veil, torn shreds of gown, stained hands, The black blood's sickening gush. He never spoke, Never rewarded with one glance of life The passion in her eyes. He met his end Even as beneath the sickle the full ear Bows to its death-so beautiful, silent, ripe. Well, we poor Jews must gulp our injuries, Howe'er they choke us. What redress in Prague For the inhuman murder? A strange Jew The victim; the suspected criminal The ducal counselor! Such odds forbade Revenge or justice. We forbore to seek. The priest, discrowned o' the glory of his age, The widow-bride, mourned as though smitten of God, Gave forth they would with solemn obsequies Bury their dead, and crave no help from man. Now of what chanced betwixt the night of murder And the appointed burial I can give Only the sum of gossip-servants' tales, Neighbors' reports, close confidences leaked From friends and kindred. Night and day, folk said, Rebekah wept, prayed, fasted by the corpse, Three mortal days. Upon the third, her eyes, Sunk in their pits, glimmered with wild, strange fire. She started from her place beside the dead, Kissed clay-cold brow, cheeks, lids, and lips once more, And with a maniac's wan, heart-breaking smile, Veiled, hooded, glided through the twilight streets, A sable shadow. From the willow-grove, Close by the Moldau's brink, beyond the bridge, Her trace was lost. 'T was evening and mild May, Air full of spring, skies perfect as a pearl; Yet one who saw her pass amidst the shades O' the blue-gray branches swears a sudden flame, As of miraculous lightning, thrilled through heaven. One hour thereafter she reentered Prague, 248 Slid swiftly through the streets, as though borne on By ankle-wings or floating on soft cloud, Smiling no more, but with illumined eyes, Transfigured brow, grave lips, and faltering limbs, So came into the room where Raschi lay Stretched 'twixt tall tapers lit at head and foot. She held in both hands leafy, flowerless plants, Some she had fastened in her twisted hair, Stuck others in her girdle, and from all Issued a racy odor, pungent-sweet, The living soul of Spring. Death's chamber seemed As though clear sunshine and a singing bird Therein had entered. From the precious herb She poured into a golden bowl the sap, Sparkling like wine; then with a soundless prayer, White as the dead herself, she held the cup To Raschi's mouth. A quick, small flame sprang up From the enchanted balsam, died away, And lo! the color dawned in cheek and lips, The life returned, the sealed, blind lids were raised, And in the glorious eyes love reawoke, And, looking up, met love. So runs the tale, Mocked by the worldly-wise; but I believe, Knowing the miracles the Lord hath wrought In every age for Jacob's seed. Moreover, I, with the highest and meanest Jew in Prague, Was at the burial. No man saw the dead. Sealed was the coffin ere the rites began, And none could swear it went not empty down Into the hollow earth. Too shrewd our priest To publish such a wonder, and expose That consecrated life to second death. Scarce were the thirty days of mourning sped, When we awoke to find his home left bare, Rebekah and her father fled from Prague. God grant they had glad meeting otherwhere! ~ Emma Lazarus,

359:ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME. [``Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Rome should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought-nay (for He saith, `Compel them to come in') haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occasion; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently reward him: though not to my lord be altogether the glory.''-Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.] What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect:- I. Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak! Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week. Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, Stinking and savoury, simug and gruff, Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime Gives us the summons-'tis sermon-time! II. Bob, here's Barnabas! Job, that's you? Up stumps Solomon-bustling too? Shame, man! greedy beyond your years To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears? Fair play's a jewel! Leave friends in the lurch? Stand on a line ere you start for the church! III. Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye, Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve. Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs And buzz for the bishop-here he comes. IV. Bow, wow, wow-a bone for the dog! I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass, To help and handle my lord's hour-glass! Didst ever behold so lithe a chine? His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine. V. Aaron's asleep-shove hip to haunch, Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch! Look at the purse with the tassel and knob, And the gown with the angel and thingumbob! What's he at, quotha? reading his text! Now you've his curtsey-and what comes next? VI. See to our converts-you doomed black dozen- No stealing away-nor cog nor cozen! You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly; You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely; You took your turn and dipped in the hat, Got fortune-and fortune gets you; mind that! VII. Give your first groan-compunction's at work; And soft! from a Jew you mount to a Turk. Lo, Micah,-the selfsame beard on chin He was four times already converted in! Here's a knife, clip quick-it's a sign of grace- Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. VIII. Whom now is the bishop a-leering at? I know a point where his text falls pat. I'll tell him to-morrow, a word just now Went to my heart and made me vow I meddle no more with the worst of trades- Let somebody else pay his serenades. IX. Groan all together now, whee-hee-hee! It's a-work, it's a-work, ah, woe is me! It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed, Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist; Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent To usher in worthily Christian Lent. X. It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds: It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed: And it overflows when, to even the odd, Men I helped to their sins help me to their God. XI. But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, And the rest sit silent and count the clock, Since forced to muse the appointed time On these precious facts and truths sublime,- Let us fitly ennploy it, under our breath, In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death. XII. For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, Called sons and sons' sons to his side, And spoke, ``This world has been harsh and strange; ``Something is wrong: there needeth a change. ``But what, or where? at the last or first? ``In one point only we sinned, at worst. XIII. ``The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, ``And again in his border see Israel set. ``When Judah beholds Jerusalem, ``The stranger-seed shall be joined to them: ``To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave. ``So the Prophet saith and his sons believe. XIV. ``Ay, the children of the chosen race ``Shall carry and bring them to their place: ``In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, ``Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame, ``When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er ``The oppressor triumph for evermore? XV. ``God spoke, and gave us the word to keep, ``Bade never fold the hands nor sleep ``'Mid a faithless world,-at watch and ward, ``Till Christ at the end relieve our guard. ``By His servant Moses the watch was set: ``Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. XVI. ``Thou! if thou wast He, who at mid-watch came, ``By the starlight, naming a dubious name! ``And if, too heavy with sleep-too rash ``With fear-O Thou, if that martyr-gash ``Fell on Thee coming to take thine own, ``And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne- XVII. ``Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. ``But, the Judgment over, join sides with us! ``Thine too is the cause! and not more thine ``Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine, ``Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed! ``Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed! XVIII. ``We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how ``At least we withstand Barabbas now! ``Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared, ``To have called these-Christians, had we dared! ``Let defiance to them pay mistrust of Thee, ``And Rome make amends for Calvary! XIX. ``By the torture, prolonged from age to age, ``By the infamy, Israel's heritage, ``By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, ``By the badge of shame, by the felon's place, ``By the branding-tool, the bloody whip, ``And the summons to Christian fellowship,- XX. ``We boast our proof that at least the Jew ``Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew. ``Thy face took never so deep a shade ``But we fought them in it, God our aid! ``A trophy to bear, as we marchs, thy band, ``South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!'' [Pope Gregory XVI. abolished this bad business of the Sermon.-R. B.] ~ Robert Browning, Holy-Cross Day ,

360:Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall?" Not that, admiring stars, It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!" Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? Rejoice we are allied To That which doth provide And not partake, effect and not receive! A spark disturbs our clod; Nearer we hold of God Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe! For thence,a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. What is he but a brute Whose flesh has soul to suit, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? To man, propose this test Thy body at its best, How far can that project thy soul on its lone way? Yet gifts should prove their use: I own the Past profuse Of power each side, perfection every turn: Eyes, ears took in their dole, Brain treasured up the whole; Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?" Not once beat "Praise be Thine! I see the whole design, I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: Perfect I call Thy plan: Thanks that I was a man! Maker, remake, complete,I trust what Thou shalt do!" For pleasant is this flesh; Our soul, in its rose-mesh Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest; Would we some prize might hold To match those manifold Possessions of the brute,gain most, as we did best! Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a god though in the germ. And I shall thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new: Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue. Youth ended, I shall try My gain or loss thereby; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall weigh the same, Give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. For note, when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the grey: A whisper from the west Shoots"Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth: here dies another day." So, still within this life, Though lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made: So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid! Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. What though the earlier grooves, Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I,to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily,mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: So, take and use Thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! ~ Robert Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra ,

361:The Scapegoat We have all of us read how the Israelites fled From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. You see he was hated from Jordan to Cairo -Whence comes the expression "to buck against faro". For forty long years, 'midst perils and fears In deserts with never a famine to follow by, The Israelite horde went roaming abroad Like so many sundowners "out on the wallaby". When Moses, who led 'em, and taught 'em, and fed 'em, Was dying, he murmured, "A rorty old hoss you are: I give you command of the whole of the band" -And handed the Government over to Joshua. But Moses told 'em before he died, "Wherever you are, whatever betide, Every year as the time draws near By lot or by rote choose you a goat, And let the high priest confess on the beast The sins of the people the worst and the least, Lay your sins on the goat! Sure the plan ought to suit yer. Because all your sins are 'his troubles' in future. Then lead him away to the wilderness black To die with the weight of your sins on his back: Of thirst let him perish alone and unshriven, For thus shall your sins be absolved and forgiven!" 'Tis needless to say, though it reeked of barbarity This scapegoat arrangement gained great popularity. By this means a Jew, whate'er he might do, Though he burgled, or murdered, or cheated at loo, Or meat on Good Friday (a sin most terrific) ate, Could get his discharge, like a bankrupt's certificate; Just here let us note -- Did they choose their best goat? It's food for conjecture, to judge from the picture By Hunt in the Gallery close to our door, a 459 Man well might suppose that the scapegoat they chose Was a long way from being their choicest Angora. In fact I should think he was one of their weediest: 'Tis a rule that obtains, no matter who reigns, When making a sacrifice, offer the seediest; Which accounts for a theory known to my hearers Who live in the wild by the wattle beguiled, That a "stag" makes quite good enough mutton for shearers. Be that as it may, as each year passed away, a scapegoat was led to the desert and freighted With sin (the poor brute must have been overweighted) And left there -- to die as his fancy dictated. The day it has come, with trumpet and drum. With pomp and solemnity fit for the tomb They lead the old billy-goat off to his doom: On every hand a reverend band, Prophets and preachers and elders stand And the oldest rabbi, with a tear in his eye, Delivers a sermon to all standing by. (We haven't his name -- whether Cohen or Harris, he No doubt was the "poisonest" kind of Pharisee.) The sermon was marked by a deal of humility And pointed the fact, with no end of ability. That being a Gentile's no mark of gentility, And, according to Samuel, would certainly d--n you well. Then, shedding his coat, he approaches the goat And, while a red fillet he carefully pins on him, Confesses the whole of the Israelites' sins on him. With this eloquent burst he exhorts the accurst -"Go forth in the desert and perish in woe, The sins of the people are whiter than snow!" Then signs to his pal "for to let the brute go". (That "pal" as I've heard, is an elegant word, Derived from the Persian "Palaykhur" or "Pallaghur"), As the scapegoat strains and tugs at the reins The Rabbi yells rapidly, "Let her go, Gallagher!" The animal, freed from all restraint Lowered his head, made a kind of feint, And charged straight at that elderly saint. 460 So fierce his attack and so very severe, it Quite floored the Rabbi, who, ere he could fly, Was rammed on the -- no, not the back -- but just near it. The scapegoat he snorted, and wildly cavorted, A light-hearted antelope "out on the ramp", Then stopped, looked around, got the "lay of the ground", And made a beeline back again to the camp. The elderly priest, as he noticed the beast So gallantly making his way to the east, Says he, "From the tents may I never more roam again If that there old billy-goat ain't going home again. He's hurrying, too! This never will do. Can't somebody stop him? I'm all of a stew. After all our confessions, so openly granted, He's taking our sins back to where they're not wanted. We've come all this distance salvation to win agog, If he takes home our sins, it'll burst up the Synagogue!" He turned to an Acolyte who was making his bacca light, A fleet-footed youth who could run like a crack o' light. "Run, Abraham, run! Hunt him over the plain, And drive back the brute to the desert again. The Sphinx is a-watching, the Pyramids will frown on you, From those granite tops forty cent'ries look down on you -Run, Abraham, run! I'll bet half-a-crown on you." So Abraham ran, like a man did he go for him, But the goat made it clear each time he drew near That he had what the racing men call "too much toe" for him. The crowd with great eagerness studied the race -"Great Scott! isn't Abraham forcing the pace -And don't the goat spiel? It is hard to keep sight on him, The sins of the Israelites ride mighty light on him. The scapegoat is leading a furlong or more, And Abraham's tiring -- I'll lay six to four! He rolls in his stride; he's done, there's no question!" But here the old Rabbi brought up a suggestion. ('Twas strange that in racing he showed so much cunning), "It's a hard race," said he, "and I think it would be A good thing for someone to take up the running." As soon said as done, they started to run -The priests and the deacons, strong runners and weak 'uns 461 All reckoned ere long to come up with the brute, And so the whole boiling set off in pursuit. And then it came out, as the rabble and rout Streamed over the desert with many a shout -The Rabbi so elderly, grave, and patrician, Had been in his youth a bold metallician, And offered, in gasps, as they merrily spieled, "Any price Abraham! Evens the field!" Alas! the whole clan, they raced and they ran, And Abraham proved him an "even time" man, But the goat -- now a speck they could scarce keep their eyes on -Stretched out in his stride in a style most surprisin' And vanished ere long o'er the distant horizon. Away in the camp the bill-sticker's tramp Is heard as he wanders with paste, brush, and notices, And paling and wall he plasters them all, "I wonder how's things gettin' on with the goat," he says, The pulls out his bills, "Use Solomon's Pills" "Great Stoning of Christians! To all devout Jews! you all Must each bring a stone -- Great sport will be shown; Enormous Attractions! And prices as usual! Roll up to the Hall!! Wives, children and all, For naught the most delicate feelings to hurt is meant!!" Here his eyes opened wide, for close by his side Was the scapegoat: And eating his latest advertisement! One shriek from him burst -- "You creature accurst!" And he ran from the spot like one fearing the worst. His language was chaste, as he fled in his haste, But the goat stayed behind him -- and "scoffed up" the paste. With downcast head, and sorrowful tread, The people came back from the desert in dread. "The goat -- was he back there? Had anyone heard of him?" In very short order they got plenty word of him. In fact as they wandered by street, lane and hall, "The trail of the serpent was over them all." A poor little child knocked out stiff in the gutter Proclaimed that the scapegoat was bred for a "butter". The bill-sticker's pail told a sorrowful tale, The scapegoat had licked it as dry as a nail; He raced through their houses, and frightened their spouses, 462 But his latest achievement most anger arouses, For while they were searching, and scratching their craniums, One little Ben Ourbed, who looked in the flow'r-bed, Discovered him eating the Rabbi's geraniums. Moral The moral is patent to all the beholders -Don't shift your own sins on to other folks' shoulders; Be kind to dumb creatures and never abuse them, Nor curse them nor kick them, nor spitefully use them: Take their lives if needs must -- when it comes to the worst, But don't let them perish of hunger or thirst. Remember, no matter how far you may roam That dogs, goats, and chickens, it's simply the dickens, Their talent stupendous for "getting back home". Your sins, without doubt, will aye find you out, And so will a scapegoat, he's bound to achieve it, But, die in the wilderness! Don't you believe it! ~ Banjo Paterson,

362:The south-wind brings Life, sunshine, and desire, And on every mount and meadow Breathes aromatic fire, But over the dead he has no power, The lost, the lost he cannot restore, And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return. I see my empty house, I see my trees repair their boughs, And he, the wondrous child, Whose silver warble wild Outvalued every pulsing sound Within the air's cerulean round, The hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break, and April bloom, The gracious boy, who did adorn The world whereinto he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day, Has disappeared from the Day's eye; Far and wide she cannot find him, My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. Returned this day the south-wind searches And finds young pines and budding birches, But finds not the budding man; Nature who lost him, cannot remake him; Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him; Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, Oh, whither tend thy feet? I had the right, few days ago, Thy steps to watch, thy place to know; How have I forfeited the right? Hast thou forgot me in a new delight? I hearken for thy household cheer, O eloquent child! Whose voice, an equal messenger, Conveyed thy meaning mild. What though the pains and joys Whereof it spoke were toys Fitting his age and ken; Yet fairest dames and bearded men, Who heard the sweet request So gentle, wise, and grave, Bended with joy to his behest, And let the world's affairs go by, Awhile to share his cordial game, Or mend his wicker wagon frame, Still plotting how their hungry ear That winsome voice again might hear, For his lips could well pronounce Words that were persuasions. Gentlest guardians marked serene His early hope, his liberal mien, Took counsel from his guiding eyes To make this wisdom earthly wise. Ah! vainly do these eyes recall The school-march, each day's festival, When every morn my bosom glowed To watch the convoy on the road; The babe in willow wagon closed, With rolling eyes and face composed, With children forward and behind, Like Cupids studiously inclined, And he, the Chieftain, paced beside, The centre of the troop allied, With sunny face of sweet repose, To guard the babe from fancied foes, The little Captain innocent Took the eye with him as he went, Each village senior paused to scan And speak the lovely caravan. From the window I look out To mark thy beautiful parade Stately marching in cap and coat To some tune by fairies played; A music heard by thee alone To works as noble led thee on. Now love and pride, alas, in vain, Up and down their glances strain. The painted sled stands where it stood, The kennel by the corded wood, The gathered sticks to stanch the wall Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall, The ominous hole he dug in the sand, And childhood's castles built or planned. His daily haunts I well discern, The poultry yard, the shed, the barn, And every inch of garden ground Paced by the blessed feet around, From the road-side to the brook; Whereinto he loved to look. Step the meek birds where erst they ranged, The wintry garden lies unchanged, The brook into the stream runs on, But the deep-eyed Boy is gone. On that shaded day, Dark with more clouds than tempests are, When thou didst yield thy innocent breath In bird-like heavings unto death, Night came, and Nature had not thee, I said, we are mates in misery. The morrow dawned with needless glow, Each snow-bird chirped, each fowl must crow, Each tramper started, but the feet Of the most beautiful and sweet Of human youth had left the hill And garden,they were bound and still, There's not a sparrow or a wren, There's not a blade of autumn grain, Which the four seasons do not tend, And tides of life and increase lend, And every chick of every bird, And weed and rock-moss is preferred. O ostriches' forgetfulness! O loss of larger in the less! Was there no star that could be sent, No watcher in the firmament, No angel from the countless host, That loiters round the crystal coast, Could stoop to heal that only child, Nature's sweet marvel undefiled, And keep the blossom of the earth, Which all her harvests were not worth? Not mine, I never called thee mine, But nature's heir, if I repine, And, seeing rashly torn and moved, Not what I made, but what I loved. Grow early old with grief that then Must to the wastes of nature go, 'Tis because a general hope Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope For flattering planets seemed to say, This child should ills of ages stay, By wondrous tongue and guided pen Bring the flown muses back to men. Perchance, not he, but nature ailed, The world, and not the infant failed, It was not ripe yet, to sustain A genius of so fine a strain, Who gazed upon the sun and moon As if he came unto his own, And pregnant with his grander thought, Brought the old order into doubt. Awhile his beauty their beauty tried, They could not feed him, and he died, And wandered backward as in scorn To wait an on to be born. Ill day which made this beauty waste; Plight broken, this high face defaced! Some went and came about the dead, And some in books of solace read, Some to their friends the tidings say, Some went to write, some went to pray, One tarried here, there hurried one, But their heart abode with none. Covetous death bereaved us all To aggrandize one funeral. The eager Fate which carried thee Took the largest part of me. For this losing is true dying, This is lordly man's down-lying, This is slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world resigning. O child of Paradise! Boy who made dear his father's home In whose deep eyes Men read the welfare of the times to come; I am too much bereft; The world dishonored thou hast left; O truths and natures costly lie; O trusted, broken prophecy! O richest fortune sourly crossed; Born for the future, to the future lost! The deep Heart answered, Weepest thou? Worthier cause for passion wild, If I had not taken the child. And deemest thou as those who pore With aged eyes short way before? Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast Of matter, and thy darling lost? Taught he not thee, the man of eld, Whose eyes within his eyes beheld Heaven's numerous hierarchy span The mystic gulf from God to man? To be alone wilt thou begin, When worlds of lovers hem thee in? To-morrow, when the masks shall fall That dizen nature's carnival, The pure shall see, by their own will, Which overflowing love shall fill, 'Tis not within the force of Fate The fate-conjoined to separate. But thou, my votary, weepest thou? I gave thee sight, where is it now? I taught thy heart beyond the reach Of ritual, Bible, or of speech; Wrote in thy mind's transparent table As far as the incommunicable; Taught thee each private sign to raise Lit by the supersolar blaze. Past utterance and past belief, And past the blasphemy of grief, The mysteries of nature's heart, And though no muse can these impart, Throb thine with nature's throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west. I came to thee as to a friend, Dearest, to thee I did not send Tutors, but a joyful eye, Innocence that matched the sky, Lovely locks a form of wonder, Laughter rich as woodland thunder; That thou might'st entertain apart The richest flowering of all art; And, as the great all-loving Day Through smallest chambers takes its way, That thou might'st break thy daily bread With Prophet, Saviour, and head; That thou might'st cherish for thine own The riches of sweet Mary's Son, Boy-Rabbi, Israel's Paragon: And thoughtest thou such guest Would in thy hall take up his rest? Would rushing life forget its laws, Fate's glowing revolution pause? High omens ask diviner guess, Not to be conned to tediousness. And know, my higher gifts unbind The zone that girds the incarnate mind, When the scanty shores are full With Thought's perilous whirling pool, When frail Nature can no more, Then the spirit strikes the hour, My servant Death with solving rite Pours finite into infinite. Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow, Whose streams through nature circling go? Nail the star struggling to its track On the half-climbed Zodiack? Light is light which radiates, Blood is blood which circulates, Life is life which generates, And many-seeming life is one, Wilt thou transfix and make it none, Its onward stream too starkly pent In figure, bone, and lineament? Wilt thou uncalled interrogate Talker! the unreplying fate? Nor see the Genius of the whole Ascendant in the private soul, Beckon it when to go and come, Self-announced its hour of doom. Fair the soul's recess and shrine, Magic-built, to last a season, Masterpiece of love benign! Fairer than expansive reason Whose omen 'tis, and sign. Wilt thou not ope this heart to know What rainbows teach and sunsets show, Verdict which accumulates From lengthened scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of heart that inly burned; Saying, what is excellent, As God lives, is permanent Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain, Heart's love will meet thee again. Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye Up to His style, and manners of the sky. Not of adamant and gold Built He heaven stark and cold, No, but a nest of bending reeds, Flowering grass and scented weeds, Or like a traveller's fleeting tent, Or bow above the tempest pent, Built of tears and sacred flames, And virtue reaching to its aims; Built of furtherance and pursuing, Not of spent deeds, but of doing. Silent rushes the swift Lord Through ruined systems still restored, Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless, Plants with worlds the wilderness, Waters with tears of ancient sorrow Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow; House and tenant go to ground, Lost in God, in Godhead found. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Threnody ,

363:An Epistle I. Master and Sage, greetings and health to thee, From thy most meek disciple! Deign once more Endure me at thy feet, enlighten me, As when upon my boyish head of yore, Midst the rapt circle gathered round thy knee Thy sacred vials of learning thou didst pour. By the large lustre of thy wisdom orbed Be my black doubts illumined and absorbed. II. Oft I recall that golden time when thou, Born for no second station, heldst with us The Rabbi's chair, who art priest and bishop now; And we, the youth of Israel, curious, Hung on thy counsels, lifted reverent brow Unto thy sanctity, would fain discuss With thee our Talmud problems good and evil, Till startled by the risen stars o'er Seville. III. For on the Synagogue's high-pillared porch Thou didst hold session, till the sudden sun Beyond day's purple limit dropped his torch. Then we, as dreamers, woke, to find outrun Time's rapid sands. The flame that may not scorch, Our hearts caught from thine eyes, thou Shining One. I scent not yet sweet lemon-groves in flower, But I re-breathe the peace of that deep hour. IV. We kissed the sacred borders of thy gown, 29 Brow-aureoled with thy blessing, we went forth Through the hushed byways of the twilight town. Then in all life but one thing seemed of worth, To seek, find, love the Truth. She set her crown Upon thy head, our Master, at thy birth; She bade thy lips drop honey, fired thine eyes With the unclouded glow of sun-steeped skies. V. Forgive me, if I dwell on that which, viewed From thy new vantage-ground, must seem a mist Of error, by auroral youth endued With alien lustre. Still in me subsist Those reeking vapors; faith and gratitude Still lead me to the hand my boy-lips kissed For benison and guidance. Not in wrath, Master, but in wise patience, point my path. VI. For I, thy servant, gather in one sheaf The venomed shafts of slander, which thy word Shall shrivel to small dust. If haply grief, Or momentary pain, I deal, my Lord Blame not thy servant's zeal, nor be thou deaf Unto my soul's blind cry for light. AccordPitying my love, if too superb to care For hate-soiled name-an answer to my prayer. VII. To me, who, vine to stone, clung close to thee, The very base of life appeared to quake When first I knew thee fallen from us, to be A tower of strength among our foes, to make 'Twixt Jew and Jew deep-cloven enmity. I have wept gall and blood for thy dear sake. But now with temperate soul I calmly search 30 Motive and cause that bound thee to the Church. VIII. Four motives possible therefor I reachAmbition, doubt, fear, or mayhap-conviction. I hear in turn ascribed thee all and each By ignorant folk who part not truth from fiction. But I, whom even thyself didst stoop to teach, May poise the scales, weigh this with that confliction, Yea, sift the hid grain motive from the dense, Dusty, eye-blinding chaff of consequence. IX. Ambition first! I find no fleck thereof In all thy clean soul. What! could glory, gold, Or sated senses lure thy lofty love? No purple cloak to shield thee from the cold, No jeweled sign to flicker thereabove, And dazzle men to homage-joys untold Of spiritual treasure, grace divine, Alone (so saidst thou) coveting for thine! X. I saw thee mount with deprecating air, Step after step, unto our Jewish throne Of supreme dignity, the Rabbi's chair; Shrinking from public honors thrust upon Thy meek desert, regretting even there The placid habit of thy life foregone; Silence obscure, vast peace and austere days Passed in wise contemplation, prayer, and praise. XI. One less than thou had ne'er known such regret. 31 How must thou suffer, who so lov'st the shade, In Fame's full glare, whom one stride more shall set Upon the Papal seat! I stand dismayed, Familiar with thy fearful soul, and yet Half glad, perceiving modest worth repaid Even by the Christians! Could thy soul deflect? No, no, thrice no! Ambition I reject! XII. Next doubt. Could doubt have swayed thee, then I ask, How enters doubt within the soul of man? Is it a door that opens, or a mask That falls? and Truth's resplendent face we scan. Nay, 't is a creeping, small, blind worm, whose task Is gnawing at Faith's base; the whole vast plan Rots, crumbles, eaten inch by inch within, And on its ruins falsehood springs and sin. XIII. But thee no doubt confused, no problems vexed. Thy father's faith for thee proved bright and sweet. Thou foundst no rite superfluous, no text Obscure; the path was straight before thy feet. Till thy baptismal day, thou, unperplexed By foreign dogma, didst our prayers repeat, Honor the God of Israel, fast and feast, Even as thy people's wont, from first to least. XIV. Yes, Doubt I likewise must discard. Not sleek, Full-faced, erect of head, men walk, when doubt Writhes at their entrails; pinched and lean of cheek, With brow pain-branded, thou hadst strayed about As midst live men a ghost condemned to seek That soul he may nor live nor die without. No doubts the font washed from thee, thou didst glide 32 From creed to creed, complete, sane-souled, clear-eyed. XV. Thy pardon, Master, if I dare sustain The thesis thou couldst entertain a fear. I would but rout thine enemies, who feign Ignoble impulse prompted thy career. I will but weigh the chances and make plain To Envy's self the monstrous jest appear. Though time, place, circumstance confirmed in seeming, One word from thee should frustrate all their scheming. XVI. Was Israel glad in Seville on the day Thou didst renounce him? Then mightst thou indeed Snap finger at whate'er thy slanderers say. Lothly must I admit, just then the seed Of Jacob chanced upon a grievous way. Still from the wounds of that red year we bleed. The curse had fallen upon our heads-the sword Was whetted for the chosen of the Lord. XVII. There where we flourished like a fruitful palm, We were uprooted, spoiled, lopped limb from limb. A bolt undreamed of out of heavens calm, So cracked our doom. We were destroyed by him Whose hand since childhood we had clasped. With balm Our head had been anointed, at the brim Our cup ran over-now our day was done, Our blood flowed free as water in the sun. XVIII. Midst the four thousand of our tribe who held 33 Glad homes in Seville, never a one was spared, Some slaughtered at their hearthstones, some expelled To Moorish slavery. Cunningly ensnared, Baited and trapped were we; their fierce monks yelled And thundered from our Synagogues, while flared The Cross above the Ark. Ah, happiest they Who fell unconquered martyrs on that day! XIX. For some (I write it with flushed cheek, bowed head), Given free choice 'twixt death and shame, chose shame, Denied the God who visibly had led Their fathers, pillared in a cloud of flame, Bathed in baptismal waters, ate the bread Which is their new Lord's body, took the name Marranos the Accursed, whom equally Jew, Moor, and Christian hate, despise, and flee. XX. Even one no less than an Abarbanel Prized miserable length of days, above Integrity of soul. Midst such who fell, Far be it, however, from my duteous love, Master, to reckon thee. Thine own lips tell How fear nor torture thy firm will could move. How thou midst panic nowise disconcerted, By Thomas of Aquinas wast converted! XXI. Truly I know no more convincing way To read so wise an author, than was thine. When burning Synagogues changed night to day, And red swords underscored each word and line. That was a light to read by! Who'd gainsay Authority so clearly stamped divine? On this side, death and torture, flame and slaughter, 34 On that, a harmless wafer and clean water. XXII. Thou couldst not fear extinction for our race; Though Christian sword and fire from town to town Flash double bladed lightning to efface Israel's image-though we bleed, burn, drown Through Christendom-'t is but a scanty space. Still are the Asian hills and plains our own, Still are we lords in Syria, still are free, Nor doomed to be abolished utterly. XXIII. One sole conclusion hence at last I find, Thou whom ambition, doubt, nor fear could swerve, Perforce hast been persuaded through the mind, Proved, tested the new dogmas, found them serve Thy spirit's needs, left flesh and sense behind, Accepted without shrinking or reserve, The trans-substantial bread and wine, the Christ At whose shrine thine own kin were sacrificed. XXIV. Here then the moment comes when I crave light. All's dark to me. Master, if I be blind, Thou shalt unseal my lids and bless with sight, Or groping in the shadows, I shall find Whether within me or without, dwell night. Oh cast upon my doubt-bewildered mind One ray from thy clear heaven of sun-bright faith, Grieving, not wroth, at what thy servant saith. XXV. Where are the signs fulfilled whereby all men 35 Should know the Christ? Where is the wide-winged peace Shielding the lamb within the lion's den? The freedom broadening with the wars that cease? Do foes clasp hands in brotherhood again? Where is the promised garden of increase, When like a rose the wilderness should bloom? Earth is a battlefield and Spain a tomb. XXVI. Our God of Sabaoth is an awful God Of lightnings and of vengeance,-Christians say. Earth trembled, nations perished at his nod; His Law has yielded to a milder sway. Theirs is the God of Love whose feet have trod Our common earth-draw near to him and pray, Meek-faced, dove-eyed, pure-browed, the Lord of life, Know him and kneel, else at your throat the knife! XXVII. This is the God of Love, whose altars reek With human blood, who teaches men to hate; Torture past words, or sins we may not speak Wrought by his priests behind the convent-grate. Are his priests false? or are his doctrines weak That none obeys him? State at war with state, Church against church-yea, Pope at feud with Pope In these tossed seas what anchorage for hope? XXVIII. Not only for the sheep without the fold Is the knife whetted, who refuse to share Blessings the shepherd wise doth not withhold Even from the least among his flock-but there Midmost the pale, dissensions manifold, Lamb flaying lamb, fierce sheep that rend and tear. Master, if thou to thy pride's goal should come, 36 Where wouldst thou throne-at Avignon or Rome? XXIX. I handle burning questions, good my lord, Such as may kindle fagots, well I wis. Your Gospel not denies our older Word, But in a way completes and betters this. The Law of Love shall supersede the sword, So runs the promise, but the facts I miss. Already needs this wretched generation, A voice divine-a new, third revelation. XXX. Two Popes and their adherents fulminate Ban against ban, and to the nether hell Condemn each other, while the nations wait Their Christ to thunder forth from Heaven, and tell Who is his rightful Vicar, reinstate His throne, the hideous discord to dispel. Where shall I seek, master, while such things be, Celestial truth, revealed certainty! XXXI. Not miracles I doubt, for how dare man, Chief miracle of life's mystery, say HE KNOWS? How may he closely secret causes scan, Who learns not whence he comes nor where he goes? Like one who walks in sleep a doubtful span He gropes through all his days, till Death unclose His cheated eyes and in one blinding gleam, Wakes, to discern the substance from the dream. XXXII. I say not therefore I deny the birth, 37 The Virgin's motherhood, the resurrection, Who know not how mine own soul came to earth, Nor what shall follow death. Man's imperfection May bound not even in thought the height and girth Of God's omnipotence; neath his direction We may approach his essence, but that He Should dwarf Himself to us-it cannot be! XXXIII. The God who balances the clouds, who spread The sky above us like a molten glass, The God who shut the sea with doors, who laid The corner-stone of earth, who caused the grass Spring forth upon the wilderness, and made The darkness scatter and the night to passThat He should clothe Himself with flesh, and move Midst worms a worm-this, sun, moon, stars disprove. XXXIV. Help me, O thou who wast my boyhood's guide, I bend my exile-weary feet to thee, Teach me the indivisible to divide, Show me how three are one and One is three! How Christ to save all men was crucified, Yet I and mine are damned eternally. Instruct me, Sage, why Virtue starves alone, While falsehood step by step ascends the throne. ~ Emma Lazarus,

364:Into The Silent Land I. 'Oh for a pen of light, a tongue of fire, That every word might burn in living flame Upon the age's brow, and leave one name Engraven on the future! One desire Fills every nook and cranny of my heart; One hope-one sorrow-one beloved aim! She whose pure life was of my life a part, As light is of the day, could she inspire My unmelodious muse, or tune the lyre To diapasons worthy of the theme, How would her joy put on its robes of light, And nestle in my bosom once again, As when life, like an Oriental dream, Fanned by Arabian airs, glode down the stream To music whose remembrance is a pain. The foot of time might trample on my strain, But could not quench its essence. There was might, And majesty, and greatness in the love She blest me with-a blessing without stain, And that was earthly; since her spirit-sight Looked through the veil, and learned love's true delight, Which sainted ministrants alone can prove Who taste the waters of eternal love: I pause to think how wonderful has grown The love that was to me so wondrous here! Chained as I am to this terrestrial sphere, Groping my way through darkness, and alone, Like a blind eaglet soaring towards the sun, How would her full experience lift and cheer The heart that never feels its duty done, And with a girdle of pure light enzone My flowery world of thought, and make it all her own.' Thus mused the Minstrel, for his heart was sad. Death had bereaved him of his bride, while youth, And looming years of future trust and truth, 60 Knit them together, till their souls were clad With joy ineffable. Love's great High Priest Sacrificed in their hearts to Him that doeth All things well; and such rare, perpetual feast Of love and truth no mortals ever had, To keep their memories green, their lives serene and glad, He sat again within the quiet room, Where Death had snapped one golden thread of life, And the pale hand of Sickness, sorrow-rife, Robbed the plump cheek of childhood of its bloom; Where she, another Philomena, moved Like a fond Charity-the coming wife Ordained to crown his being: And he loved. The future rose before him, joy and gloom; For where the sunlight shone, there waved the sable plume. And yet he failed not, for the coming pain; The coming bliss would counterbalance all. The sight prophetic that perceived the pall, Looked far beyond for the celestial gain. They do not truly love who cannot yield The mortal up at the Immortal's call, Or fail to triumph for the soul that's sealed. His mind was strung to one harmonious strain: To give when God should ask, and not resign in vain. Love was to him life's chiefest victory; He knew no greater, and he sought no less. Like a green isle surrounded by the sea That gives it health and vigour, so was he The centre of love's sphere of perfectness; He breathed its heavenly atmosphere; the key That opened every chamber in love's court Was in his hand; love's mystery was his sport, He knelt within love's fane and worshipped thereBut not alone, for one was by his side Whose love refined his being, filled the air Of life's irradiated sky with light, As the sun floods the heavens with a tide Of renovating freshness, as the night 61 Is mellowed by the ample moon. And hoping for the recompense That would be theirs in life's approaching noon, They built on hope's high eminence Their airy palaces, whose magnificence Surpassed the dreams that fancy drew, So fair the promised land that lay within their view. And here they lived; just within reach of heaven. They could put forth their hands and touch the skies That brooded o'er the walls of chrysolite, The airy minarets, and golden domes Of their new home, by Love, the Maker, given, Steeped in his brightest dyes. All nature opened up her ponderous tomes, Whereby they had new knowledge and new sight, Learned greater truths, and saw the paths of light, Mosaic-paven, which to Duty led. And there were secrets written overhead, In burning hieroglyphs of thought, From which they gleaned such lessons as are taught Only to those whom heaven, in graciousness, Lifts in her arms with a divine caress. Earth, like a joyous maiden whose pure soul Is filled with sudden ecstacy, became A fruitful Eden; and the golden bowl That held their elixir of life was filled To overflowing with the rarest draught Ever by gods or men in rapture quaffed; Till from the altar of their hearts love's flame Passed through the veins of the world, and thrilled The soul of the rejoicing universe, Which became theirs, and like true neophytes They drained the sweet nepenthe, and love's rites Wiped from their hearts all trace of the primeval curse. The happy months rolled on; each wedded day A bridal; and each calm and holy eve Strewed with rare blessings all the sunny way Through which they passed, with so divine a joy That in his brain would meditation weave 62 Love's roses into garlands of sweet song, To deck the brow of his devoted wife. In this their El Dorado, no alloy Mixed with the coinage of their wedded life; The workmen in the mint an honest throng. No wonder, then, that with go fine a bliss Informing every fibre of his brain, His thoughts begat impressions such as this; Linking their lives together with a chain Of melody as rare as some divine refrain: Like dew to the thirsty flower, Like sweets to the hungry bee, Is love's divinest dower, Its tenderness and power, To thee, dear Wife! to thee. Like light to the darkened spirit, Like oil to the turbid sea, Like truthful words to merit, Are the blessings I inherit With thee, dear Wife! with thee. Afar in the distant ages, Soul-ransomed, and spirit-free, I'll read all being's pages, Unread by mortal sages, With thee, dear Wife! with thee. None but the happy heart could carol thus; A feather stolen from Devotion's wing, To keep as a memento of the time When earth met heaven, in life's duteous And prayerful journey towards the shadowy clime; Ere they descended from their height sublime, Where at Love's well-filled table, banqueting, They sat, and watched the first glad year, Earthlike, revolving round the sun Of their true life. Within that sphere Was the new Eden. One by one 63 The precious moments dropped like golden sands, And formed the solid hours. No perilous strands Delayed life's blissful current, as it sped Through flowery realms with blue skies overhead, To songs and laughter musically sweet, As if all sorrow had forever fled; And idylls, sung with cheerful tone, Haunted the calm, enchanted zone That hemmed them in, Where, like a stately queen, Sate Peace, beatified, serene, The guardian, heaven-sent, of this their fair demesne: --LOVE'S ANNIVERSARY. Like a bold, adventurous swain, Just a year ago to-day, I launched my bark on a radiant main, And Hymen led the way: 'Breakers ahead!' he cried, As he sought to overwhelm My daring craft in the shrieking tide, But Love, like a pilot bold and tried, Sat, watchful, at the helm. And we passed the treacherous shoals, Where many a hope lay dead, And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls Of joys forever fled. Once safely over these, We sped by a fairy realm, Across the bluest and calmest seas That were ever kissed by a truant breeze, With Love still at the helm. We sailed by sweet, odorous isles, Where the flowers and trees were one; Through lakes that vied with the golden smiles Of heaven's unclouded sun: Still speeds our merry bark, 64 Threading life's peaceful realm, And 'tis ever morn with our marriage-lark, For the Pilot-Love of our safety-ark Stands, watchful, at the helm. II. A beautiful land is the Land of Dreams, Green hills and valleys, and deep lagoons, Swift-rushing torrents and gentle streams, Glassing a myriad silver moons; Mirror-like lakelets with lovely isles, And verdurous headlands looking down On the Neread shapes, whose smiles Were worth the price of a peaceful crown. We clutch at the silvery bars Flung from the motionless stars, And climb far into space, Defying the race Who ride in aerial cars. We take up the harp of the mind, And finger its delicate strings; The notes, soft and light As a moonbeam's flight, Departing on viewless wings. Afar in some fanciful bower, Some region of exquisite calm, Where the starlight falls in a gleaming shower, We sink to repose On our couch of rose, Inhaling no mortal balm. The worlds are no longer unknown, We pass through the uttermost sky, Our eyelids are kissed By a gentle mist, And we feel the tone Of a calmer zone, As if heaven were wondrous nigh. 65 A fanciful land is the Land of Dreams, Where earth and heaven are clasping hands; No heaven-no earth, But one wide, new birth, Where Beauty and Goodness, and human worth, Make earth of heaven and heaven of earth; And angels are walking on golden strands. And the pearly gates of the universe Of mind and fancy, opening To the touch of the dainty finger-tips Of elegant Peris with rose-bud lips, Delicate, weird-like sounds are born From the amber depths of odorous morn, And spirits of beauty and light rehearse Such strains as the young immortals sing, When the souls of the blest Are borne to their rest, On luminous pinions of light serene To the fragrant bowers of evergreen; O'er the rosy plains, where the dying hours Are changed by a spell to celestial flowers, Where the skies have a hue no name can express, For the tone of their passionate loveliness Surpasseth all human imagining. Such was their beautiful Dream of Life; Each stern reality softened down; Earth seemed to have ended her age of Strife, And Harmony reigned, her olive crown Besting on the Parian brow Of the fair victor, like the gleam Of the silvery moon on waves that flow Thoughtfully down the summer stream. Such was their earnest Dream of Life! Was it some angel, with jealous eye, Seeing such love beneath the sky As never yet in world or star, Or spheral height, that reached so far 'Twas never beheld by mortal sight, Or elsewhere, save in highest heaven, 66 Was duly earned, or truly given, That leagued with the usurper, Death, To quench the light that shone so bright That in all the earth there was not a breath So foul as to change their day to night? Alone! alone! Oh, word of fearful tone! Well might the moon withhold her light, The stars withdraw from human sight, When Love was overthrown. The Minstrel's heart how changed! Love's principalities, O'er which he reigned supreme, Usurped by earth's realities; The realm through which he ranged Become a vanished dream! And yet he sung, as sings The dying swan that droops its wings And drifts along the stream: --THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW PANE. A joy from my soul's departed, A bliss from my heart is flown, As weary, weary-hearted, I wander alone-alone! The night wind sadly sigheth A withering, wild refrain, And my heart within me dieth For the light in the window pane. The stars overhead are shining, As brightly as e'er they shone, As heartless-sad-repining, I wander alone-alone! A sudden flash comes streaming, And flickers adown the lane, But no more for me is gleaming The light in the window pane. 67 The voices that pass are cheerful, Men laugh as the night winds moan; They cannot tell how fearful 'Tis to wander alone-alone! For them, with each night's returning, Life singeth its tenderest strain, Where the beacon of love is burningThe light in the window pane. Oh, sorrow beyond all sorrows To which human life is prone: Without thee, through all the morrows, To wander alone-alone! Oh, dark, deserted dwelling! Where Hope like a lamb was slain, No voice from thy lone walls welling, No light in thy window pane. But memory, sainted angel! Rolls back the sepulchral stone, And sings like a sweet evangel: 'No-never, never alone! True grief has its royal palace, Each loss is a greater gain; And Sorrow ne'er filled a chalice That Joy did not wait to drain! --'Man must be perfected By suffering,' he said; 'And Death is but the stepping-stone, whereby We mount towards the gate Of heaven, soon or late. Death is the penalty of life; we die, Because we live; and life Is but a constant strife With the immortal Impulse that within Our bodies seeks controlThe time-abiding Soul, 68 That wrestles with us-yet we fain would win. And what? the victory Would make us slaves; and we, Who in our blindness struggle for the prize Of this illusive state Called Life, do but frustrate The higher law-refusing to be wise.' Rightly he knew, indeed, Earth's brightest paths but lead To the true wisdom of that perfect state, Where Knowledge, heaven-born, And Love's eternal morn, Awaiteth those who would be truly great. With what abiding trust He rose from out the dust, As Death's swift chariot passed him by the way; No visionary dream Was his-no trifling themeThe Soul's great Mystery before him lay: --THE SOUL. All my mind has sat in state, Pond'ring on the deathless Soul: What must be the Perfect Whole, When the atom is so great! God! I fall in spirit down, Low as Persian to the sun; All my senses, one by one, In the stream of Thought must drown. On the tide of mystery, Like a waif, I'm seaward borne, Ever looking for the morn That will yet interpret Thee, 69 Opening my blinded eyes, That have strove to look within, 'Whelmed in clouds of doubt and sin, Sinking where I dared to rise: Could I trace one Spirit's flight, Track it to its final goal, Know that 'Spirit' meant 'the Soul,' I must perish in the light. All in vain I search, and cry: 'What, O Soul, and whence art thou?' Lower than the earth I bow, Stricken with the grave reply: 'Wouldst thou ope what God has sealedSealed in mercy here below? What is best for man to know, Shall most surely be revealed!' Deep on deep of mystery! Ask the sage, he knows no more Of the soul's unspoken lore Than the child upon his knee! Cannot tell me whence the thought That is passing through my mind! Where the mystic soul is shrined, Wherewith all my life is fraught? Knows not how the brain conceives Images almost divine; Cannot work my mental mine, Cannot bind my golden sheaves. Is he wiser, then, than I, Seeing he can read the stars? I have rode in fancy's oars Leagues beyond his farthest sky! Some old Rabbi, dreaming o'er The sweet legends of his race, 70 Ask him for some certain trace Of the far, eternal shore. No. The Talmud page is dark, Though it burn with quenchless fire, And the insight must pierce higher, That would find the vital spark. O, my Soul! be firm and wait, Hoping with the zealous few, Till the Shekinah of the True Lead thee through the Golden Gate. ~ Charles Sangster,

365:Raschi In Prague Raschi of Troyes, the Moon of Israel, The authoritative Talmudist, returned From his wide wanderings under many skies, To all the synagogues of the Orient, Through Spain and Italy, the isles of Greece, Beautiful, dolorous, sacred Palestine, Dead, obelisked Egypt, floral, musk-breathed Persia, Laughing with bloom, across the Caucasus, The interminable sameness of bare steppes, Through dark luxuriance of Bohemian woods, And issuing on the broad, bright Moldau vale, Entered the gates of Prague. Here, too, his fame, Being winged, preceded him. His people swarmed Like bees to gather the rich honey-dew Of learning from his lips. Amazement filled All eyes beholding him. No hoary sage, He who had sat in Egypt at the feet Of Moses ben-Maimuni, called him friend; Raschi the scholiast, poet, and physician, Who bore the ponderous Bible's storied wisdom, The Mischna's tangled lore at tip of tongue, Light as a garland on a lance, appeared In the just-ripened glory of a man. From his clear eye youth flamed magnificent; Force, masked by grace, moved in his balanced frame; An intellectual, virile beauty reigned Dominant on domed brow, on fine, firm lips, An eagle profile cut in gilded bronze, Strong, delicate as a head upon a coin, While, as an aureole crowns a burning lamp, Above all beauty of the body and brain Shone beauty of a soul benign with love. Even as a tawny flock of huddled sheep, Grazing each other's heels, urged by one will, With bleat and baa following the wether's lead, Or the wise shepherd, so o'er the Moldau bridge Trotted the throng of yellow-caftaned Jews, Chattering, hustling, shuffling. At their head Marched Rabbi Jochanan ben-Eleazar, 165 High priest in Prague, oldest and most revered, To greet the star of Israel. As a father Yearns toward his son, so toward the noble Raschi Leapt at first sight the patriarch's fresh old heart. 'My home be thine in Prague! Be thou my son, Who have no offspring save one simple girl. See, glorious youth, who dost renew the days Of David and of Samuel, early graced With God's anointing oil, how Israel Delights to honor who hath honored him.' Then Raschi, though he felt a ball of fire Globe itself in his throat, maintained his calm, His cheek's opaque, swart pallor while he kissed Silent the Rabbi's withered hand, and bowed Divinely humble, his exalted head Craving the benison. For each who asked He had the word of counsel, comfort, help; For all, rich eloquence of thanks. His voice, Even and grave, thrilled secret chords and set Plain speech to music. Certain folk were there Sick in the body, dragging painful limbs, To the physician. These he solaced first, With healing touch, with simples from his pouch, Warming and lulling, best with promises Of constant service till their ills were cured. And some, gray-bearded, bald, and curved with age, Blear-eyed from poring over lines obscure And knotty riddles of the Talmud, brought Their problems to this youth, who cleared and solved, Yielding prompt answer to a lifetime's search. Then, followed, pushed by his obsequious tribe, Who fain had pedestaled him on their backs, Hemming his steps, choking the airs of heaven With their oppressive honors, he advanced, Midst shouts, tumultuous welcomes, kisses showered Upon his road-stained garments, through Prague's streets, Gaped at by Gentiles, hissed at and reviled, But no whit altering his majestic mien For overwhelming plaudits or contempt. Glad tidings Raschi brought from West and East Of thriving synagogues, of famous men, 166 And flourishing academies. In Rome The Papal treasurer was a pious Jew, Rabbi Jehiel, neath whose patronage Prospered a noble school. Two hundred Jews Dwelt free and paid no tributary mark. Three hundred lived in peace at Capua, Shepherded by the learned Rabbi David, A prince of Israel. In Babylon The Jews established their Academy. Another still in Bagdad, from whose chair Preached the great rabbi, Samuel Ha-levi, Versed in the written and the oral law, Who blindfold could repeat the whole vast text Of Mischna and Gemara. On the banks Of Eden-born Euphrates, one day's ride From Bagdad, Raschi found in the wilderness, Which once was Babylon, Ezekiel's tomb. Thrice ten perpetual lamps starred the dim shrine, Two hundred sentinels held the sleepless vigil, Receiving offerings. At the Feast of Booths Here crowded Jews by thousands, out of Persia, From all the neighboring lands, to celebrate The glorious memories of the golden days. Ten thousand Jews with their Academy Damascus boasted, while in Cairo shone The pearl, the crown of Israel, ben-Maimuni, Physician at the Court of Saladin, The second Moses, gathering at his feet Sages from all the world. As Raschi spake, Forgetting or ignoring the chief shrine, The Exile's Home, whereunto yearned all hearts, All ears were strained for tidings. Some one asked: 'What of Jerusalem? Speak to us of Zion.' The light died from his eyes. From depths profound Issued his grave, great voice: 'Alas for Zion! Verily is she fallen! Where our race Dictated to the nations, not a handful, Nay, not a score, not ten, not two abide! One, only one, one solitary Jew, The Rabbi Abraham Haceba, flits Ghostlike amid the ruins; every year 167 Beggars himself to pay the idolaters The costly tax for leave to hold a-gape His heart's live wound; to weep, a mendicant, Amidst the crumbled stones of palaces Where reigned his ancestors, upon the graves Where sleep the priests, the prophets, and the kings Who were his forefathers. Ask me no more!' Now, when the French Jew's advent was proclaimed, And his tumultuous greeting, envious growls And ominous eyebeams threatened storm in Prague. 'Who may this miracle of learning be? The Anti-Christ! The century-long-awaited, The hourly-hoped Messiah, come at last! Else dared they never wax so arrogant, Flaunting their monstrous joy in Christian eyes, And strutting peacock-like, with hideous screams, Who are wont to crawl, mute reptiles underfoot.' A stone or two flung at some servile form, Liveried in the yellow gaberdine (With secret happiness but half suppressed On features cast for misery), served at first For chance expression of the rabble's hate; But, swelling like a snow-ball rolled along By mischief-plotting boys, the rage increased, Grew to a mighty mass, until it reached The palace of Duke Vladislaw. He heard With righteous wrath his injured subjects' charge Against presumptuous aliens: how these blocked His avenues, his bridges; bared to the sun The canker-taint of Prague's obscurest coigne; Paraded past the churches of the Lord One who denied Him, one by them hailed Christ. Enough! This cloud, no bigger than one's hand, Gains overweening bulk. Prague harbored, first, Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply Their money-lending trade, and leased them land On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day, Like leeches bloated with the people's blood, They batten on Bohemia's poverty; 168 They breed and grow; like adders, spit back hate And venomed perfidy for Christian love. Thereat the Duke, urged by wise counsellorsNarzerad the statesman (half whose wealth was pledged To the usurers), abetted by the priest, Bishop of Olmutz, who had visited The Holy Sepulchre, whose long, full life Was one clean record of pure pietyThe Duke, I say, by these persuasive tongues, Coaxed to his darling aim, forbade his guards To hinder the just anger of his town, And ordered to be led in chains to him The pilgrim and his host. At noontide meal Raschi sat, full of peace, with Jochanan, And the sole daughter of the house, Rebekah, Young, beautiful as her namesake when she brought Her firm, frail pitcher balanced on her neck Unto the well, and gave the stranger drink, And gave his camels drink. The servant set The sparkling jar's refreshment from his lips, And saw the virgin's face, bright as the moon, Beam from the curled luxuriance of black locks, And cast-back linen veil's soft-folded cloud, Then put the golden ear-ring by her cheek, The bracelets on her hands, his master's pledge, Isaac's betrothal gift, whom she should wed, And be the mother of millions-one whose seed Dwells in the gates of those which hate them. So Yearned Raschi to adorn the radiant girl Who sat at board before him, nor dared lift Shy, heavy lids from pupils black as grapes That dart the imprisoned sunshine from their core. But in her ears keen sense was born to catch, And in her heart strange power to hold, each tone O' the low-keyed, vibrant voice, each syllable O' the eloquent discourse, enriched with tales Of venturous travel, brilliant with fine points Of delicate humor, or illustrated With living portraits of world-famoused men, 169 Jews, Saracens, Crusaders, Islamites, Whose hand he had grasped-the iron warrior, Godfrey of Bouillon, the wise infidel Who in all strength, wit, courtesy excelled The kings his foes-imperial Saladin. But even as Raschi spake an abrupt noise Of angry shouts, of battering staves that shook The oaken portal, stopped the enchanted voice, The uplifted wine spilled from the nerveless hand Of Rabbi Jochanan. 'God pity us! Our enemies are upon us once again. Hie thee, Rebekah, to the inmost chamber, Far from their wanton eyes' polluting gaze, Their desecrating touch! Kiss me! Begone! Raschi, my guest, my son'-But no word more Uttered the reverend man. With one huge crash The strong doors split asunder, pouring in A stream of soldiers, ruffians, armed with pikes, Lances, and clubs-the unchained beast, the mob. 'Behold the town's new guest!' jeered one who tossed The half-filled golden wine-cup's contents straight In the noble pure young face. 'What, master Jew! Must your good friends of Prague break bolts and bars To gain a peep at this prodigious pearl You bury in your shell? Forth to the day! Our Duke himself claims share of your new wealth; Summons to court the Jew philosopher!' Then, while some stuffed their pokes with baubles snatched From board and shelf, or with malignant sword Slashed the rich Orient rugs, the pictured woof That clothed the wall; others had seized and bound, And gagged from speech, the helpless, aged man; Still others outraged, with coarse, violent hands, The marble-pale, rigid as stone, strange youth, Whose eye like struck flint flashed, whose nether lip Was threaded with a scarlet line of blood, Where the compressed teeth fixed it to forced calm. He struggled not while his free limbs were tied, His beard plucked, torn and spat upon his robeSeemed scarce to know these insults were for him; But never swerved his gaze from Jochanan. Then, in God's language, sealed from these dumb brutes, 170 Swiftly and low he spake: 'Be of good cheer, Reverend old man. I deign not treat with these. If one dare offer bodily hurt to thee, By the ineffable Name! I snap my chains Like gossamer, and in his blood, to the hilt, Bathe the prompt knife hid in my girdle's folds. The Duke shall hear me. Patience. Trust in me.' Somewhat the authoritative voice abashed, Even hoarse and changed, the miscreants, who feared Some strong curse lurked in this mysterious tongue, Armed with this evil eye. But brief the spell. With gibe and scoff they dragged their victims forth, The abused old man, the proud, insulted youth, O'er the late path of his triumphal march, Befouled with mud, with raiment torn, wild hair And ragged beard, to Vladislaw. He sat Expectant in his cabinet. On one side His secular adviser, Narzerad, Quick-eyed, sharp-nosed, red-whiskered as a fox; On the other hand his spiritual guide, Bishop of Olmutz, unctuous, large, and bland. 'So these twain are chief culprits!' sneered the Duke, Measuring with the noble's ignorant scorn His masters of a lesser caste. 'Stand forth! Rash, stubborn, vain old man, whose impudence Hath choked the public highways with thy brood Of nasty vermin, by our sufferance hid In lanes obscure, who hailed this charlatan With sky-flung caps, bent knees, and echoing shouts, Due to ourselves alone in Prague; yea, worse, Who offered worship even ourselves disclaim, Our Lord Christ's meed, to this blaspheming JewThy crimes have murdered patience. Thou hast wrecked Thy people's fortune with thy own. But first (For even in anger we are just) recount With how great compensation from thy store Of hoarded gold and jewels thou wilt buy Remission of the penalty. Be wise. Hark how my subjects, storming through the streets, Vent on thy tribe accursed their well-based wrath.' And, truly, through closed casements roared the noise Of mighty surging crowds, derisive cries, 171 And victims' screams of anguish and affright. Then Raschi, royal in his rags, began: 'Hear me, my liege!' At that commanding voice, The Bishop, who with dazed eyes had perused The grieved, wise, beautiful, pale face, sprang up, Quick recognition in his glance, warm joy Aflame on his broad cheeks. 'No more! No more! Thou art the man! Give me the hand to kiss That raised me from the shadow of the grave In Jaffa's lazar-house! Listen, my liege! During my pilgrimage to Palestine I, sickened with the plague and nigh to death, Languished 'midst strangers, all my crumbling flesh One rotten mass of sores, a thing for dogs To shy from, shunned by Christian as by Turk, When lo! this clean-breathed, pure-souled, blessed youth, Whom I, not knowing for an infidel, Seeing featured like the Christ, believed a saint, Sat by my pillow, charmed the sting from pain, Quenched the fierce fever's heat, defeated Death; And when I was made whole, had disappeared, No man knew whither, leaving no more trace Than a re-risen angel. This is he!' Then Raschi, who had stood erect, nor quailed From glances of hot hate or crazy wrath, Now sank his eagle gaze, stooped his high head, Veiling his glowing brow, returned the kiss Of brother-love upon the Christian's hand, And dropping on his knees implored the three, 'Grace for my tribe! They are what ye have made. If any be among them fawning, false, Insatiable, revengeful, ignorant, meanAnd there are many such-ask your own hearts What virtues ye would yield for planted hate, Ribald contempt, forced, menial servitude, Slow centuries of vengeance for a crime Ye never did commit? Mercy for these! Who bear on back and breast the scathing brand Of scarlet degradation, who are clothed In ignominious livery, whose bowed necks Are broken with the yoke. Change these to men! That were a noble witchcraft simply wrought, 172 God's alchemy transforming clods to gold. If there be one among them strong and wise, Whose lips anoint breathe poetry and love, Whose brain and heart served ever Christian needAnd there are many such-for his dear sake, Lest ye chance murder one of God's high priests, Spare his thrice-wretched tribe! Believe me, sirs, Who have seen various lands, searched various hearts, I have yet to touch that undiscovered shore, Have yet to fathom that impossible soul, Where a true benefit's forgot; where one Slight deed of common kindness sown yields not As now, as here, abundant crop of love. Every good act of man, our Talmud says, Creates an angel, hovering by his side. Oh! what a shining host, great Duke, shall guard Thy consecrated throne, for all the lives Thy mercy spares, for all the tears thy ruth Stops at the source. Behold this poor old man, Last of a line of princes, stricken in years, As thy dead father would have been to-day. Was that white beard a rag for obscene hands To tear? a weed for lumpish clowns to pluck? Was that benignant, venerable face Fit target for their foul throats' voided rheum? That wrinkled flesh made to be pulled and pricked, Wounded by flinty pebbles and keen steel? Behold the prostrate, patriarchal form, Bruised, silent, chained. Duke, such is Israel!' 'Unbind these men!' commanded Vladislaw. 'Go forth and still the tumult of my town. Let no Jew suffer violence. Raschi, rise! Thou who hast served the Christ-with this priest's life, Who is my spirit's counselor-Christ serves thee. Return among thy people with my seal, The talisman of safety. Let them know The Duke's their friend. Go, publish the glad news!' Raschi the Saviour, Raschi the Messiah, Back to the Jewry carried peace and love. But Narzerad fed his venomed heart with gall, Vowing to give his fatal hatred vent, Despite a world of weak fantastic Dukes 173 And heretic bishops. He fulfilled his vow. ~ Emma Lazarus,

366:Scene.Over Orcana. The house of Jules, who crosses its threshold with Phene: she is silent, on which Jules begins Do not die, Phene! I am yours now, you Are mine now; let fate reach me how she likes, If you'll not die: so, never die! Sit here My work-room's single seat. I over-lean This length of hair and lustrous front; they turn Like an entire flower upward: eyes, lips, last Your chinno, last your throat turns: 't is their scent Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever This one way till I change, grow youI could Change into you, beloved!              You by me, And I by you; this is your hand in mine, And side by side we sit: all's true. Thank God! I have spoken: speak you!              O my life to come! My Tydeus must be carved that's there in clay; Yet how be carved, with you about the room? Where must I place you? When I think that once This room-full of rough block-work seemed my heaven Without you! Shall I ever work again, Get fairly into my old ways again, Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait, My hand transfers its lineaments to stone? Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth The live truth, passing and repassing me, Sitting beside me?          Now speak!                          Only first, See, all your letters! Was't not well contrived? Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe; she keeps Your letters next her skin: which drops out foremost? Ah,this that swam down like a first moonbeam Into my world!        Again those eyes complete Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, Of all my room holds; to return and rest On me, with pity, yet some wonder too: As if God bade some spirit plague a world, And this were the one moment of surprise And sorrow while she took her station, pausing O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy! What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of; Let your first word to me rejoice them, too: This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe Read this line . . . no, shameHomer's be the Greek First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl! This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page, To mark great places with due gratitude; "He said, and on Antinous directed "A bitter shaft" . . . a flower blots out the rest! Again upon your search? My statues, then! Ah, do not mind thatbetter that will look When cast in bronzean Almaign Kaiser, that, Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip. This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized? I thought you would have seen that here you sit As I imagined you,Hippolyta, Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. Recall you this then? "Carve in bold relief" So you commanded"carve, against I come, "A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, "Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, "Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. "'Praise those who slew Hipparchus!' cry the guests, "'While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves "'As erst above our champion: stand up, all!'" See, I have laboured to express your thought. Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms, (Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, Only consenting at the branch's end They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face, The Praiser's, in the centre: who with eyes Sightless, so bend they back to light inside His brain where visionary forms throng up, Sings, minding not that palpitating arch Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off, Violet and parsley crowns to trample on Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve, Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. But you must say a "well" to thatsay "well!" Because you gazeam I fantastic, sweet? Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marblemarbly Even to the silence! Why, before I found The real flesh Phene, I inured myself To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff For better nature's birth by means of art: With me, each substance tended to one form Of beautyto the human archetype. On every side occurred suggestive germs Of thatthe tree, the floweror take the fruit, Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, Curved beewise o'er its bough; as rosy limbs, Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang. But of the stuffs one can be master of, How I divined their capabilities! From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom; Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out Of all the world. But marble!'neath my tools More pliable than jellyas it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself, And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may,condense it Down to the diamond;is not metal there, When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips? Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep? Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised By the swift implement sent home at once, Flushes and glowings radiate and hover About its track?          Phene? whatwhy is this? That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes! Ah, you will dieI knew that you would die! Phene begins, on his having long remained silent. Now the end's coming; to be sure, it must Have ended sometime! Tush, why need I speak Their foolish speech? I cannot bring to mind One half of it, beside; and do not care For old Natalia now, nor any of them. Oh, youwhat are you?if I do not try To say the words Natalia made me learn, To please your friends,it is to keep myself Where your voice lifted me, by letting that Proceed: but can it? Even you, perhaps, Cannot take up, now you have once let fall, The music's life, and me along with that No, or you would! We'll stay, then, as we are: Above the world.          You creature with the eyes! If I could look for ever up to them, As now you let me,I believe, all sin, All memory of wrong done, suffering borne, Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and stay Never to overtake the rest of me, All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself, Not me the shame and suffering; but they sink, Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so, Above the world!          But you sink, for your eyes Are alteringaltered! Stay"I love you, love" . . . I could prevent it if I understood: More of your words to me: was't in the tone Or the words, your power?              Or stayI will repeat Their speech, if that contents you! Only change No more, and I shall find it presently Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up. Natalia threatened me that harm should follow Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. Your friends,Natalia said they were your friends And meant you well,because, I doubted it, Observing (what was very strange to see) On every face, so different in all else, The same smile girls like me are used to bear, But never men, men cannot stoop so low; Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit Which seems to take possession of the world And make of God a tame confederate, Purveyor to their appetites . . . you know! But still Natalia said they were your friends, And they assented though they smiled the more, And all came round me,that thin Englishman With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest; He held a paper"What we want," said he, Ending some explanation to his friends "Is something slow, involved and mystical, "To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste "And lure him on until, at innermost "Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may findthis! "As in the apple's core, the noisome fly: "For insects on the rind are seen at once, "And brushed aside as soon, but this is found "Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." And so he read what I have got by heart: I'll speak it,"Do not die, love! I am yours." Nois not that, or like that, part of words Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose What cost such pains to learn! Is this more right? I am a painter who cannot paint; In my life, a devil rather than saint; In my brain, as poor a creature too: No end to all I cannot do! Yet do one thing at least I can Love a man or hate a man Supremely: thus my lore began. Through the Valley of Love I went, In the lovingest spot to abide, And just on the verge where I pitched my tent, I found Hate dwelling beside. (Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant, Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride!) And further, I traversed Hate's grove, In the hatefullest nook to dwell; But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love Where the shadow threefold fell. (The meaningthose black bride's-eyes above, Not a painter's lip should tell!) "And here," said he, "Jules probably will ask, "'You have black eyes, Love,you are, sure enough, "'My peerless bride,then do you tell indeed "'What needs some explanation! What means this?'" And I am to go on, without a word So, I grew wise in Love and Hate, From simple that I was of late. Once, when I loved, I would enlace Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face Of her I loved, in one embrace As if by mere love I could love immensely! Once, when I hated, I would plunge My sword, and wipe with the first lunge My foe's whole life out like a sponge As if by mere hate I could hate intensely! But now I am wiser, know better the fashion How passion seeks aid from its opposite passion: And if I see cause to love more, hate more Than ever man loved, ever hated before And seek in the Valley of Love, The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove, Where my soul may surely reach The essence, nought less, of each, The Hate of all Hates, the Love Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove, I find them the very warders Each of the other's borders. When I love most, Love is disguised In Hate; and when Hate is surprised In Love, then I hate most: ask How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque, Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask, And how, having hated thee, I sought long and painfully To reach thy heart, nor prick The skin but pierce to the quick Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight By thy bridehow the painter Lutwyche can hate! Jules interposes Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt, Hated me: they at Venicepresently Their turn, however! You I shall not meet: If I dreamed, saying this would wake me.                      Keep What's here, the goldwe cannot meet again, Consider! and the money was but meant For two years' travel, which is over now, All chance or hope or care or need of it. Thisand what comes from selling these, my casts And books and medals, except . . . let them go Together, so the produce keeps you safe Out of Natalia's clutches! If by chance (For all's chance here) I should survive the gang At Venice, root out all fifteen of them, We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide. [From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing] Give her but a least excuse to love me! Whenwhere Howcan this arm establish her above me, If fortune fixed her as my lady there, There already, to eternally reprove me? ("Hist!"said Kate the Queen; But "Oh!"cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'T is only a page that carols unseen, "Crumbling your hounds their messes!") Is she wronged?To the rescue of her honour, My heart! Is she poor?What costs it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! ("Nay, list!"bade Kate the Queen; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'T is only a page that carols unseen, "Fitting your hawks their jesses!") [Pippa passes] Jules resumes What name was that the little girl sang forth? Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced The crown of Cyprus to be lady here At Asolo, where still her memory stays, And peasants sing how once a certain page Pined for the grace of her so far above His power of doing good to, "Kate the Queen "She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed, "Need him to help her!"             Yes, a bitter thing To see our lady above all need of us; Yet so we look ere we will love; not I, But the world looks so. If whoever loves Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper, The blessing or the blest one, queen or page, Why should we always choose the page's part? Here is a woman with utter need of me, I find myself queen here, it seems!                    How strange! Look at the woman here with the new soul, Like my own Psyche,fresh upon her lips Alit, the visionary butterfly. Waiting my word to enter and make bright, Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. This body had no soul before, but slept Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free From taint or foul with stain, as outward things Fastened their image on its passiveness: Now, it will wake, feel, liveor die again! Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff Be Artand further, to evoke a soul From form be nothing? This new soul is mine! Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do?save A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear God's voice plain as I heard it first, before They broke in with their laughter! I heard them Henceforth, not God.            To AnconaGreecesome isle! I wanted silence only; there is clay Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes In Art: the only thing is, to make sure That one does like itwhich takes pains to know. Scatter all this, my Phenethis mad dream! Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends, What the whole world except our lovemy own, Own Phene? But I told you, did I not, Ere night we travel for your landsome isle With the sea's silence on it? Stand aside I do but break these paltry models up To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I And save him from my statue meeting him? Some unspected isle in the far seas! Like a god going through his world, there stands One mountain for a moment in the dusk, Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow: And you are ever by me while I gaze Are in my arms as nowas nowas now! Some unsuspected isle in the far seas! Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas! Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from Orcana to the Turret. Two or three of the Austrian Police loitering with Bluphocks, an English vagabond, just in view of the Turret. Bluphocks So, that is your Pippa, the little girl who passed us singing? Well, your Bishop's Intendant's money shall be honestly earned:now, don't make me that sour face because I bring the Bishop's name into the business; we know he can have nothing to do with such horrors: we know that he is a saint and all that a bishop should be, who is a great man beside. Oh were but every worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every bough a Christmas ****, Every tune a jig! In fact, I have abjured all religions; but the last I inclined to, was the Armenian: for I have travelled, do you see, and at Koenigsberg, Prussia Improper (so styled because there's a sort of bleak hungry sun there), you might remark over a venerable house-porch, a certain Chaldee inscription; and brief as it is, a mere glance at it used absolutely to change the mood of every bearded passenger. In they turned, one and all; the young and lightsome, with no irreverent pause, the aged and decrepit, with a sensible alacrity: 't was the Grand Rabbi's abode, in short. Struck with curiosity, I lost no time in learning Syriac (these are vowels, you dogs,follow my stick's end in the mudCelarent, Darii, Ferio!) and one morning presented myself, spelling-book in hand, a, b, c,I picked it out letter by letter, and what was the purport of this miraculous posy? Some cherished legend of the past, you'll say"How Moses hocus-pocussed Egypt's land with fly and locust,"or, "How to Jonah sounded harshish, Get thee up and go to Tarshish,"or, "How the angel meeting Balaam, Straight his **** returned a salaam," In no wise! "ShackabrackBoachsomebody or other Isaach, Re-cei-ver, Pur-cha-ser and Ex-chan-ger ofStolen Goods! " So, talk to me of the religion of a bishop! I have renounced all bishops save Bishop Beveridgemean to live soand dieAs some Greek dog-sage, dead and merry, Hellward bound in Charon's wherry, With food for both worlds, under and upper, Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper, And never an obolus . . . (Though thanks to you, or this Intendant through you, or this Bishop through his IntendantI possess a burning pocketful of zwanzigers) . . . To pay the Stygian Ferry! 1st Policeman There is the girl, then; go and deserve them the moment you have pointed out to us Signor Luigi and his mother. [To the rest.] I have been noticing a house yonder, this long while: not a shutter unclosed since morning! 2nd Policeman Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the silkmills here: he dozes by the hour, wakes up, sighs deeply, says he should like to be Prince Metternich, and then dozes again, after having bidden young Sebald, the foreigner, set his wife to playing draughts. Never molest such a household, they mean well. Bluphocks Only, cannot you tell me something of this little Pippa, I must have to do with? One could make something of that name. Pippathat is, short for Felippa rhyming to Panurge consults HertrippaBelievest thou, King Agrippa? Something might be done with that name. 2nd Policeman Put into rhyme that your head and a ripe musk-melon would not be dear at half a zwanziger! Leave this fooling, and look out; the afternoon's over or nearly so. 3rd Policeman Where in this passport of Signor Luigi does our Principal instruct you to watch him so narrowly? There? What's there beside a simple signature? (That English fool's busy watching.) 2nd Policeman Flourish all round"Put all possible obstacles in his way;" oblong dot at the end"Detain him till further advices reach you;" scratch at bottom "Send him back on pretence of some informality in the above;" ink-spirt on right-hand side (which is the case here)"Arrest him at once." Why and wherefore, I don't concern myself, but my instructions amount to this: if Signor Luigi leaves home to-night for Vienna well and good, the passport deposed with us for our visa is really for his own use, they have misinformed the Office, and he means well; but let him stay over to-nightthere has been the pretence we suspect, the accounts of his corresponding and holding intelligence with the Carbonari are correct, we arrest him at once, to-morrow comes Venice, and presently Spielberg. Bluphocks makes the signal, sure enough! That is he, entering the turret with his mother, no doubt. ~ Robert Browning, Pippa Passes - Part II - Noon ,

367:The Witch Of Hebron A Rabbinical Legend Part I. From morn until the setting of the sun The rabbi Joseph on his knees had prayed, And, as he rose with spirit meek and strong, An Indian page his presence sought, and bowed Before him, saying that a lady lay Sick unto death, tormented grievously, Who begged the comfort of his holy prayers. The rabbi, ever to the call of grief Open as day, arose; and girding straight His robe about him, with the page went forth; Who swiftly led him deep into the woods That hung, heap over heap, like broken clouds On Hebron’s southern terraces; when lo! Across a glade a stately pile he saw, With gleaming front, and many-pillared porch Fretted with sculptured vinage, flowers and fruit, And carven figures wrought with wondrous art As by some Phidian hand. But interposed For a wide space in front, and belting all The splendid structure with a finer grace, A glowing garden smiled; its breezes bore Airs as from paradise, so rich the scent That breathed from shrubs and flowers; and fair the growths Of higher verdure, gemm’d with silver blooms, Which glassed themselves in fountains gleaming light Each like a shield of pearl. Within the halls Strange splendour met the rabbi’s careless eyes, Halls wonderful in their magnificance, With pictured walls, and columns gleaming white Like Carmel’s snow, or blue-veined as with life; 222 Through corridors he passed with tissues hung Inwrought with threaded gold by Sidon’s art, Or rich as sunset clouds with Tyrian dye; Past lofty chambers, where the gorgeous gleam Of jewels, and the stainèd radiance Of golden lamps, showed many a treasure rare Of Indian and Armenian workmanship Which might have seemed a wonder of the world: And trains of servitors of every clime, Greeks, Persians, Indians, Ethiopians, In richest raiment thronged the spacious halls. The page led on, the rabbi following close, And reached a still and distant chamber, where In more than orient pomp, and dazzling all The else-unrivalled splendour of the rest, A queenly woman lay; so beautiful, That though upon her moon-bright visage, pain And langour like eclipsing shadows gloomed, The rabbi’s aged heart with tremor thrilled; Then o’er her face a hectic colour passed, Only to leave that pallor which portends The nearness of the tomb. From youth to age The rabbi Joseph still had sought in herbs And minerals the virtues they possess, And now of his medicaments he chose What seemed most needful in her sore estate; “Alas, not these,” the dying woman said, “A malady like mine thou canst not cure, ’Tis fatal as the funeral march of Time! But that I might at length discharge my mind Of a dread secret, that hath been to me An ever-haunting and most ghostly fear, Darkening my whole life like an ominous cloud And which must end it ere the morning come, Therefore did I entreat thy presence here.” The rabbi answered, “If indeed it stand Within my power to serve thee, speak at once 223 All that thy heart would say. But if ’tis vain, If this thy sin hath any mortal taint, Forbear, O woman, to acquaint my soul With aught that could thenceforth with horror chase The memory of a man of Israel.” “I am,” she said “the daughter of thy friend Rabbi Ben Bachai—be his memory blest! Once at thy side a laughing child I played; I married with an Arab Prince, a man Of lofty lineage, one of Ishmael’s race; Not great in gear. Behold’st thou this abode? Did ever yet the tent-born Arab build Thus for his pride or pleasure? See’st thou These riches? An no! Such were ne’er amassed By the grey desert’s wild and wandering son; Deadly the game by which I won them all! And with a burning bitterness at best Have I enjoyed them! And how gladly now Would I, too late, forego them all, to mend My broken peace with a repentant heed In abject poverty!” She ceased, and lay Calm in her loveliness, with dreamy looks Roaming, perhaps, in thought the fateful past; Then suddenly her beauteous countenance grew Bedimm’d and drear, then dark with mortal pangs, While fierce convulsions shook her tortured frame, And from her foaming lips such words o’erran, That rabbi Joseph sank upon his knees, And bowed his head a space in horror down While ardent, pitying prayers for her great woe Rose from his soul; when, lo! The woman’s face Was cloudless as a summer heaven! The late Dark brow was bright, the late pale cheek suffused With roseate bloom; and, wondrous more than all, Here weary eyes were changed to splendours now That shot electric influence, and her lips Were full and crimson, curled with stormy pride. The doubting rabbi stood in wild amaze To see the dying woman bold and fierce 224 In bright audacity of passion’s power. “These are the common changes,” then she said, “Of the fell ailment, that with torments strange, Which search my deepest life, is tearing up The dark foundations of my mortal state, And sinking all its structures, hour by hour, Into the dust of death. For nothing now Is left me but to meet my nearing doom As best I may in silent suffering.” Then as he heard her words and saw her face, The rabbi in his wisdom knew some strong Indwelling evil spirit troubled her, And straighway for an unction sent, wherewith The famous ancestor whose name he bore, Herod the Great’s chief hakim, had expelled The daemon haunter of the dying king. With this he touched her forehead and her eyes And all her finger-tips. Forthwith he made Within a consecrated crucible A fire of citron-wood and cinnamon; Then splashed the flames with incense, mingling all With the strong influence of fervent prayer; And, as the smoke arose, he bowed her head Into its coils, that so she might inhale Its salutary odour—till the fiend That dwelt within her should be exorcised. Her face once more grew pale with pain; she writhed In burning torment, uttering many words Of most unhallowed meaning! Yet her eyes Were fixed the while, and motionless her lips! Whereby the rabbi certainly perceived ’Twas not the woman of herself that spake, But the dread spirit that possessed her soul, And thus it cried aloud. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 225 Part II. “WHY am I here, in this my last resort, Perturbed with incense and anointings? Why Compelled to listen to the sound of prayers That smite me through as with the fire of God? O pain, pain, pain! Is not this chamber full Of the implacable stern punishers? Full of avenging angels, holding each A scourge of thunder in his potent hand, Ready to lighten forth! And then, thus armed, For ever chase and wound us as we fly! Nor end with this—but, in each wound they make, Pour venom sweltered from that tree As-gard, Whose deadly shadow in its blackness falls Over the lake of everlasting doom! “Five hundred years ago, I, who thus speak, Was an Egyptian of the splendid court Of Ptolemy Philadelphus. To the top Of mountainous power, though roughened with unrest, And girt with dangers as with thunder-clouds, Had I resolved by all resorts to climb; By truth and falsehood, right and wrong alike; And I did climb! Then firmly built in power Second alone to my imperial lord’s, I crowned with its impunity my lust Of beauty, sowing broadcast everywhere Such sensual baits wide round me, as should lure Through pleasure, or through interest entrap, The fairest daughters of the land, and lo! Their lustrous eyes surcharged with passionate light The chambers of my harem! But at length Wearied of these, though sweet, I set my heart On riches, heaped to such a fabulous sum As never one man’s hoard in all the world Might match; and to acquire them, steeped my life In every public, every private wrong, In lies, frauds, secret murders; till at last A favoured minion I had trusted most, And highest raised, unveiled before the king The dark abysmal badness of my life; But dearly did he rue it; nor till then Guessed I how deadly grateful was revenge! 226 I stole into his chamber as he slept, And with a sword, whose double edge for hours I had whetted for the purpose of the deed, There staked him through the midriff to his bed. I fled; but first I sent, as oft before, A present to the household of the man Who had in secret my betrayer bribed. Twas scented wine, and rich Damascus cakes; On these he feasted, and fell sudden down, Rolling and panting in his dying pangs, A poisoned desert dog! “But I had fled. A swift ship bore me, which my forecast long Had kept prepared against such need as this. Over the waves three days she proudly rode; Then came a mighty storm, and trampled all Her masted bravery flat, and still drove on The wave-swept ruin towards a reefy shore! Meanwhile amongst the terror-stricken crew An ominous murmur went from mouth to mouth; They grouped themselves in councils, and, ere long, Grew loud and furious with surmises wild, And maniac menaces, all aimed at me! My fugitive head it was at which so loud The thunder bellowed! The wild-shrieking winds And roaring waters held in vengeful chase Me only! Me! Whose signal crimes alone Had brought on us this anger of the gods! And thus reproaching me with glaring eyes, They would have seized and slain me, but I sprang Back from amongst them, and, outstriking, stabbed With sudden blow their leader to the heart; Then, with my poniard scaring off the rest, Leaped from the deck, and swimming reached the shore, From which, in savage triumph, I beheld The battered ship, with all her howling crew, Heel, and go down, amid the whelming waves. “Inland my course now lay for many days, O’er barren hills and glens, whose herbless scopes Never grew luminous with a water gleam, 227 Or heard the pleasant bubble of a brook, For vast around the Afric desert stretched. Starving and sun-scorched and afire with thirst, I wandered ever on, until I came To where, amid the dun and level waste, In frightful loneliness, a mouldered group Of ancient tombs stood ghostly. Here at last, Utterly spent, in my despair I lay Down on the burning sand, to gasp and die! When from among the stones a withered man, Old-seeming as the desert where he lived, Came and stood by me, saying ‘get thee up! Not much have I to give, but these at least I offer to thy need, water and bread.’ “Then I arose and followed to his cell,— A dismal cell, that seemed itself a tomb, So lightless was it, and so foul with damp, And at its entrance there were skulls and bones. Long and deep drank I of the hermit’s draught, And munched full greedily the hermit’s bread; But with the strength which thence my frame derived, Fierce rage devoured me, and I cursed my fate! Whereat the withered creature laughed in scorn, And mocked me with the malice of his eyes, That sometimes, like a snake’s, shrank small, and then Enlarging blazed as with infernal fire! Then, on a sudden, with an oath that seemed To wake a stir in the grey musty tombs, As if their silence shuddered, he averred That he could life me once more to the height Of all my wishes—nay, even higher, but On one condition only. Dared I swear, By the dread angel of the second death, I would be wholly his, both body and soul, After a hundred years? “Why should I not? I answered, quivering with a stormy haste, A rampart unreluctance! For so great Was still my fury against all mankind, And my desire of pomp and riches yet 228 So monstrous, that I felt I could have drunk Blood, fire, or worse, to wear again the power That fortune, working through my enemies’ hands, Had stript away from me. So, word by word, I swore the oath as he repeated it; Nor much it moved me, in my eagerness, To feel a damp and earthy odour break Out of each tomb, from which there darkling rose At every word a hissing as of snakes; And yet the fell of hair upon my scalp Rose bristling under a cold creeping thrill: But I failed not, I swore the dread oath through, And then the tombs grew silent as their dead. But through my veins a feeling of strong youth Coursed bold along, and summered in my heart, Till there before him in my pride I stood In stately strength, and swift as is the wind, Magnificant as a desert-nurtured steed Of princeliest pedigree, with nostrils wide Dilated, and with eyes effusing flame. ‘Begone,’ he said, ’and live thy hundred years Of splendour, power, pleasure, ease.’ His voice Sighed off into the distance. He was gone: Only a single raven, far aloft, Was beating outwards with its sable wings; The tombs had vanished, and the desert grey Merged its whole circle with the bending sky. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part III. “OUT of these wilds to Egypt I returned: Men thought that I had perished with the ship, And no one knew me now, because my face And form were greatly changed,—from passing fair To fairer yet; from manly, to a pile So nobly built, that in all eyes I seemed Beauteous as Thammuz! And my heart was changed; Ambition wilder than a leopard’s thirst 229 For blood of roe, or flying hart, possessed My spirit, like the madness of a god! But this I yet even in its fiercest strain Could curb and guide with sovereign strength of will. From small beginnings onward still I worked, Stepping as up a stair from rival head To rival head,—from high to higher still, Unto the loftiest post that might be held Under the Ptolemies; and meantime paid Each old unsettled score, defeating those Who erst had worked against me, sweeping them Out of all posts, all places; for though time And change had wide dispersed them through the land, The sleuth-hounds of my vengeance found them out! Which things not being in a corner done, What wonder was it that all Egypt now, From end to end, even like a shaken hive, Buzzed as disturbed with my portentous fame? “And what to me were secret enemies? Had I not also spies, who could pin down A whisper in the dark and keep it there? Could dash a covert frown by the same means An open charge had challenged? Hence my name Became a sound that struck through every heart Ineffable dismay! And yet behold There more I trampled on mankind, the more Did fawning flatterers praise me as I swept Like a magnificant meteor through the land! The more I hurled the mighty from their seats, And triumphed o’er them prostrate in the dust, The human hounds that licked my master hand But multiplied the more! And still I strode From bad to worse, corrupting as I went, Making the lowly ones more abject yet; Awing as with a thunder-bearing hand The high and affluent; while I bound the strong To basest service, even with chains of gold. All hated, cursed and feared me, for in vain Daggers were levelled at my brazen heart— They glanced, and slew some minion at my side Poison was harmless as a heifer’s milk When I had sipped it with my lips of scorn; 230 All that paraded pomp and smiling power Could draw against me from the envious hearts Of men in will as wicked as myself I challenged, I encountered, and o’erthrew! “But, after many years, exhaustion sere Spread through the branches of my tree of life; My forces flagged, my senses more and more Were blunted, and incapable of joy; The splendours of my rank availed me not; A poverty as naked as a slave’s Peered from them mockingly. The pride of power That glowed so strong within me in my youth Was now like something dying at my heart. To cheat or stimulate my jaded taste, Feasts, choice or sumptuous, were devised in vain; there was disfavour, there was fraud within, Like that which filled the fair-appearing rind Of those delusive apples that of old Grew on the Dead Sea shore. “And yet, though thus All that gave pleasure to my younger life Was withering from my path like summer grass, I still had one intense sensation, which Grew ever keener as my years increased— A hatred of mankind; to pamper which I gloated, with a burning in my soul, Over their degradation; and like one Merry with wine, I revelled day by day In scattering baits that should corrupt them more: The covetous I sharpened into thieves, Urged the vindictive, hardened the malign, Whetted the ruffian with self-interest, And flung him then, a burning brand, abroad. And the decadence of the state in which My fortunes had recast me, served me well. Excess reeled shameless in the court itself, Or, staggering thence, was rivalled by the wild Mad looseness of the crowd. Down to its death The old Greek dynasty was sinking fast; Waste and pale want, extortion, meanness, fraud— 231 These, welling outwards from the throne itself, Spread through the land. “But now there seized my soul A new ambition—from his feeble throne To hurl the king, and mount thereon myself! To this end still I lured him into ill, And daily wove around him cunning snares, That reached and trammelled too his fawning court; And all went well, the end at last was near, But in my triumph one thing I forgot— My name was measured. At a banquet held In the king’s chamber, lo! A guest appeared, Chief of a Bactrian tribe, who tendered gold To pay for some great wrong his desert horde Had done our caravans; his age, men said, Was wonderful; his craft more wondrous still; For this his fame had spread through many lands, And the dark seekers of forbidden lore Knew his decrepit wretch to be their lord. “The first glance that I met of his weird eye Had sent into my soul a fearful doubt That I had seen that cramp-shrunk withered form And strange bright eye in some forgotten past. But at the dry croak of his raven voice Remembrance wok; I knew that I beheld The old man of the tombs: I saw, and fell Into the outer darkness of despair. The day that was to close my dread account Was come at last. The long triumphant feast Of life had ended in a funeral treat. I was to die—to suffer with the damned The hideous torments of the second death! The days, weeks, months of a whole hundred years Seemed crushed into a thought, and burning out In that brief period which was left me now. “Stung with fierce horror, shame, and hate I fled; I seized my sword, to plunge its ready point Into my maddened heart, but on my arm I felt a strong forbidding grasp! I turned; 232 The withered visage of the Bactrian met My loathing eyes; I struggled to be free From the shrunk wretch in vain; his spidery hands Were strong as fetters of Ephesian brass, And all my strength, though now with madness strung, Was as a child’s to his. He calmly smiled: ‘Forbear, thou fool! Am I not Sammael? Whom to resist is vain, and from whom yet Has never mercy flowed; for what to me Are feelings which thou knowest even in men Are found the most in fools. But wide around A prince of lies I reign. ’Tis I that fill the Persian palaces with lust and wrong, Till like the darkling heads of sewers they flow With a corruption that in fretting thence Taints all the region round with rankest ill; ’Tis I that clot the Bactrian sand with blood; And now I come to fling the brands of war Through all this people, this most ill-mixed mob, Where Afric’s savage hordes meet treacherous Greeks, And swarming Asia’s luxury-wasted sons. This land throughout shall be a deluge soon Of blood and fire, till ruin stalk alone, A grisly spectre, in its grass-grown marts.’ The fiery eyes within his withered face Glowed like live coals, as he triumphant spake, And his strange voice, erewhile so thin and dry, Came as if bellowed from the vaults of doom. Prone fell I, powerless to move or speak; And now he was about to plunge me down Ten thousand times ten thousand fathoms deep Through the earth’s crust, and through the slimy beds Of nether ocean—down! Still down, below The darkling roots of all this upper world Into the regions of the courts of hell! “To stamp me downward to the convict dead His heel was raised, when suddenly I heard Him heave a groan of superhuman pain, So deep twas drawn! And as he groaned, I saw A mighty downburst of celestial light 233 Enwrap his shrivelled form from head to foot, As with a robe within whose venomous folds He writhed in torment. Then above him stood A shining shape, unspeakably sublime, And gazed upon him! One of the high sons Of Paradise, who still keep watch and ward O’er Israel’s progeny, where’er dispersed; And now they fought for me with arms that filled The air wide round with flashes and swift gleams Of dazzling light; full soon the Evil One Fell conquered. Then forth sprang he from the ground And with dark curses wrapped him in a cloud That moved aloft, low thundering as it went. “And then the shining son of paradise Came where I lay and spoke, his glorious face Severe with wrath, and yet divinely fair— ‘O Child of Guilt! Should vengeance not be wrought On thee as well? On Sammael’s willing slave?’ I clasped his radiant knees—I wept—I groaned— I beat my bosom in my wild distress. At last the sacred Presence, who had held The blow suspended still, spoke thus: ‘Thou’rt spared; From no weak pity, but because thou art Descended from the line of Israel: For that cause spared;—yet must thou at my hand Find some meet punishment.’ And as he spake, He laid his hand with a life-crushing weight Upon my forehead—and I fell, as dead! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part IV. “AWAKING as from sleep, I bounded up, Stung with a feeling of enormous strength, Though yet half wild with horror. Onward then Ramping I went, out through the palace gates, Down the long streets, and into the highways, Forth to the wilds, amazed at my own speed! 234 And now afar, in long-drawn line appeared A caravan upon its outward way Over the desert of Pentapolis. And strange the instinct seemed that urged me then to rush amongst them—and devour: for I Was fierce with hunger, and inflamed with thirst. “Amidst a laggard company I leaped That rested yet beside a cooling spring; One of those clear springs that, like giant pearls, Inlay the burning borders of the grey Enormous desert. All at once they rose! Some fled, some threw themselves amongst the brakes, Some seized their swords and lances; this to see Filled me at once with a mysterious rage And savage joy! The sternness of their looks, Their fearful cries, the gleaming of their spears Seemed to insult me, and I rushed on them. Then sudden spasms of pain searched deep my side, Wherein a fell lance quivered. On I rushed; I roared a roar that startled e’en myself, So loud and hoarse and terrible its tone, Then bounding, irresistible it seemed As some huge fragment from a crag dislodged, Against the puny wretch that sent the lance, Instantly tore him, as he were a kid, All into gory shreds! The others fled At sight of this, nor would I chase them then, All wearied by my flight. Besides, the well Was gleaming in its coolness by me there. “And as I stooped to quench my parching thirst, Behold, reversed within the water clear, The semblance of a monstrous lion stood! I saw his shaggy mane, I saw his red And glaring eyeballs rolling in amaze, His rough and grinning lips, his long sharp fangs All foul with gore and hung with strings of flesh! I shrank away in horrible dismay. But as the sun each moment fiercer grew, I soon returned to stoop and slake my thirst. Again was that tremendous presence there Standing reversed, as erewhile, in the clear 235 And gleaming mirror of the smiling well! The horrid truth smote like a rush of fire Upon my brain! The dreadful thing I saw Was my own shadow! I was a wild beast.” “They did not fable, then, who held that oft The guilty dead are punished in the shapes Of beasts, if brutal were their lives as men.” “Long lapped I the cool lymph, while still my tongue Made drip for drip against the monstrous one, Which, as in ugly mockery, from below Seemed to lap up against it. But though thirst Was quenched at length, what was there might appease The baffled misery of my fated soul? The thought that I no more was human, ran Like scorpion venom through my mighty frame; Fiercely I bounded, tearing up the sands, That, like a drab mist, coursed me as I went Out on my homeless track. I made my fangs Meet in my flesh, trusting to find in pain Some respite from the anguish of regret. From morn to night, from night to morn, I fled, Chased by the memory of my lost estate; Then, worn and bleeding, in the burning sands I lay down, as to die. In vain!—in vain! The savage vigour of my lion-life Might yield alone to the long tract of time. “From hill to valley rushing after prey, With whirlwind speed, was now my daily wont, For all things fled before me—all things shrank In mortal terror at my shaggy front. Sometimes I sought those close-fenced villages, Wherein the desert-dwellers hide their swart And naked bodies from the scorching heats, Hoping that I might perish by their shafts. And often was I wounded—often bore Their poisoned arrows in my burning flesh— But still I lived. “The tenor of my life 236 Was always this—the solitary state Of a wild beast of prey, that hunted down The antelope, the boar, the goat, the gorged Their quivering flesh, and lapped their steaming blood; Then slept till hunger, or the hunter’s cry, Roused him again to battle or to slay, To flight, pursuit, blood, stratagem, and wounds. And to make this rude life more hideous yet, I still retained a consciousness of all The nobler habits of my eariler time, And had a keen sense of what most had moved My nature as a man, and knew besides That this my punishment was fixed by One Too mighty to be questioned, and too just One tittle of its measure to remit. “How long this haggard course of life went on I might not even guess, for I had lost The human faculty that measures time. But still from night to night I found myself Roaming the desert, howling at the moon, Whose cold light always, as she poured it down, Awoke a drear distemper in my brain: But much I shunned the sunblaze, which at once Inflamed me, and revealed my dread approach. “Homelessly roaming thus for evermore, The tempests beat on my unsheltered bulk, In those bleak seasons when the drenching rains Drove into covert all those gentler beasts That were my natural prey. I swinkt beneath The furnace heats of the midsummer sun, When even the palm of the oasis stood All withered, like a weed: and for how long, Yet knew not. “Thus the sun and moon arose Through an interminable tract of time, And yet though sense was dim, the view of all My human life was ever at my beck, Nay, opened out before me of itself Plain as the pictures in a wizard’s glass! 237 I saw again the trains that round my car Streamed countless, saw its pageants and its pomps, Its faces fair and passionate, and felt Lie’s eager pleasures, even its noble pangs! Then in the anguish of my goaded heart Would I roll howling in the burning sand. “At length this life of horror seemed to near Its fated bourn. The slow but sure approach Of old decay was felt in every limb And every function of my lion frame. My massive strength seemed spent, my speed was gone, The antelope escaped me! Wearily I sought a mountain cavern, shut from day By savage draperies of tangled briers, And only dragged my tardy bulk abroad When hunger urged. It chanced on such a day I sprange amid a herd of buffaloes And tore their leader down, who bellowing fell. When, lo! The chief of those that drove them came Against me, and I turned my rage on him: But though the long lapse of so many years Of ever-grinding wretchedness had dulled My memory, I felt that I had seen His withered visage twice before; and straight A shuddering awe subdued me, and I crouched Beneath him in the dust. My lust of blood, My ruthless joy at sight of mortal pain, Within me died, and if in human speech I might have told the wild desire that filled My being, I had prayed him once for all To crush me out of life, and to consign My misery to the pit of final death! But when, all hopeless, I again looked up, The tawney presence of the desert chief Was gone, and I beheld the shining son Of paradise, from whose majestic brow There flashed the lightings of a wrath divine. Yea, twas the angel that with Sammael Had fought for me in Egypt; and once more He laid his crushing had upon my front; And earth and sky, and all that in them is, 238 Became to me a darkness, swimming blank In the Eternal, round that point where now My body lay, stretched dead upon the sand. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part V. “AGAIN I lived—again I felt. But now The winds of heaven seemed under me, and I Was sweeping, like the spirit of a storm That bellowed round me, in its murky glooms, All heaving with a motion wide and swift That seemed yet mightier than the darkling swells Of ocean, wrestling with a midnight gale! The wild winds tossed me; I was drenched throughout With heavy moisture, and at intervals Amid the ragged gaps of moving cloud, Methought I caught dim glimpses of the sun Hanging aloft, as if in drear eclipse; But as my senses cleared, I saw my limbs Were clothed with plumage; and long-taloned claws Were closing eagerly with fierce desire And sudden hunger after blood and prey! An impulse to pursue and to destroy Both on the earth and in the air, ran quick Out from my heart and shivered in my wings; And as a thing more central yet, I felt Pregnant within me, throned o’er all, a lone And sullen, yet majestic, glow of pride. “’Twas plain that I, who had aforetime been Crushed out of human being into that Of a wild beast, had thence again passed on Into the nature of some mighty thing That now swept sailing on wide van-like wings, Amid the whirls of an aërial gloom, That out extending in one mighty cope Hung heaving, like a black tent-roof, o’er all The floor of Africa. 239 “Still on I swept, And still as far as my keen vision went, That now was gifted with a power that seemed To pierce all space, I saw the vapours roll In dreadful continuous of black And shapeless masses, by the winds convulsed; But soon in the remotest distance came A change: the clouds were touched with sunny light, And, as I nearer drew, I saw them dash, Like the wild surges of an uproused sea Of molten gold, against the marble sides Of lofty mountains, which, though far below My flight, yet pierced up through them all, and stood With splintered cones and monster-snouted crags, Immovable as fate. Beneath me, lo! The grandeur of the kingdom of the air Was circling in its magnitude! It was A dread magnificence of which before I might not even dream. I saw its quick And subtle interchange of forms and hues, Saw its black reservoirs of densest rain, Its awful forges of the thunderstorm. “At last, as onward still I swept, above A milky mass of vapour far outspread, Behold, reflected in its quiet gleam, I saw an image that swept on with me, Reversed as was the lion’s in the well, With van-like wings, with eyeballs seething fire, With taloned claws, and cruel down-bent beak,— The mightiest eagle that had ever sailed The seas of space since Adam named the first! “My fated soul had passed into the form Of that huge eagle which swept shadowed there. Cold horror thrilled me! I was once again Imprisoned in the being of a brute, In the base being of a nature yet Inferior by what infinite descent To that poor remnant of intelligence Which still kept with me,—like a put-back soul Burningly conscious of its powers foregone, 240 Its inborn sovreignty of kind, and yet So latent, self-less; once again to live A life of carnage, and to sail abroad A terror to all birds and gentle beasts That heard the stormy rushings of my wings! A royal bird indeed, who lived alone In the great stillness of the mighty hills, Or in the highest heavens. “But in truth Not much for many seasons had I need To search for prey, for countless hosts of men, Forth mustering over all the face of earth, Cast the quick gleam of arms o’er trampled leagues Of golden corn, and as they onward marched They left behind them seas of raging fire, In whose red surges cities thronged with men And happy hamlets, homes of health and peace, That rang erewhile with rural thankfulness, Were whelmed in one wide doom; or in their strength Confronted upon some set field of fight, Their sullen masses charged with dreadful roar That far out-yelled the fiercest yells of beasts, And with brute madness rushed on wounds and death; Or else about fenced cities they would pitch Their crowded camps, and leaguer them for years, Sowing the fields about them with a slime Of carnage, till their growths were plagues alone. What is the ravage made by brutes on brutes To that man makes on man? “With mingled pain And joy I saw the wondrous ways of men, (For ever when I hungered, close at hand, Some fresh slain man lay smoking in his gore) And though the instincts of the eagle’s life Were fierce within me, yet I felt myself Cast in a lot more capable of joy; Safe from pursuit, from famine, and from wounds. Some solaces, though few and far between, Were added to me; and I argued thence, In the dark musings of my eagle heart, 241 That not for ever was my soul condemned To suffer in the body of a brute; For though remembrance of the towering crimes And matchless lusts, that filled my whole career Of human life, worked in me evermore, No longer did they shed about my life So venomous a blight. Nay, I could think How often I had looked with longing eyes Up at the clear Egyptian heavens, and watched The wings that cleft them, envying every bird That, soaring in the sunshine, seemed to be Exempt from all the grovelling cares of men. I thought how once, when with my hunting train I pierced that region round the cataracts, I watched an eagle as it rose aloft Into the lovely blue, and wished to change My being with it as it floated on, So inaccessible to hate or hurt, So peaceful, at a height in heaven so safe; And then it passed away through gorgeous clouds Against the sunset, through the feathered flags Of royal purple edged with burning gold. “These fields of space were my dominion now; Motion alone within a world so rich Was something noble: but to move at will, Upward or forward, or in circles vast, Through boundless spaces with a rushing speed No living thing might rival, and to see The glory of the everlasting hills Beneath me, and the myriad-peopled plains, Broad rivers, and the towery towns that sate Beside their spacious mouths, with out beyond The lonely strength of the resounding seas— This liberty began to move my sense As something godlike; and in moving made A sure impression that kept graining still Into the texture of my brute estate— Yea, graining in through all its fleshy lusts And savage wonts. “Hence ever more and more 242 The temper of a better spirit grew Within me, as from inkling roots, and moved E’en like an embryon in its moist recess: A sensibility to beauteous things As now I saw them in the heavens displayed, And in the bright luxuriance of the earth; Some power of just comparison, some sense Of how a man would rank them, could he see Those earthly grandeurs from the sovreign height Whence I beheld them. And with this a wish To commune even with the human race, And pour the loftier wonders of my life Into their ears, through a rich-worded song Whose golden periods in mellow flow Should witch all ears that heard them—ev’n old men s, Ev’n jaded monarchs; not to speak of theirs, Those spirit-lovely ones—yea, moons of love, That rise at first in the Circassian hills— And they should tingle all like tiny shells Of roseate whiteness to its perfect chords. “One day amid the mountains of the moon, Behold a sudden storm had gatherd up Out of my view, hid by a neighbouring height, But which, thence wheeling with terrific force, Wide tossed me with its gusts—aloft, and then Downward as far; then whirlingly about, Ev’n like a withered leaf. My strength of wing Availed me nought, so mightily it raged; Then suddenly, in the dim distance, lo! I saw, as from the storm’s Plutonian heart, A mass of white-hot light come writing forth, And then the figure of a withered man Seemed dropping headlong through the lurid clouds; While full within the radiant light, again The conquering son of paradise appeared, Upon whose brow divine I yet might trace Some sing of wrath. Onward the vision rushed, Orbed in white light. I felt a stifling heat, One cruel blasting pang, and headlong then Fell earthward—dead; a plumb descending mass. 243 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part VI. “WITHIN a rustic chamber, dark and low, Thronged with wild-looking men and women strange, I seemed to waken. Inwardly I felt No briskness of existence, but a sense Of languor rather, or revival slow: And evermore the men and women came And gazed upon me, shouting in amaze, Then would they whirl about the room in dance, Abandoned to their barbarous delight. “I turned mine eyes about the low-roofed room, Half fearing and half hoping I might see The mighty angel that now ruled my life; They thought I needed air, and I was borne to a low casement. Like a picture lay The world without. On all sides wide around Nothing but mountains, feathered to their tops With a dense growth of pines, and valleys filled With a cold darkness that was lit alone By the broad flashes of the furious streams That leaped in thunder our of marble gaps! Dull vapours, like a canopy of smoke, Did so obscure the sun, that I had thought The scene that now I saw was not of earth, But for a golden flush that now and then Would touch the highest ranges. What I was I knew not, but I felt my former wants, And oft I made vain efforts to expand The wings I had no longer, and sail off, And through those sullen vapours—up, and up— Into the mighty silence of the blue. “The day was fading, and a blare of horns, With many voices and much trampling noise, Heard from without, aroused me; and, ere long, Women rushed in, each bearing some rich robe Or some gay bauble, wherewithal they next 244 Arrayed me to their taste; and then they held A mirror up before me, and I saw My soul had this time passed into the form Of a fair damsel. She, whose form I now Re-animated, was—so learned I soon— The only child of a Circassian chief, Who had been long regarded by her house As its chief treasure, for her beauty rare; Reserved for him, no matter whence he came, Whose hand could dip into the longest purse. But envy lurks in the Circassian hills As elsewhere, and a dose of opium, Administered by one who had been long The rival beauty of a neighbouring tribe, Had served to quash a bargain quite complete Save in the final payment of the gold, Which had been even offered and told down, And only not accepted, through some old Delaying ceremony of the tribe; And in this luckless circumstances, twas plain That both my admirable parents saw The unkindest turn of all. “On all hands forth Had scouts been sent to summon the whole tribe To attend my obsequies, and then forthwith Exterminate our ancient enemies Through all their tents—such was the fierce resolve. But while these things were pending, lo! The light Had broken like a new morn from the eyes Of the dead beauty; on her cheeks had dawned A roseate colour; from her moistening lips Low murmurs, too, had broken; whereupon My parents in exulting hope transformed The funeral to a general tribal feast, And loaded me with all the ancient gauds And ornaments they held. The Persian, too, Had been invited to renew his suit, And carry me at once beyond the reach Of future opium doses. “Soon he came 245 Galloping back to bear me to the arms Of his long-bearded lord. He paid the price; My worthy parents took a fond farewell Of me, with tears declaring me to be The life-light of their eyes, their rose of joy,— Then stretched their palms out for the stranger’s gold, And hurried off to count it o’er again— The dear recovered treasure they so late Had mourned as lost for ever. On that night I was packed neatly on a camel’s back Beside a precious case of porcelain pipes, And carried Persia-ward, by stages safe, From the Circassian mountains. “At the court I soon became the favourite of the king; Lived sumptuously, but in perpetual fear: For all my luxury and gold and gems, I envied the poor slaves who swept the floors. I was the favourite of my Persian lord For one whole month, perhaps a little more, And then I learned my place was to be filled; And though I loathed him, as we loathe some cold And reptile creature, yet I could not bear To see a newer rival take my place, For I was beautiful, and therefore vain: So, that I might regain his favour past, I now arrayed myself in airy robes, While scarfs of purple like an orient queen’s Barred them with brilliant tints, and gold and pearls Confined the wavelets of my sunny hair. “The harem all applauded, and there seemed Even in his own dull eyes almost a flash As of extorted joy, but this became At the next moment a malignant scowl, Which had its dark cause in such thoughts as these: ‘What! Did so soft and ignorant a thing Hope to enchant again a man so wise As he was—he! The paragon of kings! By floating in before him like a swan, A little better feathered than before?’ 246 And then he waved the harem ladies forth, And with him kept only a Nubian girl, Whom he thought dull, and altogether his: A conclave of those strange demoniac dwarfs Who from their secret dens and crypts would come On given signals forth, was summoned in: Wizard-like beings, with enormous heads, Splay-feet, and monstrous spider-fingered hands. Nor was the council long; I on that night Was to be poisoned with a pomegranate. Then stole the Nubian girl away, and brought Me word of all; yet her news moved me not, So sure I felt that this was not my doom; Or moved me only to prepare for flight With the poor Nubian girl. Unseen I came To my own chamber, where I packed my goods; And whence, unseen by all, we swiftly fled. ’Twas plain and patent to my inmost self That in this last change I had always been Regenerating more and more; for though I had a love of mischief in my head, At heart I was not bad, and they who knew Me closely, or at least the woman sort, Loved me,—nay, served me, as the Nubian did. And now, as no one else might sell me,—lo! I sold myself, and found myself installed Queen of a rude baboon-like Afric king. “Then I was captive to a Bedouin sheik, Was sold in the slave-mart of Astrachan, And carried thence to India, to be crowned A rajahpoot’s sultana; from which state Flying at length, I fell into a worse, Being pounced on by a Turkoman horse-stealer. At Alexandra I became the slave Of a harsh Roman matron, who was wont To flog and famish me to make me good, And when I owned myself converted, then She flogged and famished me the more, to make My goodness lasting; and I finally Fell stabbed in Cairo—slaughtered by a slave. 247 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part VII. “AFTER some short and intermediate terms Of transmigration, all in female forms, In which, through kindly offices performed, It seemed the temper of my spirit much Had humanized, and in the last of which Twas mine to die for once a natural death, Again I had some deep-down hold on being, Dim as an oyster’s in its ocean-bed; Then came a sense of light and air, of space, Of hunger, comfort, warmth, of sight and sound I caught at length the drift of speech, and knew That all who came to see me and admire Called me Ben Bachai’s daughter. “Dark indeed, But lovely as a starry night I grew, A maid, the glory of her father’s house, Her mother’s dovelet, filling all her wonts With tenderness and joy. Still as I grew, By strange degrees the memory of all That I had been came back upon my mind To fill it with wild sorrow and dismay; To know I was a cheat, nor wholly what I seemed to my fond parents—that I was But half their daughter, and the rest a fiend, With a fiend’s destiny,—ah! This, I say, Would smite me even in dreams with icy pangs Or wordless woe, yea, even while I slept So innocently as it seemed, and so Securely happy in the arms of love!” As this was said, the Rabbi looked, and saw That now again the woman seemed to speak As of herself, and not as heretofore With moveless lips, and prisoned voice, that came As from some dark duality within. 248 Her looks had changed, too, with the voice, and now Again she lay, a queen-like creature, racked With mortal sufferings, who, when these grew less, Or for a time remitted, even thus Took up her tale again. “At length upgrown To womanhood, by some mysterious pact Existing twixt my father’s house and that Of an Arabian prince time out of mind, I was now wedded ere I wished, and he, My husband, finally had come to claim And bear me from my home, that happiest home Which I should know no more: a man most fair To look upon, but void of force, in truth The weakling of a worn-out line, who yet (What merit in a prince!) Was not depraved, Not wicked, not the mendicant of lust, But mild, and even affectionate and just. My dowry was immense, and flushed with this The prince had summoned from his vassal tribe Five hundred horse, all spearmen, to escort And guard us desert-ward. And as we went These ever and anon, at signal given, Would whirl around us like a thunder-cloud Wind-torn, and shooting instant shafts of fire! And thus we roamed about the Arabian wastes, Pitching our camp amid the fairest spots. Beneath an awning oft I lay, and gazed Out at the cloudless ether, where it wrapt The silent hills, like to a conscious power Big with the soul of an eternal past. “But long this life might last not, for the prince Sickened and died;—died poor, his wealth and mine Having been squandered on the hungry horde That wont to prance about us; who ere long, Divining my extremity, grew loud And urgent for rewards, till on a day, By concert as it seemed, the tribe entire Came fiercely round me, all demanding gifts, Gifts that I had not; as they nearer pressed, 249 Wearing his way among them, lo! I saw The old man of the tombs! The Bactrian sage! With signs of awe they made him room to pass; He fixed me with his shrunk and serpent eyes, Waved off the abject Arabs, and then asked ‘Why art thou poor? With needs so great upon thee? I offer thee long life and wealth and power.’ “I turned to him and said: ‘Should I not know, By all the past, the nature of thy gifts? Shows and delusions, evil, sin-stained all, And terminating in eternal loss.’ ‘Well, take it as thou wilt,’ he said; ‘my gifts Are not so weighed by all.’ And saying this He went his way, while I retired within My lonely tent to weep. “Next day the tribes Again assembled, and with threats and cries, And insults loud, they raised a passion in me. My blood arose: I chid them angrily, Called them all things but men, till they, alarmed, Fell back in sullen silence for a while, Crouching like tigers ready for a spring. Humbled, perplexed, and frightened, I returned Into my tent, and there within its folds Stood the weird Bactrian with his snaky eyes, And wiry voice that questioned as before: ‘Why art thou poor? Why dost thou suffer wrong, With all this petty baseness brattling round? Am I not here to help thee? I, thy one Sole friend—not empty, but with ample means. Behold the secrets of the inner earth! There, down among the rock-roots of the hills, What seest thou there? Look, as I point, even those Strange miscreations, as they seem to thee, Are demoniac moilers that obey Such arts as I possess; the gnomish brood Of Demogorgon. See them how they moil Amid those diamonds shafts and reefs of gold Embedded in the oldest drifts of time, And in the mire that was the first crude floor 250 And blind extension of the infant earth: Why art thou poor, then, when such slaves as they Might work for thee, and glut thy need with all The matchless values which are there enwombed, Serving thee always as they now serve me? Nor these alone: turn thou thy looks aloft, And watch the stars as they go swimming past. Behold their vastness, each a world,’ he said; ‘The secrets of all these, too, thou shalt know, The spirits of all these shall be thy slaves, If thou wilt swear as erst amid the tombs.’ “The woe of desolation wrapped me round, The joy to know all mysteries tempted me, And with a shudder that shook me to the soul I swore, as erst I swore amid the tombs. “As on my hand he placed a signet-ring, Suddenly loud the desert winds arose, And blew with mighty stress among the tents; And instantly aloft the thunder ran, A mighty issue of miraculous light Burst shaft-like forward, smiting him in twain, Or so it seemed, down through the solid earth. In vain I shrunk into a dim recess; Before me stood the son of paradise. Then leapt the soul to life within my heart— Leapt into life with fear, and pain, and woe— Anger and sadness both were on his brow. “‘Could’st thou no trial bear—all but redeemed; Could’st thou not rest content? A rabbi’s child! Enjoy as best thou may this ill-won power Over the darker agencies of time, And bide the end, which end is punishment But the more terrible, the more delayed; Yet know this also, thou shalt thus no more Be punished in a body built of clay.’ He vanished, leaving me to sharp remorse, And harrowed with the thought of his grieved look. ‘And yet no power in heaven or hell,’ I said, ‘May now annul my deed.’ 251 “And not one day Of joy has brought to me my ‘ill-won power.’ I built vast palaces in quiet view Of ancient cities, or by famous streams; I filled my halls with men and women fair, And with these pages of a beauty rare Like striplings kidnapped from some skirt of heaven; Yet sorrowful of countenance withal, As knowing that their mortal doom is joined With mine irrevocably, that with me ’Tis theirs to own these shows of time, with me To live—with me to die. And as, ’tis said, A hunted roe will evermore beat round Towards whence he started first, I felt at length An ardent longing for my native place; That spot in all the earth where only I, In tasting of it, had divined the worth And Sabbath quality of household peace. Then coming hither, thus constrained, I pitched My dwelling here, even this thou seest; built fair, And filled with splendours such as never yet Under one roof-tree on this earth were stored. See yon surpassing lustres! Could this orb Show such? From Mars came that; from Venus this; And yonder mass of sun-bright glory, that From Mercury came, whence came these viols, too, Instinct with fervent music such as ne’er From earthly instruments might thrill abroad.” Then seizing one of them, even as she spake, Over its chords she moved her ivory hand, And instantly the palace domes throughout Rang resonant, as every hall and crypt Were pulsing music from a thousand shells That still ran confluent with a mellow slide And intercourse of cadence: sweet, and yet Most mournful and most weird, and oft intoned With a wild wilfulness of power that worked For madness more than joy. “Even such, ” she said “Are the delights with which I most converse In the dark loneness of my fated soul, 252 For all is show, not substance. All I hold But darkens more the certainty I have Of wrath to come, from which no change of place, No earthly power, no power of heaven nor hell, May shield me now. I see it shadowing forth Even like a coming night, in whose dark folds My soul would ask to hide itself in vain. And now I go to meet the angel’s face; I will not claim my hundred years of pride, I trample underneath my feet the gift For which I sold my soul; I will not touch The ring of Sammael, nor use his power To stay the torments that devour my life; Misery, shame, remorse, and dread are mine; Yet shall the angel see repentent eyes, And know at last I could one trial bear; Too late, too late.” As thus the woman spake, Her brow grew dark, and suddenly she shrieked In her great agony. “Oh pray for me! Pray, rabbi! For the daughter of thy friend! The hour is coming, nay, the hour is come!” There was a rustle as of wings aloft, A sudden flicker in the lights below, And she, who until now seemed speaking, sank Back on her pillow and in silence lay Beautiful in the marble calm of death. The rabbi gazed on her, and thought the while Of those far times, when, as a child, her grace Had filled with pleasantness her father’s house. Then to her servants gave in charge the corpse, And forth he paced, much musing as he went. At length he turned to gaze once more upon The silent house of death. Can such things be? All had evanished like a morning mist! Only the woods that hung like clouds about The steeps of Hebron, in the whitening dawn Lay dark against the sky! Only a pool Gleamed flat before him, where it seemed erewhile The splendid palace had adorned the view! 253 Perplexed in mind, the rabbi turned again And hurried homeward, muttering as he went: Was it a vision? Can such marvels be? But what in truth are all things, even those That seem most solid—dust and air at last ~ Charles Harpur,