of the Passover festival. Enjoy!
Next year in Jerusalem
They say it every year at their Seder tables
As the light from the candles
Burnishes the silver, deepens the red wine ...
“Next year in Jerusalem.”
But “next year” is like tomorrow – it almost nevercomes.
And Jerusalem is waiting
As a virgin bride –
Waiting for her beloved
To fulfill the pledge.
“Next year in Jerusalem.”
For how many centuries has she waited,
This ancient city of dreaming domes
And weary stones and muted prayers?
Waited for the return of her exiles
Gone to another Babylon.
So when you say the words again -
“Next year in Jerusalem”
Listen for the whispered answer from Zion
Across the seas, across the years –
Listen and you will hear it,
Just two words: “Come home!”
Dvora Waysman
The sin of slander - Lashon Hara
The Evil Tongues of spiteful men
Have the power to destroy
The good we find within our lives,
Creating hate through needless strife.
The Truth is rarely what is told
By people who can never know,
But who repeat the lies they heard,
To a blind and mindless herd.
They rarely meet those slandered souls
To understand whom they have wronged,
Much less would ever, even, try,
To determine either Truth or Lie.
Does it fit with what is seen,
Or meet the test of commonsense?
Or do they just accept the rot,
Not giving it a chance to rest
Before they pass the gossip on
Despite the smell that clings to it.
The slanderer takes special pride
And seems to need to glorify
The blooming of his poisoned seeds
And leaving lives as ruined debris.
Narratives they have in force,
Fictions of the clever lie,
Which weave a little fact to scenes
That in the end becomes obscene.
What’s the reason for their lies
Which gnaws away at shrunken hearts?
Is it greed or jealousy, or just the sign
Of sickened souls of those
Who are much less than whole.
Perhaps they do not recognize
The fact that words which are untrue,
Will create for all of us
A bleaker future, made for fools.
David Goldberg
Privilege to suck
A generation of great
Dreams
But no means
Was our awesome
Legacy.
We exhaled, splattered
Like Camembert,
Lazy as a sandwich
On a hot summer’s day.
We inhaled, anxious
For a distant
Starving child,
Dreading what follows.
Hope is a privilege,
We learned too late.
What does it mean
To have no fate?