Mourner's Kaddish

Sorrow lives here, our refugee from the outside world. It sits with us
when we light shabbos candles, it lays on our shoulders in prayer,
and we kiss its body under each doorway we pass. It is the prophet Elijah
at Pesach, alive but dead, suspended in wait; the voice of our ancestors
warning us of that we are as blind to as a chronic pain. It demands from us
sustenance each seventh day, and public acknowledgement of our wrestle with G-d.
We maintain an affair as sticky as honey in the land of milk we can't afford,
and in its wake the world looks upon us with a grimace of pity and quiet resent.

Yet I know the truth: our house is built of sun-dried sandstone, and though
we asked for concrete, our foundation is nothing but sand. Each night my father
bribes the official for safety from collapses they wish would expel us from this land.
There is fighting too a few houses over, yet only we are pushed to divorce from our struggle,
as if we are not allowed to contend with our own shadows. I know

that it is our sorrow that keeps us alive,
that redeems our firstborn sons and hosts their bar mitzvahs. It cannot be taken.
It is our tallit and mezuzah, yet our heartbeat and souls, rigid
yet flexible, rough but soft, the bittersweet news of wars distant but near.
Our words will outlive you. It is the authority of the commandments when you falter,
and the beauty of creation when you wake born anew.

Dec. 22, 2025

The path into the light seems dark,
the path forward seems to go back,
the direct path seems long,
true power seems weak,
true purity seems tarnished,
true steadfastness seems changeable,
true clarity seems obscure,
the greatest art seems unsophisticated,
the greatest love seems indifferent,
the greatest wisdom seems childish.