Silence is golden, but values are silver

Our Poet Laureate Dr Pessy Krausz has shared with us the happy news that another of her poems, 'The Meaning of Silver', will be appearing in this week's issue of Netanya's Poetry Please, and also in the journal of the Israel Association of Writers in English in December. This poem is about a very special piece of silver, the becher which appears on the right.  

Pessy's poem reads like this:

The Meaning of Silver

 Long ago and far away a century almost ago

Aron Eliyahu Hacohen my father was born

in a Polish village called Czychlyn but

moved to Lowicz, parents and siblings all

 

there its central square housed the market place 

shops to the side whose silver-tongued staff

served chatting folks exchanging woes

searching for wares hoping for bargains

 

Tim Gidal’s camera captures the scene 

head scarved women baskets on arms

children, chicks men in padded coats

under hostile elements silvery skies threatening

 

camera shoulder slung as with wife Pia

they fled Nazi onslaught arriving in Israel

where he gave me the picture I shared

with my father – by then wheelchair bound –

 

lightening recollection led him back ninety years                       

There’s Shmuel the wadding maker’s store

Moishe’s shoe shop, Yankel the baker’s next door!

Miraculous, incredible having escaped Nazi pursuit 

 

fled over hostile seas to England’s Dover

found us a village attic room while working in London

said to my mother “Here are my first earnings

go to town, buy us a Becher – a goblet for wine

 

must be of pure silver, no more no less!!” 

It graced our tiny table clad in a white cloth

though barely three I have instant recall

Kiddush with that Becher was entirely unique!

 

And uniquely it’s survived to this very day

graces my Shabbat table where Jerusalem’s home

they say Silence is Golden but Values are Silver

so generations may venerate what money can’t buy

Cry, the Beloved

 To mark Yom HaShoah, we are reproducing here the latest published work of our dear member, poet and author Pessy Krausz. The relevance of this poem to Yom HaShoah is self-explanatory. 

CRY, THE BELOVED

Grandfather Berel last seen thrown off a bus

limping after it at the Polish-German border

forgot his velvet bag with Tefillin for daily prayer

the leather box on his brow with strings attached

He and grandma Malka – though strung along

to Holocaust's killing machine – arise from its fiery furnace

embrace fledgling Kfir and little/big brother Ariel

don't cry on Mama Shiri's lap snatched from Nir Oz

Yarden, husband, father October 7th survivor of the Bibas family

my heartstrings with yours entwine – our history

dictates we not be taken hostage to a brutal past

but prompts us bravely to sing a different tune

"Cry, the Beloved" was first published in ESRA Magazine, just before Pesach. You can find the original here.

Grandmother's Courage

ESRA is a remarkable organisation, dedicated to strengthening the English-speaking community in terms of its integration into Israeli society and the making of a positive contribution to life in Israel through work, volunteering and the promotion of educational and welfare projects. One of ESRA's activities is the publication of the ESRA Magazine, to which Hanassi member Pessy Krausz is a contributor.  Here's a powerful and poignant piece by Pessy, which needs to explanation. We pray that Hashem in His mercy will watch over not only Pessy's grandson but also the grandchildren of all our members who put their lives at risk so that we may live safely in the land He has given us.

Grandmother's Courage

My grandson’s in Gaza
need I say more?
Yes, his wife, sweet student runs
to her parents forth and back
to her own home where her
soldier husband returned!
Smelly uniform, socks, no shower
from days on end fighting at the front
boots on the ground – a paratrooper proud...

My grandson's in Gaza
need I say more?
Yes! Now there’s a sweet baby
a beauty who’s named Harel
‘Har’ in Hebrew stands for mountain
‘El’ stands for the Almighty’s name
a new generation fights for peace
Prime minister David Ben-Gurion said,
“To be a realist in Israel, in Miracles you must believe!”

My grandson’s in Gaza
need I say more?
Yes! Grandmother’s heart races
sighting him in uniform
with gun slung on one shoulder
his baby on the other
free hand his baby’s carriage wheels
along supermarket’s corridor…
unlike one he emerged from – in Gaza

My grandson’s in Gaza
need I say more?
Yes! Baby fast growing up, asks
“Will dad return home soon from our
Swords of Iron War?” Hug him
Hug him tight, give him courage,
explain, his dad’s not the only one –
who comforts grandma with this slogan
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”

The author dedicates her poem to the many grandmothers who share the pain and pride of their grandsons proudly defending our one and only country which we can call home. She shares the immeasurable agony of families coping with loss of dear ones who fall fighting for us all. May our worthy cause bring some measure of comfort.

Photo with permission of Noam Krausz.

Our two great poems: Haazinu 5785

Checking through our little pile of pending divrei Torah, we found that the Destiny Foundation had provided us this year not with one devar Torah for Shabbat Shuva (parshat Haazinu) but with two. This is the second one. Enjoy!

There are two major poetical songs that appear in the Torah. One is the great song of deliverance, which was the reaction of Moshe and the Jewish people to their being saved from the bondage of Egypt and the waters of Yam Suf. The other is that of this week's parsha, Haazinu. Moshe composed this too, at the end of the forty-year sojourn of the Jewish people in the desert of Sinai, at Moshe’s point of departure from life in this world.

The background of these songs is manifestly different, as is their tone. The song of Yam Suf is a song of exultation and triumph, expressing relief of deliverance from a brutal foe. But it is basically a poem of the past, of what has already just occurred, and an acknowledgment of God's previous goodness towards Israel. This week, in Haazinu the song is of a much darker hue. Visionary, prophetic and somber, it sees the great challenges of the future that lie before this people that Moshe so loved and loyally served. It is a song that will accompany the Jewish people throughout their long and tortured road of exile, persecution, survival and eventual triumph.

To our generation, standing as we do centuries after Moshe spoke these words, this is a clear and incisive description of what has happened to us and of our mission in the world. Haazinu reflects current events and not merely a recording of our past. Both of Moshe’s poems are essential to the development of Jewish life—but they each transmit a different message. The ability to live, so to speak, in the past and in the future at one and the same time is a particularly Jewish trait. The Jewish people have a long memory and collectively, even if not individually, we remember everything that has befallen us. Tragically, for many Jews of our time this memory has failed. For them, our story has been lost.

Only a minority of the Jewish world recites Moshe’s song at the Yam Suf in daily prayer services, and there are large numbers of Jews for whom deliverance from Egypt and the splitting of the sea at Yam Suf are no longer even distant memories. Forgetting the song of Yam Suf is tantamount to gradually excluding oneself from Jewish society. Forgetting the song of Haazinu is even more damaging to the individual Jew and to the nation. Those who live only in the present and do not glimpse the greatness of the future truly cut themselves off from participation in it.

The poem of Haazinu promises us repentance and redemption, serenity and a better world. Without this song, and without the belief that the vision it contains is accurate and true, the Jewish people could never have survived the long night of our exile and troubles. This song was “to be placed in their mouths” as the witness for all our history and a valid proof of the just entitlements of our future. Our task is to rededicate ourselves to fulfill the goals of this great song of Haazinu in the year before us, which we hope and pray will be good and blessed.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein