Moving to New Blog

Hi,
I am moving to a new blog, Jewish Lights (jewishlights.blogspot.com). The reason is that the name "wings-of-morning" is very similar to the name of another site, "wings-of-the-morning," and I want to avoid confusion.

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It Breaks Walls of Bronze

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

Our soul is great, strong and mighty. It breaks walls of bronze, it bursts mountains and hills. It is infinitely broad, it must spread out. It is impossible for it to shrink.

Over all our twelve million Jewish souls on all their levels, in all their ascents and descents, on all the hills that they have climbed and in all the valleys into which they have descended, in all the heights of the city where they stand at the very pinnacle, in all the burrows where they hid from the oppression of disgrace and shame, toil and affliction, in all of them, in all of them our soul spreads, it embraces them all, it revives and encourages them all, it returns them all to the site of the house of our life.

“Who are these that fly like a cloud and like doves to their cotes” (Isaiah 60:8).

Chadarav, p. 190

The Avocado Sandwich of History

by Yaacov Dovid Shulman

The restaurant was serving
The avocado sandwich of history.
It was enriched by slices of hard-boiled egg.
Hard-boiled men came swaggering through the swinging doors,
They had neglected to wash their hands.
At the other tables
Families huddled in the dark
Around the light of lone candles,
With grips at their side.

Oh and there was one of the statesmen,
He was ready to order.
His diction was superb.
He asked for a slice of land,
The flank, without fat,
The south done rare,
The north fully broiled—
I could see his guests at the table
With eye patches and bandannas,
Their dinner knives already in their hands,…
What a meal!
They chewed so loudly,
You could hear the bones snapping
(At the curb, big white trucks with water cannon
Stood ready to clear the spinach from between their teeth).

A flood of sudsy water rolled out from the kitchen,
History is over, cried the janitor,
But they kept on eating,
Their eyes gleamed in the light that burned from candles
Made of scrolls and words and buried desires,
And the radio chattered so loudly
With static and brute phrases
And stale laughter and sports figures
That everyone else in the restaurant
Gazed with despair at their flambeaux.
And the hair of the statesmen grew thicker and whiter,
And whatever they said was transcribed onto paper napkins
And immediately transported to the kitchen,
As, in a corner of the restaurant,
Two health inspectors were wrestling on the ground
(Each one wanted to be in charge,
They disagreed vigorously with each other’s methods),
And one of the crew called for deviled eggs,
And from a dark table
A meek sheep-faced man sibilantly asked for angel food cake
And closed his eyes and chewed silently.

And to my immense surprise, the restaurant stayed open.
The sun had long since set,
It should have been time for breakfast.
Where were the truckers, bringing fresh eggs and fresh bread?

I am sitting in the restaurant still,
The statesmen are squabbling over scraps of squab,
They are leaning over and biting the corpse of a horse
Lying on a bed of rice,
They are dragging other patrons’ tables to themselves
And sweeping off the ratatouille.
More statesmen have been invited to the feast,
They keep pouring into the restaurant,
Mafiosi with shiny cheekbones,
Two sheiks riding camels,
The Queen of Spain (they had to exhume her,
And she is still brushing clumps of earth from her eye sockets),
Make room for Hugo (I love his smile),
There’s Ahmadinejad, he’s got his own table,
And three thousand centrifuges are wheeled out from the kitchen,
There’s the fellow without a chin, with the weak mustache,
He’s banging his fork and demanding service,
And the maitre d’, in a star-spangled top hat
Is racing back and forth, pointing out seats,
But no one is paying him any mind
(Except for the King of Saudi Arabia,
Who sticks a five dollar bill up his nose)
And the wine waiter comes out
With a map of the world folded over his arm
And a bottle of aquifer water
That he swiped from a silent table,
And there is Condi,
“I have organized this special evening!”
But no one paying any attention to her,
They are watching Ehud Olmert tap-dancing,
He is wearing a bear costume and singing mah yafit,
As the head of the Israeli Tax Authority is picking pockets,
The Minister of Defense is looking through capped binoculars,
The Minister of Justice has cornered one of the waitresses,
The Chief of Staff is on his cell phone, trading stock options,
The head of the opposition is giving a speech
(He is standing on top of his rivals to make himself taller),
Yosef Beilin is greeted warmly, he is wearing his rubber mask,
Stalin or Chirac (it’s hard to tell which),
Oh and there’s Shimon,
He’s casting handfuls of rose petals and singing of a new Middle—
Oof! That clumsy oaf Mubarak has knocked him down again!
Olmert is still dancing,
His big eyes are solemn, he is tired, he says, of winning dance contests,
But “Dance, varmint!” shouts that gun-slinger, Abbas,
Two million rounds of ammunition are slung around his neck.
The president of Malaysia has been invited as well,
And the washer women of Dubai,
The hat check girl from Casablanca shows up
And the plenipotentiary of Brazil,
For this dinner must not be allowed to fail,
Condoleeza Rice is still yelling in the corner,
For we all have a stake!

Ehud Olmert is being wheeled into the kitchen,
The crowd stares at the door
(The Minister for the Environment looks carefully around,
As he riffles through wallets).
Out pops Olmert, he is dragging a sacrificial lamb,
The hubbub starts up again.

When I sneak out of the restaurant, it is four in the morning,
The stars are still shining, the moon is waning and waxing like crazy,
I turn on the car radio, Shlomo Carlebach is singing.
Oh I hope this is a tune I haven’t heard before!

Who Are These That Fly

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

Our soul is great, strong and mighty. It breaks walls of bronze, it bursts mountains and hills. It is infinitely broad, it must spread out. It is impossible for it to shrink.

Over all our twelve million Jewish souls on all their levels, in all their ascents and descents, on all the hills upon they have ascended and in all the valleys into which they have descended, in all the heights of the city where they stand at the very pinnacle, in all the burrows where they hid from the oppression of disgrace and shame, toil and affliction, in all of them, in all of them our soul spreads, it embraces them all, it revives and encourages them all, it returns them all to the site of the house of our life.

“Who are these that fly like a cloud and like doves to their cotes” (Isaiah 60:8).

Chadarav, p. 190

The Statesmen of the World

by Yaacov Dovid Shulman

The statesmen of the world
Are a ragged alley
Where you die alone, without glory.

Our breath has been taken away from us,
Newspapers appear with blurred absences of our faces,
Pompous words parade across the horizon
And crush us with their comedic boots.

We are owls hypnotized by light,
We are sheep hypnotized by grass.

We would prefer to be eaten and torn on the hillside
Than make our arrows drunk with blood,
Our swords consume their prey.

These are our mountains,
These are our children.
They are not nurtured by our tears,
They will not understand our dying.

Each Man in His Tent, and Each Man Alongside His Pennant

The holy R. Yosselle of Yampla served as a rebbe—a gutter yud—even in the lifetime of his father, Rabbeinu, the rebbe, R. Michele, the maggid of Zlotshov.

And it once happened that the news came that the Polish government had passed a decree to expel all of the Jews who resided in the villages.

And so the residents of the villages gathered together to take counsel, and they chose from amongst them two men to travel to the tzaddikim of the generation to pray on their behalf and soften the judgment against them, so that they would not be exiled, heaven forbid, from their income and their homes.

And the two men, the representatives of the village residents, traveled to the holy rebbe, R. Michele. And they put their request before him that he pray to God on their behalf, and they spent the Sabbath there with him. And no doubt the holy rabbi blessed them.

After the Sabbath, they traveled from there and came to the holy R. Yossele, his son. And they also placed their request before him. And they spent the Sabbath with him as well.

And at the Friday night meal, as he sat at his holy table and the other people sat before him, the messengers also sat at the table. And he began to recite the Sabbath song, Kol M’kadesh Sh’vi’i:

Whoever sanctifies the seventh, as is fitting for him,
Whoever keeps the Sabbath properly so as not to violate it,
His reward is exceedingly great, in accordance with his deed,
Each man in his tent, and each man alongside his pennant.

And he said, as if to himself, “What is the meaning of these words? We have to look at this carefully.

“One, why does the author repeat his idea in different words? First, ‘whoever sanctifies the seventh,’ and afterwards ‘whoever keeps the Sabbath’—they seem to be saying be the same thing. Why did he repeat the same idea in different words?

“The verse states ‘as is fitting for him,’ and then ‘whoever keeps the Sabbath properly so as not to violate it.’

“Then it states, ‘his reward is exceedingly great’—meaning, greater than if a person just keeps the law. But then it ends, ‘in accordance with his deed’—meaning that he did no more than keep the law. So that seems to be a contradiction.

“And as to the conclusion of the stanza too: ‘each man in his camp and each man alongside his pennant’—what does that have to do with the preceding lines?”

The holy rebbe explained that there are two levels. The first is a high and elevated level, when a person sanctifies even the seventh hour of the day. And just as the day of the Sabbath, the seventh day, sanctifies the six days of the week that precede it, so too this person sanctifies all of the hours of the day, for the seventh hour sanctifies the six hours that precede it. And on every day of the week he acts in this holy way, sanctifying the seventh hour in such a way that the seventh hour sanctifies the six preceding hours.

And there is a second, lower level: that a person sanctifies the Sabbath day itself so as not to violate it, heaven forbid, so that the seventh day is sanctified, in contrast to the six days of the week. And that level is of course lower.

And that is the meaning of the author of this song.

“Whoever sanctifies the seventh as is fitting for him.” By sanctifying the seventh hour, he sanctifies all the hours of the entire day. And that is of course “fitting for him.” To be on such a high level is certainly fitting for an individual—it is not expected of everyone.

“Whoever keeps the Sabbath properly so as not to violate it”—i.e., the second level, that this person keeps the day of the Sabbath so as not to violate it, which is the level of all good Jews.

“His reward is exceedingly great.” That refers to the person on the first level, who sanctifies everything and not just the Sabbath. “His reward is exceedingly great,” going beyond the letter of the law.

And so “in accordance with his deed.” That is, that whatever he says and decrees with his mouth, so will he accomplish. His voice will be heard in heaven that thus will it be.

And the rebbe concluded, “Thus, I say, ‘Each man in his camp and each man alongside his pennant’—meaning, that no Jew will move from his place.”

No one at the table understood what these words were about except for those two messengers, who understood clearly that he was speaking for them, and that he had issued his decree for them.

And after the Sabbath, when they came to the holy rebbe to take their leave, he blessed them and promised them that with God’s help, they would not be moved from their place, and that the government’s decree would be annulled, just as he had decreed on Friday night in speaking of the stanza of Kol M’kadesh.

And the messengers truly believed that his judgment of their case would stand in heaven.

And they returned and came to his honorable father, the holy rebbe, R. Michele, and told him all of this about his holy son.

He rejoiced greatly at this and said, ‘Behold, ‘greater is the power of the son than that of the father.’ His decree is accepted in the upper world. I did not give you a blessing, for at the time of my blessing, I was not completely sure. Now it is clear to me that his blessing has been accepted, with his judgment in heaven above, and so you may be assured that all of the judgments against you will be nullified, and you will not moved from the place of your sustenance, with the help of Hashem, be He blessed.”

And so it was.

Sipurei Tzaddikim, number 49

If You Take Down the Bricks

by Yaacov Dovid Shulman

If you take down the bricks of this flying tower one by one,
These bricks with which so many have been stoned,
These brickbats of thoughts concealed in windy towers,
These towers on sandy plains
Where princesses with great coils of hair cried,
Where princes climbed the narrow bridges of their tresses,
Where the kites of their imaginings whirled out of control in the sky,
Where the sun shone on the jerboa, who was hustling home with the news
Of new food to his mewling children,
Who writhed in the darkness like naked fingers,
Who basked in each others’ warmth and moistness.
The moistness in my bones causes my flesh to melt,
It causes the room to melt, that man with the pasty face
And my thoughts and my eyes and my ears and my shoes
And the whiteness behind the whiteness
And all the niggling boxes of my words
And the little cages where discontented gerbils mutter grievously.
Change just one eyeball every week,
One ear, one conscience, one brainpan,
One kneecap, one set of veins on the back of your hand,
Your children are sleeping in their warm small imaginations
And they seek the feel of your new limbs.