Stepping Back Into The Water

October 3, 2009

After a four month plus period of not posting entries, it is time to return. For anyone who is interested, I will explain in a later entry why I believe the rest was required, but for now, to get any new readers started and to get me revitalized, I simply will re-post a few of my favorites (and, in reviewing my posts, I found that there were many that I do not like as much now as when they were written). Since during the last four months I have spent a significant amount of time reading books on religion and spirituality, I will re-post some posts that are, at some level related to those subjects. Thanks for reading this journal and feel free to look through the archive to find a piece that you like. Also, feel free to post a comment (or not) as you desire.

The following first was posted on April 19, 2009:

In 1867, Emma Lazarus (of “Give Me your Tired” fame) wrote “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport” which was in response to Henry Wadsworth’s Longfellow’s poem, The Jewish Cemetery at Newport”. Those poems inspired the following entry (Emma Lazarus' is below) – no other comparison or connection is intended.


In the sanctuary, the noises of the outside world
Have been left at the entry threshold
In preparation for uninterrupted reflection
Illuminated by the glow of the past, present and future.

The living and those whose living breath is no more surround
Sounds of prayer fill the space from without and within
Dappled pages with foreign symbols are a harbinger of the journey
All beckons to an encounter with the miraculous spiritual world.

An expedition of perpetual exploration and self-discovery
Where the individual is elevated to a place within the human spirit
Never losing relevance even while being bound with and within the generations
From humankind’s birth through all that was, all that is and all that will be.

Gazing into the layered depths of time and understanding
We are the departing slaves, the bedraggled victims, the huddled masses of immigrants
The sages who ascended to a godly view of all creation
The sculptors and painters of life in every age.

Absorbed in and by all of the elements
Wrapped in the warmth of time, place and life’s vitality
Taking a nostalgic climb through internal seasons
With a personal lens to search for the paradise within.

I am transported to the days of beginning and youth
In another sanctuary thousands of days and miles away
Connected by invisible cords braided like a Sabbath challah
Illuminated by a warm glow like that from the Shabbat candles.

Playing endlessly with the macramé tzitzit of my father's tallis
Four with eight with five forming heart strings which unite all
Watching my mother’s face as she gazes into an unseen world
With a Moses like glow on her face and a tear in her eye.

Rising and falling with other congregants like ocean waves
Learning melodies and words lasting through sometimes lost relevance
Growing year by year toward understanding and conformity, distinction and separation
Watching the changing of the guard as the youth stand on the shoulders of the elders.

And then the internal scroll of life’s story is rolled and dressed
Stored lovingly until the next never-ending return to the sanctuary within
Where defining moments are recorded in mystical ways
The abstract leading to clarity, myth transforming into philosophy.

And still, the physical world awaits just outside the sanctuary
Yet re-entry will be by one who has been further bonded to the oneness of all
Whose way of being in the world has been modified though ever so slightly
Whose path has been varied by another journey of self and generational discovery.




In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

Here, where the noises of the busy town,
The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not,
We stand and gaze around with fearful awe, 

And muse upon the consecrated spot.

No signs of life are here: the very prayers,

Inscribed around are in a language dead,
The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent 

That an undying radiance was to shed.

What prayers were in this temple offered up, 

Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth,

By these lone exiles of a thousand years,

From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth!

Now as we gaze, in this new world of light,

Upon this relic of the days of old,

The present vanishes, and tropic bloom

And Eastern towns and temples we behold.

Again we see the patriarch with his flocks,

The purple seas, the hot sky o'erhead,
The slaves of Egypt--omens, mysteries--

Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led.

A wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount,

A man who reads Jehovah's written law,

'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare,

Unto a people prone with reverent awe.

The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp,

In the rich court of royal
Solomon-- 
Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains

The exiles by the streams of Babylon.

Our softened voices send us back again 

But mournful echoes through the empty hall;

Our footsteps have a strange, unnatural sound,

And with unwonted gentleness they fall.

The weary ones, the sad, the suffering,
All found their comfort in the holy place,

And children's gladness, and men's gratitude

Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise.

The funeral and the marriage, now, alas!

We know not which is sadder to recall; 

For youth and happiness have followed age,

And green grass lieth gently over all.


And still the shrine is holy yet,

With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod.

Take off your shoes as by the burning bush,

Before the mystery of death and God.