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Don't Let Despair Win: Vaera 5784 / 2024

Poem written in my parked car outside the synagogue waiting for the bomb squad to sweep the building again

My first thought:
every single time
you craven cowards
hit us with
false bomb threats
I will become
more visibly Jewish

though on reflection
what more could
I even do?
I mean c’mon
I already wear
a knit kippah
and hamsa earrings.

Anyone in town
who doesn’t know
what I am
isn’t paying attention.
And more importantly
you don’t get
to influence me.

I let my
freak flag fly
and I won't
lower my Jewishness
to half-mast.
If I listed
everything I love

about the Torah
the 613 mitzvot
our holy prayers
our holy days
our holy languages
we'd be here
all night long.

Four thousand years
won’t end now.
We’re still here.
We won’t stop.
You can't quench
this eternal light.
It always shines.

 

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