This qinah purposely follows the structure of, and borrows phrases from, the text of Ma’oz Tzur. It was inspired by, of all things, a “Ruin a song by changing the first three words” Facebook post – someone had responded to it with “Ma’oz Tzarot…” and the rest all but wrote it itself. . . .

A supplemental stanza to the popular 13th century piyyut, Maoz Tsur, for the Ḥanukkah occurring in the aftermath of the horrors on 7 October. . . .

In 2016 after reading David Brin’s Earth (1990), I wrote this blog post and later felt inspired to write this variant of El Malé for the vessels and probes that carry our dream of space science, and then also for the astronauts who died while pursuing that dream. . . .

An ecstatic psalm envisioning the eventual victory of Humanity over Death itself – the ultimate Victory Day. Although the primary focus is on our ending of the process of biological death, it also touches on the Resurrection of those who have fallen, as well as the defeat of the ultimate Death – that of the Universe itself. . . .

A riff on the mitsvah to obliterate Amaleq in Parashat Zakhor, adapted to the horrors committed by HAMA”S and its allies on 7 October 2023. . . .

As I was in NYC, I first heard the news of the pogrom with which Hamas opened the war between Hallel and the Torah reading on Shemini Atseret. The beginnings of what is now the final stanza of this… I am unsure whether to refer to it as a qinah or a piyut first stirred in my soul during Tefillat Geshem, and the refrain of that stanza during Hakafot that evening. Prayer and song, no matter how joyous, has taken on a somber, cutting, desperate edge for me in this new world where the safety I had once taken for granted was revealed to be an illusion, which is reflected in taking from the phrases taken from the liturgy of the Yomim Nora’im. . . .