A Story of the World (for the Avodah Service on Yom Kippur) by R' Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli
Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=18042
open_content_license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license Date: 2017-11-05
Last Updated: 2025-02-18
Categories: Yom Kippur
Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Amits Koaḥ, drash, English piyyutim, mytho-history, פיוטים piyyutim
Excerpt: This Yom Kipur, our congregation (Beth Jacob Synagogue in Hamilton) requested a reworking of the piyyut, "Amits Koaḥ" (text, audio) since the language is very tough and resists plain translation into English. I was also commissioned to write a poem describing the history of the world from a Jewish perspective, from scratch and in English, for use at the beginning of the Avodah service. It turned out to be just as obscure as the original so I put in a little column to the right with a little reference what I was talking about. . . .
Content:
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English |
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abyssal murmurs at the dawn of starlight
as footsteps collect in sixes fours twos
and the first person divides into lovers
knowledge parts the path between the sibilant species
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a child’s blood learns the language of God
a child of a child finds the country of God
a child of a child of a child did all right
in a time of heartless children
here sits the raven in the watery desert
nesting in his decaying raft
here flies the troubled dove whose foot
is refused landing
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two are born who see through the spirits
and call the sun a sun and the humans people
make all these walls doors they say
as they peel back the skins of their tent
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vision wraps and unwraps the mountain
oil glints on the morning dolmen
a box rattles a girl kicks
colours muddy in a pit by the highway
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there is an us for dreams to lure
to a civilised Egypt
and for a pestilent clarity
to wrench once more wildward
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and from that crowd one leaves to bathe
since knowing water is knowing blood
and knowing blood is knowing mercy
and mercy is the only door left open
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This Yom Kipur, our congregation (Beth Jacob Synagogue in Hamilton) requested a reworking of the piyyut, “Amits Koaḥ” (text, audio) since the language is very tough and resists plain translation into English. I was also commissioned to write a poem describing the history of the world from a Jewish perspective, from scratch and in English, for use at the beginning of the Avodah service. It turned out to be just as obscure as the original so I put in a little column to the right with a little reference what I was talking about.
Contributor: Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli
Co-authors:
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Name: Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli
Bio: Rabbi Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli lives in Hamilton, Ontario, having previously lived in Toronto, Gothenberg, Sweden, and Jerusalem, where she received most of her rabbinic/traditional education. Yonah’s illustrations of Masekheth Berakhoth have been featured in three exhibitions and have toured numerous art galleries in Israel, Canada, and the United States. She is also a soferet stam with experience in writing sifrei Torah, mezuzot, megillot, ketubot, and gitin. She is familiar with Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Yemenite sofrut conventions.
Website: https://independent.academia.edu/YonahLaveryYisraeli
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/yonah-lavery-yisraeli
Featured Image:
Title: animals-2335039_960_720
Caption: "Animals, Birds, Crow" by (credit: Niminez, license: CC0)