Another Thought on “Eli Tziyon”

אלי ציון ועריה כמו אשה בציריה
וכבתולה חגורת שק על בעל נעוריה


The piyyut compares Zion to a virgin, girded in sackcloth, [mourning] the husband of her youth. When singing this caoineadh this morning, I noticed the incongruity of that line. If she's a בתולה, a virgin, how has she been married long enough to be widowed?

At that point I realized — Tziyon's metaphorical husband died before they were able to "consummate" their marriage. All the pieces were there, but the job was never finished.

We were living free in our Land.
We had a House for God.
We had self-government.
We had prophets and miracles.

The marriage had taken effect — all the pieces were there in the formal relationship between God, People, Torah and Land — but it was never finalized. We never created the holy and just society that we were meant to. We never truly became a mamlekhet kohanim vegoy ḳadosh. We never taught the world to aspire to Unity.

It's not just what was there that we lost — it's the potential that we lost, too. The uncompleted task.

Subverting Mourning

Some people (such as Iconoclastic Litvaks) object to the custom to sing Lekha Dodi to the tune of Eli Tziyon on Shabbat Ḥazon, the Shabbos before Tish‘a b’Av. They think that it's an infringement by the mourning of Tishabav onto Shabbat, when public displays of mourning are inappropriate.

I was thinking about that this past Friday Night, as we sang Lekha Dodi to the tune of Eli Tziyon at shul, and I realized that it's not quite that simple. Lekha Dodi interweaves two themes — one is the approach of Shabbat, and the other is aspirations for Redemption. Matisyahu got the title of his album “Shake Off the Dust... Arise” from Lekha Dodi, after all, where it refers to the Jerusalem and the Jewish People, identified with each other, shaking off the necrotizing chains of exilic lethargy and rising to meet the Messianic Age.

Lekha Dodi is fundamentally hopeful — just as we stand at the end of the mundane week, on the threshold of the transcendent alternate universe of Shabbos, it looks out from Galut forwards, hopefully towards the Coming Days, and leaving the Valley of Tears behind.

When we foreshadow Tish‘a B’av by singing Lekha Dodi to the tune of Eli Tziyon, we aren't taking the mournful nature of the Fast and applying it to Shabbat where it doesn't belong — we're subverting and undercutting the entire mourning process before it's even had a chance to really get started. We go into Tishabav confident and hopeful, looking forwards towards the as-yet-unfulfilled prophecies of Consolation, instead of just looking back at the already-fulfilled prophecies of Calamity. Long before we read Eikha, we've already spun its message.

Complete and utter side-point:
You can also use the tune of Eli Tziyon to sing the song of the Dwarves longing for their dispossessed homeland in Prof. JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, both the English original and הנעמי's Hebrew translation. Which is pretty cool, considering the similar themes.

Star-K, Meet Star-H

Walking down Broadway in Manhattan today, I came across a discarded cardboard food-shipment box. It was a fairly typical box for meat delivery, but it had a certification symbol I had never seen before...



It looks like the followers of Muslim Dietary Laws are finally following in the footsteps of us who keep Jewish Dietary Laws, and starting certification organizations with recognizable symbols. I hope the Va‘ad of Baltimore doesn't go after these guys for trademark infringement or something!

Star-K[osher], meet Star-Ḥ[alāl]!

Now the question is... how long until they too have certification scandals?

Two and a Half Poems

Ḥozeh, Leikh Beraḥ (“Seer, Go Flee”) by Ḥ. N. Bialik, after ‘Amos 7:12

„חוֹזֶה, לֵךְ בְּרַח“

"לֵךְ בְּרַח?" – לֹא-יִבְרַח אִישׁ כָּמוֹנִי!
הֲלוֹךְ בַּלָּאט לִמְּדַנִי בְקָרִי,
גַּם דַּבֵּר כֵּן לֹא-לָמְדָה לְשׁוֹנִי
וּכְקַרְדֹּם כָּבֵד יִפֹּל דְּבָרִי.

"Go flee?" — a man like me does not flee!
My cattle taught me to walk softly;
But my tongue never learned to speak so,
My word instead falls like a heavy ax.

וְאִם-כֹּחִי תַם לָרִיק – לֹא-פִשְׁעִי,
חַטַּאתְכֶם הִיא וּשְׂאוּ הֶעָוֹן!
לֹא-מָצָא תַחְתָּיו סְדָן פַּטִּישִׁי,
קַרְדֻּמִּי בָא בְּעֵץ רִקָּבוֹן.

And if my strength was expended for naught — it's not my bad;
It's your sin, so deal with your crime!
My hammer did not find its anvil underneath,
my ax came into rotten wood.

אֵין דָּבָר! אַשְׁלִים עִם-גּוֹרָלִי:
אֶת-כֵּלַי אֶקְשֹׁר לַחֲגוֹרָתִי,
וּשְׂכִיר הַיּוֹם בְּלִי שְׂכַר פָּעֳלִי
אָשׁוּבָה לִּי בַּלָּאט כְּשֶׁבָּאתִי.

No matter! I will deal with my fate:
I will tie my tools to my belt,
And like a laborer stiffed of his pay
I will go back softly as I came.

אֶל-נָוִי אָשׁוּב וְאֶל-עֲמָקָיו
וְאֶכְרֹת בְּרִית עִם שִׁקְמֵי יָעַר;
וְאַתֶּם – אַתֶּם מְסוֹס וְרָקָב
וּמָחָר יִשָּׂא כֻלְּכֶם סָעַר.

To my home I'll return and to its valleys
And I will enact a covenant with the forest sycamores;
And you — y'all are rotten and decayed
And tomorrow a storm will carry you away.

---

I'm not running
I'm not running
I'm not running from today
If you meet me on the mountain
I won't be the one to pay
(You won't be the one to stay)

---

“Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks

'Forgive' — sounds good
'Forget' — I'm not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I'm still waiting

I'm through with doubt
There's nothing left for me to figure out
I've paid a price
And I'll keep paying

I'm not ready to make nice
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell and
I don't have time to go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
'Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can't you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kinda like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don't mind sayin'
It's a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she oughta hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Sayin' that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I'm not ready to make nice
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell and
I don't have time to go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
'Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I'm not ready to make nice
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell and
I don't have time to go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
'Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should
What it is you think I should

'Forgive' — sounds good
'Forget' — I'm not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I'm still waiting

Beyond Evolution

Interesting and well-written article here:
"Confirmed: God is Slightly Gay"

It expresses what seems to be a very common view of spirituality today, the nature-centric "we are the universe made manifest" principle that many people have. It finds religious/moral value in the grandeur of nature and the rhythms of the natural world.

What the article doesn't seem to recognize is that some of us have spiritual/religious sensibilities that are based on the idea that humanity's sentience and self-reflective nature are a mandate to break with the rhythms of the brutal process of evolution. We're supposed to think and exercise altruism and self-restraint, not just give in to whatever urges and instincts lead to the tautological survival of the fittest.