A Soulful Journey

A melifluous cantor named Sholem While asleep in the night had a cholem*, That he chanted "al cheit," At the Heavenly Gate, And it pleased the Ribono Shel Olam. - Cantor Harry Gelman Wouldn't it be nice to craft songs and poems out of experience? perhaps the days of our lives are a song. If so, then we are the both the lyrics and melody.... Nothing pleases God more than hearing our song. *dream

On the day my daughter was born, not a single person died in the hospital, and at the entrance gate the sign said, Today Cohanim are permitted to enter. And it was the longest day of the year. In my great joy I drove with my friend to a hill overlooking The Old City in Jerusalem. We saw a bare, sick pine tree, nothing on it but a lot of pine cones.   Zvi said trees that are about to die produce a lot more cones than healthy trees.   And I said to him: that was a poem and you didn’t realize it.   Even though you’re a man of the exact sciences, you’ve made a poem.   And he answered: and you, even though you’re a man of dreams, have made an exact little girl with all the exact instruments for her life. A Child is something else again: on a rainy spring day Glimpsing the Garden of Eden through the lattice work Kissing her in her sleep Hearing footsteps in the wet pine needles A child delivers you from death Child, Rain, Garden, Fate. -Yehuda A...