Podcasts religion Israel in Translation Yom Kippur's Poetry of Awe

Yom Kippur's Poetry of Awe

Published: Oct. 1, 2014, 12:26 p.m.

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Today we explore Yom Kippur through the poetry of Yehuda Amichai and Shelley Elkayam, and the music of Leonard Cohen and Chayim Moshe.

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Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, when God seals the verdict on each person\'s fate for the coming year in the Book of Life.

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Amichai\'s poem refers to the \'Ne\'ila\' - the closing prayer, shortly before sunset, when heaven\\u2019s \'gates of prayer\' will be closed for the year. The subject has a moving encounter with an "Arab\\u2019s hole-in-the-wall shop" near Jerusalem\'s Damascus Gate, which reminds him of his father\'s shop that was burned down.

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Shelley Elkayam is an eighth-generation native of Haifa, from a bilingual Ladino-/Hebrew-speaking family. The excerpt from her poem \'Yes Indeed I\\u2019ll Answer God\' is written from the point of view of God. It ends: "Enough. / This is judgment. / And I take the verdict upon myself / at its word."

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Texts:

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\'Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing.\' Edited and translated by Ammiel Alcalay. City Lights Books, 1996.

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\'The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai,\' translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. University of California Press, 1996.

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Music:

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Leonard Cohen - Who By Fire

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Chayim Moshe - All My Vows

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