Tag Archives: mystery of creation

October 7, 2024 · 7:30 am

Challah

by Miriam Flock (Palo Alto, CA)

My hands fondle the dough, as a lover 

might a breast. From this touch

Challah rises—my creation. 

If it were the same each week

—so many and so many cups of flour, 

a dash of salt, and behold, a standard loaf 

manufactured like a car part—

the bread would be a lesser offering.

A gift to God must bear a human mark:

the bursting seams of an under-proofed braid, 

the occasional char. And then the interplay

of dough and world—the size of the eggs,

the warmth of the kitchen, the age of the leaven.  

When I nip off a piece and say the blessing, 

I praise the God who brings forth bread 

from the Earth. But challah is collaboration.  

Bodiless, the Lord cannot make it, nor can I

without the bounty of His imaginary hands.

Miriam’s work has previously been published in Poetry, Berru, Salmagundi, CCAR, and other journals.  She was the winner of the 2019 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for poems on the Jewish experience.  Her chapbook, “The Scientist’s Wife,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021.

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July 30, 2012 · 10:07 am

The Inner Palace

by Ilan Braun (Le Tour-du-Parc, Brittany, France)
Little Adam sleeps and dreams
In his mother’s inner palace
Little Adam in his tightly closed fists holds Knowledge
Like a delicate full bloom flower
He knows everything about the universe
And the world above
He knows the Divine Law
From the first letter, Alef, to the last one, Taf
Little Adam knows and understands the Creation’s mysteries
All of them without exception
Why the whales sing under the rolling waves
Why the moon shines during the darkest of nights
Why the sun breeds the day every morning
Why Man and Woman like one unique being
And why this, and why that, and so much more
Little Adam in his mother’s heart
Even with closed eyes, sees All
The huge Time space before his birth, and right after
Yesterday, today and tomorrow on the same horizon
With closed eyes, he smiles
Because Angels, with love, surround him
And rock him with melodious lullabies
Till he dreams again
Alas, the long and sweet inner Night is ending
And being torn apart
Tender dreams suddenly ending
The Day is rising blinding Little Adam with too much brightness
From his mother’s heart expelled
Crying and moaning from alien pain
As an Angel, with his finger, has given him total oblivion
Here is Little Adam on his own on this earth
And forever seeking the lost Palace
Ilan Braun, a retired French journalist who wrote for L’Arche, is a poet, writer, painter and amateur historian on the Holocaust and post-war Jewish clandestine immigration to Israel. He has lived in Israel and Australia and visited over 30 countries.

You can read more of his work in Labyrinthe poétique: De la terre au ciel (Publibook, Paris, 2009) and in English (“The Oak of Tears”) in Under One Canopy: Readings in Jewish Diversity, edited by Karen Primack (Kulanu Inc. Silver Spring, MD. 2003).

For more information about his work, visit: www.ilanbraun.dr.ag

 

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