Tag Archives: Shabbat observance

September 9, 2024 · 6:30 am

Shabbas

by Cheryl Savageau (Boston, MA)

all those years I thought

I was doing it for you

your mother, your family

for our child, so he would know

and have a choice

so why this anger

this year without you

when Rosh Hashanah comes

without ceremony

my feeling that without you

I have no right

we reconciled at Passover

bought new dishes

just two place settings

and ate amid packing boxes

now I claim it greedily

your people shall be my people

your G-d, my G-d

our son married 

beneath the chuppah

our grandson’s bris

now I light the candles

circle my hands, cover

my eyes, feel the world

shift, raise my eyes

to yours

Good Shabbas, we say

Good Shabbas

my love

****

Cheryl Savageau is a convert, and also Native (Abenaki), and her poems are about her first experiences as part of a Jewish family and how she became part of the Jewish people. She has three collections of poetry: Mother/Land, (SALT 2006), Dirt Road Home (Curbstone Press 1995), and Home Country (Alice James, 1992).  Her memoir, Out of the Crazywoods, was published in 2020, and her children’s book, Muskrat Will Be Swimming, was first published by Northland in 1996, then in paperback in 2006. This poem is part of a new collection, New Love/Old Love, looking for a publisher. Visit her website to learn more about her life and work: https://cherylsavageaublog.wordpress.com/

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April 8, 2024 · 7:00 am

Greeting

by Carol Grannick (Evanston, IL)

How could I have known on the night I began

tilting then circling my hands in front of my eyes 

pulling in light like a warm breeze at twenty below

welcoming Shabbat in with the light for the first time 

with gifts of candles, prayer, song, bread, wine

and my wondering, wandering self peeking 

as an explorer into something new undiscovered 

and yet there for generations before me 

Others knew the right place to go, where

to seek light and they guaranteed it was there

Trusting in this, I placed the candles just so

turned in prayer and welcomed Shabbat

and surprising me like a sudden embrace

she reached her arms out as if she 

had waited patiently, lovingly all these years

ancient and new, unmoved by my disregard. 

Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children’s author whose middle grade novel in verse, REENI’S TURN (check out the wonderful trailer from Filmelodic and nice reviews!), debuted from Regal House Publishing in 2020. Her poetry for adults has appeared in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Jewish Writing Project, NI+ Holocaust Memorial Issue, Bloom, Bluebird Word, Ground, The Birmingham Arts Journal, Capsule Stories, West Texas Review, Silver Birch Press, The Lake, and more. Her children’s fiction and poetry appeared/is forthcoming in Cricket, Ladybug, Babybug, Highlights, Hello, Paddler, and The Dirigible Balloon. There is rarely a day when she does not write in order to hold on to the treasure and meaning of being alive in this world.

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March 18, 2024 · 7:30 am

After Lighting

by Jane Schulman (New York, NY)

Nana’s tale, Brooklyn, 1907 

My brothers stood on Mama’s right. 

I hung on her left, fistfuls of skirt  

clenched in my hand.   

Mama struck a match,  

lit the candles, chanted the blessing 

to welcome the Sabbath.  

The sound of keys in the lock  

cut the silence.   

Papa stomped into the room:  

Blow out those candles.  America’s no place  

for your bubbe’s mishegas. 

The mouths of my brothers rounded 

in fear.  They smelled the fight 

coming.

 

Candlesticks knocked to the floor.   

Flames stamped out.  

Then and again and again.  

    *       *        *        *        *        * 

Astoria, Queens   1983 

A Friday afternoon in May,  

Nana and I set the table  

with bread and wine  

and my best china.  

I light two candles after  

she lights hers. We cover  

our eyes and murmur  

the blessing, stumbling  

over the Hebrew words.  The taste  

of prayer new to our tongues. 

Jane Schulman is a poet and fiction writer. She works as a speech pathologist with children with autism and cognitive delays.  Jane published her first book of poetry, Where Blue Is Blue, with Main Street Rag in October, 2020.  Her writing has appeared widely online and in print. She was a finalist for the Morton Marr Prize at Southwest Review.     

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February 26, 2024 · 7:30 am

And Still

by Merri Ukraincik (Edison, NJ)

I see the beauty, though of late, only by half.

With one eye open,

the other shut,

I peer through the slats

of the window blinds,

my breath fogging up the glass.

Obscured, but there.

The beauty, I mean.

The Shabbos sky still shimmers.

Even the apples go on sweetening

in a bowl on the kitchen table. 

Then by mistake, I lift the lid on

the second eye and the ugly,

scene by scene, tears at my heart

until it’s tattered like an afghan

come unfurled, one thread at a time.

Yet my fraying Jewish soul still believes,   

G-d has not given up on us,

the smoke and ash notwithstanding.

Hope remains – for something more,

for the good that may still come

in this threadbare world, in our time.

Because unless you close both eyes

and seal the slats of the blinds,

the beauty is hard to miss.  

Merri Ukraincik is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications online and in print. She is the author of the book I Live. Send Help.: 100 Years of Jewish History in Images from the JDC Archives. Her memoir Wondrous Things: On Finding Joy and Faith in the Messy Business of Being Human is in search of a publisher. Follow her at https://merriukraincik.substack.com/ or on Facebook.

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February 6, 2023 · 6:00 am

Saturday morning

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

A man this Saturday
passes me on the street.
He is dressed in a suit and tie
and carries his tallis bag obviously 
on his way to the local shul.
He wears a yarmulke.
“Good shabbos,” he says.
I mumble the same in reply.

I feel I should be someplace else.

I am dressed in a 
tee-shirt, shorts, and sandals,
and on my head is a baseball cap.

I feel I should be someplace else.

The morning sun, 
rather than a call to prayer,
dictates my walk around the park
where I can think my little thoughts.
The air is fresh, my mind is clear,
and yet …

I feel I should be someplace else.

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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