#synagogue
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Crown of Rachel
From an idea inspired by Nat Lipstadt
while we discussing something else
A dream about our teacher Akiva of Yavna
When the Romans took a respite from murdering us:
In our youth we approached a little house
Though we were tired from following the goats all day
Akiva was tired from tending his beans
And from Jacob-wrestling with great ideas
But he smiled and asked what he could do
Do for us little children bubbling with questions
“I am inventing the synagogue,” he might have said
“What is a synagogue? A new kind of Temple?”
“It is a machine for learning, a temple of the mind
A school, an altar upon we sacrifice our ignorance”
“But the Romans won’t let us sacrifice anything”
“Sometimes” said Akiva wryly, “they sacrifice us
But in the synagogue we will have a little light
Light and Torah and learning, always learning”
“We want to learn.”
“Oh? And what do you want to learn?” he asked of us
“We want to learn.”
He smiled and sat us at a table under his vines
“I learned to read when I was forty,” he said
As he took out a tablet and a stylus
One of us said, “I can’t imagine being that old!”
Our teacher smiled, smoothed the day from the wax
And instructed us to attend to the Word
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”
That is what he said, not what he wrote in the wax
Akiva prayed, he prayed for us, and wrote
And in the wax the letters formed as fire
As gold and fire:
“Bereshit Bara Elohim…”
Jul 20, 2025
Jul 20, 2025 at 1:39 PM UTC
I am so sorry
That they've burned down your home
Left you standing upon barren ground
Cast stones through sacred things
They shouldn't have even touched.
I am so sorry
That this ugly world
Uses fear as ammunition
Never paying mind
To how you must feel
When used as the target.
I am so sorry
That people have 'opinions'
About these tragedies
Even turning well-deserved eulogies
Into slippery slopes.
I am so sorry
There were people screaming
Just when you were trying
To rest.
And I am so hopeful
That you will reach such magnificent heights
That they will never understand.
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 6:46 PM UTC
“Thy people shall be my people”
-Ruth 1:16
Smoke rises here from foul Gehenna’s fires
Fires set by souls twisted like cold barbed wire
Sole argument of ideologies
Strung geometrically from hate to hate
Smoke rises here; soft ashes fall as death
Torah, Mishnah, and Gemera – and us
For without the Word and the People Israel
We are but wraiths, and darkly blown about
O Israel!
You are the broom tree in the wilderness
The Tree of Life who shelters all with love
You are the tent of Sarah and Abraham
And we are blessed who find refuge in you
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 10:56 AM UTC
My heart paces in an abandoned cage
that still holds the smell of lions ****
and human decay
They took my house from me
and He
abandoned me and the early seed
Oh how
love loses to profession
and I lost both
for something that may be
traced back to my blood
even though
I have never even been in a Synagogue
or prayed
It doesn't matter to the ones in
crisp black, green, and grey
The word I hear
from the birds tweet
animals are being imported
from Germany
This cage is not an idea home
but it has kept me safe
but now
I am truly alone
due to what they think is my faith
I must survive
for the little one inside
otherwise
this would be the end.
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 1:04 PM UTC
In that synagogue
That was my home,
I buried myself
Like pieces of Rome
Forgotten by many
But mostly myself,
They made me
Put my heart on a shelf
When they strip you of yourself,
And tear you down,
For the sake of "growth"
And the sacred ground
To expand their nation or self-hating
Fools
And continue their selfish dialogue
Of riches and jewels
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 4:01 AM UTC