Emor, אֱמֹר  "Speak!"  Leviticus 21:1-24:23

Sabbath Home

Poetic notes on Parashat Emor*

To be homeless

or not to be homeless…

Here is the most heartfelt question

No homeless person

is without a home

They have lost their home

and search for home,

new or old home,

even a small bit of home

And no one is without Shabbat

Though the world, for the most part, 

has lost Shabbat,

and searches for it,

even for a little bit of Shabbat

But only God knows where it is,

and only God defines its boundaries,

and only God shows the secret of its boundaries

to whom He will

The world is homeless, 

a damaged soul wandering on the street

without Shabbat

Still Shabbat has been kept

and is the whole world’s lost home

Shabbat has been kept as a secret in plain sight

by the children of Israel,

kept as a warm home for the lost world,

kept in the beating heart of Israel's suffering

In the place of kind and gracious concealment*

For it is in the face of kindness

and gentle revelation,

in the righteous smile of the Jew

that the Sabbath home is kept for you,

Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, 

German, Russian,  Roman, Greek

It is kept in the secret

of Israel’s scattered unity,

from one soulful week to the next,

in the bright and shining secret

of the hidden Jewish soul,

the Sabbath soul of luminous love

and radiant joy shared with the Concealed One

There it is in the intelligent, beckoning eyes

There it is in the undamaged smile

The hand of Israel in the hand of God…

Giving and receiving the gift for the whole universe,

the gift of home for the healing of a homeless world