Poem for Rabin

November 11, 1995

by Suzanne Sadowsky

[Yigdal Amir, 27, a law student at Bar Ilan University yesterday gunned down Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin minutes after a peace rally in Tel Aviv. —Marin Independent Journal, Sunday, November 5, 1995.]

The Yin defines the Yang defines the Whole
Shema Yisrael, Listen
Hashem —The Name— whose name we cannot hear.

Avinu Malkeynu
We sing in plaintive voices imploring you to hear us.
The prophets told us that we could not know Your Name,
Wise men and sage women said that your name was unutterable
But we know You are there, that we are not You but we are of You.
Come dwell in our midst.

Shekhinah
Who by your presence affirms the temporality of our flesh
And the immortality of our being
Who created time and memory
To whom billions of years are a nanosecond,
Who by your presence affirms that there are universal truths:
Truth that transcends my truth, personal truth, his truth,
Laws that transcend the laws of the nations.

Do not murder you said on Mount Sinai

If it was not in our nature, would we need a law?
Do we need a law to tell us to breathe?

Chiseled in stone to read again and again,
And remember your voice:
I am your God
At the top of the first tablet.
And on the second tablet—
Paired beside the first— the sixth law:
Thou shalt not kill

Avinu Malkeynu — Creator of All Being
May You be comforted by the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Our Mother, our Queen — Creator of All Being
May we be comforted along with all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

—from our December 1995 Newsletter

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