Holiness and Faith Are the Rewards

September 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, which begins on the evening of September 29. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a poem for the High Holy Days about how religious behavior can often precede and ignite religious faith.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holiness and faith are the rewards:

In doing lies the promise of becoming.

Given what a life of faith affords,

How could one not still be in the running?

Holy days are opportunities,

Open doors to being who one would.

Longing to be touched by grace, one sees

Yet one more chance to choose the wished-for good.

Do not think that faith is ever certain:

All one's life, like love, it comes and goes.

Yet one can always stand before the curtain,

Singing for one's soul the prayers one knows.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holin2.html. For more poems for the High Holy Days, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement

September 25: Holiness and Faith Are the Rewards

Revelation Leads to Revolution

September 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which began on the evening of September 20 and ended on the evening of September 22. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a Rosh Hashanah poem about the need for God and religion if we are to repent for sin.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Revelation leads to revolution,

Or isn't much of anything at all.

So must faith evolve into religion,

Having need of help to break its fall.

Here we have a chance to reconsider,

As we go through rites as brisk as breath,

Salvaging a soul that else were bitter,

Here alone, for nothing else but death.

All our love and wonder needs a Name,

Not least to be the witness of our shame

As we recite our sins again, again,

Hallowed by our passion and our pain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/revela.html. For more poems for Rosh Hashanah, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Rosh Hashanah

September 18: Righteousness Ought Not Be for One’s Self

September 19: Remember the Utility of Shame

September 20: Return Each Year to Test the Ancient Waters

September 21: Rosh Hashanah Opens to the Page

September 22: Rosh Hashanah Opens Up the Book

September 23: Reason Ought Not Be the Enemy

September 24: Revelation Leads to Revolution

Reason Ought Not Be the Enemy

September 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which began on the evening of September 20 and ended on the evening of September 22. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a Rosh Hashanah poem about the relationship between reason and myth.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Reason ought not be the enemy

Of myth, but rather its interpreter,

Showing one what else one might not see,

Hindsight to which faith might well refer.

Holding on to myth does not require

A blindness to what science has to say.

Salvation is not merely a desire

Hoped for in some long-outmoded way.

A myth, like art, sustains itself through beauty,

Not only true, but doing double duty

As both the cast of conscience and the fire,

Habitude no argument need sway.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/reaso5.html. For more poems for Rosh Hashanah, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Rosh Hashanah

September 18: Righteousness Ought Not Be for One’s Self

September 19: Remember the Utility of Shame

September 20: Return Each Year to Test the Ancient Waters

September 21: Rosh Hashanah Opens to the Page

September 22: Rosh Hashanah Opens Up the Book

September 23: Reason Ought Not Be the Enemy

Rosh Hashanah Opens Up the Book

September 22, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which began on the evening of September 20 and ends this evening, September 22. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a Rosh Hashanah poem about the power of repentance.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Rosh Hashanah opens up the book

Of life, that we might be inscribed therein.

So does the will work wonders with the wind,

Harrowing the leaves that tempests shook.

How might we make our peace with death and pain?

As terror stalks our steps, how might we dance,

Singing through the vales of circumstance,

Happy to be alive through loss or gain?

All we have are justice, hope, and love,

Nor will these weak or insufficient prove

As we repent our evil once again,

Having faith it will not be in vain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/roshha.html. For more poems for Rosh Hashanah, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Rosh Hashanah

September 18: Righteousness Ought Not Be for One’s Self

September 19: Remember the Utility of Shame

September 20: Return Each Year to Test the Ancient Waters

September 21: Rosh Hashanah Opens to the Page

September 22: Rosh Hashanah Opens Up the Book

Rosh Hashanah Opens to the Page

September 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which began last evening and ends on the evening of September 22. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a Rosh Hashanah poem about the need to pray for, and atone for, everyone.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Rosh Hashanah opens to the page

On which is writ, for good or ill, our fate.

Still wrestling with angels, we engage,

Harrowing our hearts, our future state.

However, "we" encompasses us all,

As though we were but droplets in a wave

Suspended on its journey to the shore,

Hard put to any single droplet save.

And so we pray not only for ourselves,

Nor only for our family, friends, or tribe:

All must be our congregation, else

How might we turn to God to turn the tide?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/roshh2.html. For more poems for Rosh Hashanah, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Rosh Hashanah

September 18: Righteousness Ought Not Be for One’s Self

September 19: Remember the Utility of Shame

September 20: Return Each Year to Test the Ancient Waters

September 21: Rosh Hashanah Opens to the Page

Return Each Year to Test the Ancient Waters

September 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins this evening, September 20. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a Rosh Hashanah poem about those who come to synagogue only for the High Holy Days.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Return each year to test the ancient waters,

Opening the unaccustomed heart.

So may you retain a Jewish soul,

Having given it its yearly outing.

Here your parents meet your sons and daughters,

A junction wrought by well-established art,

Severing the person from the role,

Having scripted thoroughly the routing.

All you're left with is what really matters,

Needing, to be whole, to be a part,

At least this once a year a Jew of old,

Holy in this place despite your doubting.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/return.html. For more poems for Rosh Hashanah, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Rosh Hashanah

September 18: Righteousness Ought Not Be for One’s Self

September 19: Remember the Utility of Shame

September 20: Return Each Year to Test the Ancient Waters

Remember the Utility of Shame

September 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins on the evening of September 20. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a Rosh Hashanah poem about the usefulness of shame.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Remember the utility of shame,

On which in part our decency depends.

Such sentiments evolved to serve our ends,

Having given ballast to one’s name.

How apt that to ourselves we be revealed

As time pauses in between the years,

Season of incantatory tears,

Harrowed for the sins we have concealed.

Allow your shame full access to your heart,

Nor flinch from bearing witness to your part,

As only what is treated can be healed,

Here, now, while your fate is still unsealed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/remem2.html. For more poems for Rosh Hashanah, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Rosh Hashanah

September 18: Righteousness Ought Not Be for One’s Self

September 19: Remember the Utility of Shame