They died in droves
twelve thousand pairs of them,
so they say—
died of contagious disrespect,
pernicious contention,
these zealous students,
Rabbi Akiva’s boys.
Study buddies run amok,
they sank into backbiting
mud-slinging, one upsmanship;
arguing not for the sake of heaven
but on their own behalf.
Twenty-four thousand politicians of the soul,
ruthless competitors in
the marketplace of spirit,
forgot the untold grace
of paradox, the beauty of
elu v’elu, that these and also these
are the Living words.
It brought a plague upon their heads,
or so the pundits said—
a plague that fell upon them
like poisoned rain,
killing thousands
(and whom have I lately dissed,
ignored, abandoned,
labeled “lesser than,”
in my mad rush up the mountain?),
until the thirty-third day
when the dying stopped, abruptly,
so they say,
on the same date that,
some years later,
the great bar Yokhai,
khai, khai, bar Yokhai
Rabban Shimon bar Yokhai,
Akiva’s brilliant student,
who came to him after the plague,
departed this world, prophet-like,
in a fiery chariot, luminous,
ecstatic as a bridegroom.
On this day of hod sheh’b’hod
this day of splendrous surrender,
mass dying stopped,
and the true death,
the mystical merging,
was revealed,
as it is taught:
“Your term of exile is completed,”
yomar Kadosh.
Exhale! Go get a shave!
Go home and marry
your high school sweetheart!
She who has tended your garden,
go sit in her shade
like the spreading shadow
of a lush fig tree,
and count your blessings.
And what do we know
of those sweethearts,
those women—
the mothers, sisters, solitary brides,
waiting, patiently (or not),
for these twenty-four thousand
who would never return,
sitting in courtyards
or before humble hovels,
crushing grain into flour
on their grinding stones,
baking bread in clay ovens,
spinning flax threads and wool threads
day by day, making their own
silent offerings,
doing the unsung work,
waiting eagerly (or not)
to greet their young men—
each son, each brother,
each husband—
not knowing they
have died in the wars of
othering, of besting,
of putting down—
not knowing they
did not live
to fight another day?
Hod sheh’b’hod,
surrender to the splendor!
Light a bonfire
on the hillside of your heart,
in the forest of your mind!
Burn through the fakery,
the stubbornness
that passes for
endurance, the
ephemeral victories
that call themselves “eternal.”
Soften stiff hips, aching knees,
as you sink into the deepest bow,
allying hips and legs
with heart and belly.
Groan with the earth,
sigh with the tides,
wave with the sheaves,
let pride and greed evaporate
and rise to cloud,
then fall as rain,
purified, gentle—
a healing rain
of humble blessing.