Lee Diamond – From the North American Diaspora
The statistics are frightening
Almost overwhelmIng
In this
Diaspora!
Synagogues are closing
Combining
In the Diaspora!
Intermarriage is no longer
A Challenge
For It’s a fact!
In the Diaspora !
Jewish knowledge in the
Diaspora !
Is at an all time low
Jewish illiteracy in the
Diaspora !
Is at an all time high
Support and responsibility
Jew for Jew
In the Diaspora
Is hardly known.
The command of the day:
Open wider !
“Give me your intermarried
Your uninstructed
Your embarrassed
Your assimilated
Your lost
Your unaffiliated
Give me the lonely
Tempest torn
To me
I lift my lamp beside the
Goldene doors!”
Open the tent!
Let all who wish back in!
Let the newcomer into the heart and soul!
Let it be faith ,belief, family peace
And size
That determine the placement of our mezuzah!
Where the doors are to be constructed ?
And let sociology determine the architecture
And the pews of this new Temple
Fashioned by those who enter
Or those who stand outside and criticize
“The tired and poor and huddled masses
Yearning to be” Jew!
Inside the expanding tent
Include!!!!!!
Never again “chosen people”
No longer even a people
Perhaps a spiritual concept at best!
No longer a language
And for too many
Landless! Like a chameleon
Changing color
to suit it’s environment
What about the land “Lord”
אלהי ישראל?
The Holy One Blessed Be He
Is there a Center Pole?
To this tent
Does God rule supreme?
And the support poles, the tent pins, that strengthen
The borders
The canvas
That enclose
This new tent
Are they movable or stationary?
Indeed is this entire tent movable?
As was the Mishkan, the משכן , the tabernacle
In our desert days?
That was our center and our direction?
Who leads?
The tent itself or
the huddled masses
Yearning to be Jew!
Or perhaps
The landless?
The ignorant?
The illiterate ?
The embarrassed to be Jew?
Those who criticize
Or the Pillar of Fire–
Those
Struggling to be Jew
At any cost
with unlimited
Passion and courage
To swim
Against
The Stream
For
The people of Israel
The Torah of Israel
The Land of Israel
The GOD of ISRAEL
But no Worry
נצח ישראל לא ישקר
The Eternity of Israel is
INFALLIBLE
