Lee Diamond – They Burn We Plant, When they Go Low, Conserving Judaism
“They Burn We plant”
“Rachel” stood
On a hill
Overlooking the
Jordan valley
And her beloved
Kineret
She saw wild wheat
Sprouting everywhere
I never planted this
Wheat.
the ancient seeds
Planted by my ancients
have come again
To life
Blown In the wind
Of a Myriad
Of generations
They are the “after-growth”
Seeds of wheat
Awaiting the people
To return to her
Breast
To feed them
Once again and to give
Them new life.
And the people drank
Of the life milk
And they plowed
And the seeds
Burst forth
In fertility
And the wild flowers
Gave their hews
And the trees their
Leaves and foliage
And the people and the
Land United into one.
And it was Eden
People clutching
And land clutching
And God smiling
“Never Again” the people Of the
Land and
the land of the people
Proclaimed
“Will we separate”
Not fire
Nor enemy
Not storm
Nor kite
Will defeat our unity
If they burn the wheat
Of our fields
We are here to
Replant it.
If they destroy our forests
We will resuscitate them.
The land blooms
For its children
The children bloom
With the land
And God sheds tears
Of rain.
When they Go Low
The forecasts are abysmal
“The “Jewish” Voice for Peace”
“If not not now, when”
Are now mainstream movements
In American Judaism.
Two anti Zionist
Two anti Jewish
Two Anti ethnic
Two pro assimilation
Two Pro Jewish self destruction
Two Non-degradable
Forces
Have taken hold
Of the once formidable
And most precious Jewish communities
In Jewish history.
In Rabbinic schools
In Jewish camping
In synagogue leadership
And closures
In JCC leadership
The force Is growing
And demanding
It’s pound of flesh!
In marriage Is OUT
Inter Marriage and out-Marriage is IN
Israel is their undoing
Jewish culture their nemesis
Ignorance is bliss.
Assimilation, their god
Idol worship, is
Their frenzied drunken
Dance!
The tablets are to be broken
Smashed in anger by those who
Who experienced God!
Bereft and mourning
The Sinai Jews
Shake their heads
Stretch out palms
In surrender
Overwhelmed
Heads hung low
They cry for Zion
And for the dream
Of a Goldene Medina
For a great people.
In this century
The assimilationists
To their great joy
Will live to know
The last Jew in
North America.
The land of HaTikva
The harbinger of HOPE
For a proud and vital
and ancient Nation
Is the only HOPE
For the Jews who love
Jews, Judaism and
common history.
Israel’s doors must open wide
NOW
To the Tired. The Poor
The Huddled Masses
“Yearning to be Jews”
To The homeless, tempest
Torn Remnants
Of a once vital, proud
Self loving community
Of Jews for Jews.
The only HOPE
NOW
Is HaTikva
Israel
Must
Save
It’s
People
“The Shear Yashuv”
“The remnant”
Must be carried
On eagles
Wings—
A MASSIVE OPERATION
Entebbe, Moses and Solomon
HOME —
Our mission
Our responsibility
Conserving Judaism
Watering Field
Rabbi Louis Finkelstein
Once declared before
The Rabbinical students
Of the Jewish Theological Seminary that the Conservative
Movement suffered from
Mistaken Identity.
We are by no means “conservative” in our
relationship to Judaism.
“We chose to conserve Judaism
In a dynamic way — conserving
Judaism from the radical reformers of the time”…
and to continue the
“dynamic” process of the historical development of Halacha.
“Conservation ”
and not “conservatism” was the lofty Goal of this this new movement In Jewish life!
Dynamism of a living organism
and not a fossilization of a weary past, was the demand of of the New dawn.
Thinking and acting from the box about the world outside of the box. This was the call of the new Jew In America.
But any message can become
A fossil if not renewed; if not dynamic; if not challenged and adjusted by it’s audience .
It is time for the movement
To conserve Judaism
once again.
It is time for the movement
To declare for all to hear
That the unbridled call of the radical reformers for
Assimilation of the Jews
And Judaism
is a death knoll
To living Judaism and
The Jewish People.
That WE Will swim against
The stream
Never to go with its rapid flow.
It is time to declare before
American Judaism that
The box is open
That the box Is a “gift box”
But that the gift needs to
Meet the needs of the recipient .
That the Jews have a past
That the Jews are an ethnicity
That the Jews bear antiquity
And Modernism equally.
Declare before the Jews
That we have a Center
That we have a Direction
That we have a Land
That Israel is our Compass
That wherever we go
We are going to Eretz Yisrael.
That we trust In Hope
And that on a
Day, soon to come,
God
Will be King
Of all the earth
And on that day
He will be ONE
And His name ONE.
