The Bat Mitzvah girl and Rabbi Lee Diamond
Lee Diamond – They Would Have You Believe & A Body without a Soul
They Would Have You Believe
They claim that we’re a faith only
They claim that we’re a religion only.
They claim that we’re “world fixers” only.
They claim that we’re not a people!
They deny Israel as their homeland.
“A faith doesn’t include land”, say they.
They applaud illiteracy
They applaud
Ignorance of their Own cultural forms:
Language
Literature
History
Tradition
They applaud
Inter-marriage
The word Jew is hard to pronounce
Jewish Is easier for it’s an adjective
And not a noun.
No longer able to mouth the words
“I’m Proud to be a Jew”
The Bard would have called them
“ you Blocks, you Stones, You worse than Senseless Things”
Jewish Prayer refers to them as Slanderers
And condemns them for acts of treason.
Perhaps “Uncle Toms”
In The novel Uncle Toms Cabin.
Yet we count them in a minyan
And they maintain their rights In Israel’s LAW of RETURN
We worry about their children
Why ?
Because we are the JEWISH PEOPLE.
A Body without a Soul
As a child I learned a ditty:
ארץ ישראל בלי תורה, היא כגוף בלי נשמה.
The land of Israel without Torah
Is a body without a soul .
And so it is!
Israel is infused with Torah at all levels, be it at the observant level or be it in secular Jewish society.
Israel has a Jewish Soul.
I offer now a new ditty:
עם ישראל בלי מדינת
ישראל הוא כנשמה בלי גוף
The Jewish people without the State of Israel is a soul without a body.
And so it is!
Body-less diaspora Jews
Land-less diaspora Jews
Ethnic-less diaspora Jews
Attempting to adopt
Or to be absorbed
Into A foreign body
Of a diaspora
Often closed to their
Wandering souls
Often rejected
And often an ill fit
Wearing the garb of
Social justice for all
But disregarding their
Own national pride and
Justice.
Marching to the beat
Of a different drummer
And despite the attempt
To be in step
Never quite succeeding.
This lost soul
Becomes the laughing stock
The pariah among the nations.
No Body to contain
Their wandering soul
Yet Some-Body
ISRAEL
calls to them
To absorb their lonely soul
Invites them to join together
A living body and a living soul
Into One Nation
Into One People
A Soul With A Body
A Body With A Soul
Hear O Israel
