Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on March 14, 2013 by Annie Matan Gilbert
From my blog:
This piece is a response to a prompt by Melila Helner Eshed in a class at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
Stories within stories Clamping shut and Breaking open With sharp, jagged edges That draw blood And push me back So I stay at arm’s length But inside, if I stretch the skin Rolled open wide There is sweet, healing water And fire In the spaces between the spaces Of letters and crowns I find queens, priestesses, mothers Named and unnamed. Torah is a gift of and for generations And also a heavy burden Shackles Locked to wooden posts Waiting for the hammerblow That can transform them Back into mirrors of guardians Scrying bowls of temple keepers Ink on skin.
