A Duet of Loving Kindness. Enduring Beauty of a Jewish Family
The Rain That Become a Forest
Elegy of Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
November 8, 2020.
First published at The Times of Israel.
With love to Lady Elaine, the children, the brother, and all the Sacks family and friends.
Michael Rogatchi (C). Moses Hour. Dedicated to Lord Rabbi Sacks. Drawing on Inna Rogatchi’s authored print. Indian ink, oil pastel on cotton paper. 40 x 30 cm. 2019. Private collection of Rabbi Sacks and the family, London, the UK.
Rain, rain, rain, the rain of tears
Unwalled tears know no ceiling.
Rain, rain, rain, the rain of sighs
Bottomless sighs filling the air.
O soul of Ya’akov Zvi ben David Arieh z”l,
You left the body of Jonathan Sacks
On the early morning of Shabbes.
It is a privilege that Creator grants
To His loved-ones.
The Shabbes of Parasha Vayeira,
The nerve-knot of our Torah.
The millions of us who were sunned
Into Ya’akov Zvi brilliance,
We were reminded that morning
On the origination of Jewish people,
With Creator giving our first Isaac to
To Abraham and Sarah.
We were shamed in our Shabbes learning
By the heights of lowliness of Sodom.
We were following the first ever Jewish thriller
Of the adventures of Lot,
‘The first assimilated Jew’, as Rabbi Sacks
Has marked him for good.
On that morning of November 7th, 2020,
20th Marchesvan 5781, we were crying
The tears of anxiety and piety, re-reading
The story of highest possible – or impossible, really –
Human devotion, the story of Akedah.
Rain, rain, rain, the rain of tears.
In the Torah, Sarah would die
In the next Parasha, Chayei Sarah,
In the very beginning of it.
In the course of events, however,
Matriarch Sarah died
At the time of Akedah.
Very much at that climax of drama
On the Mount Moriah,
When the devotion as a corn-stone
Of Jewish faith
Has been tested on her only son
And her beloved husband.
Sarah died at the very moment of Akedah
Being told by the Satan on what was really
Happening there.
Her heart did not sustain that Trial.
The Torah has mercy on us
By telling about this tragedy in the next Parasha,
In a week’s time, to let us all
To have a breath, to take the drama portioned.
Rain, rain, rain, the rain of clouds,
Sun makes you yet darker today, dear clouds,
As we mourn the soul of Ya’akov Zvi
Flying off.
Jonathan is to be buried today.
In a week’s time the period of shiva for him
Will be over.
But the hole in the common heart of millions
Will be not healed.
Not in a week, not in a month, not in a year,
Or thereafter.
Rain, rain, rain, the rain of tears
The rain that becomes a forest.
****
With love to Lady Elaine, the children, the brother, the entire Sacks family, and his close friends
Inna Rogatchi (C). The Flight of Thought I. Homage to Lord Rabbi Sacks. Lapice pastel, hand-applied pigment of light gold on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 40 x 50 cm. 2019. The Light of the First Day series. Jewish Mysticism project.
November 7-8th, 2020
Marchesvan 20-21, 5781