POEM: The Blessed Alphabet
Image by Thinkstock
Blessed landlords of the language
Blessed era of the language
Blessed villages of the language
Bless the child on a winter’s-eve
In the town, who learns the language in all her chapters
her genealogies, her nuances, her grammar
Blessed people of the language who fought
For her, as a minority, bless he who totters with his language
From here & from here
Bless his letters
Bless his taste for the holy books
Bless every Hebrew book
If it fills his days
& if not. Bless the vowel
& half the vowel, bless every khirik
and patakh “hei” — line to line blessed
& sign to sign, blessed era of the subscribed
universe, & between every star & star
that burns like a kind of eternal
flame, on the merit of its letters
from aleph-beyt ha-kodesh.
From “Shirei Malon Tsion” (“Songs from Hotel Zion). Translated from the Hebrew by Ariel Resnikoff and Rivka Weinstock.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
