A poem for my son, Daniel Pearl, on the 20th anniversary of his death

Daniel Pearl By Getty Images

By Judea Pearl February 1, 2022

The following is a poem by Professor Judea Pearl, originally published on the 10th anniversary of his son Daniel Pearl’s death. On February 1, 2002, the 38-year-old journalist was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan. The poem is reprinted here with permission.

Come walk the road to lions’ den
South of midnight, planet earth, Karachi, Pakistan.
They called it “nursery,” some named it “shed,”
A “compound,” “shack,” the newspaper said.
I found it in my father’s holy book,
“The lions’ den” – the caption read:

Come touch the walls on which two eyes
with thousand dreams wrote songs
and fiercest battles, ancient wars,
for seven days, went on.

Never in the field of human conflict
Has there been a clash so total
so intense in charge and aim
Between two cosmic forces
so compressed in space

So opposed in vision
so rooted in conviction
Across so close a distance
Before so many eyes.

Never stood a son of Abel
so fiercely to the face of Cain
A giver – to the teeth of claim,
A curious – to the blinds of self.
A listener – to the deafening shrieks of zeal.

Alone!

Never pierced a ray of light
so deeply to the core of darkness
Music, to estrangement,
Principles to whims
Reason, to the impulse

Mankind, to Attila, the Hun

Never was this saga chanted
in so powerful a rhyme:
“My name is Daniel Pearl,”
Softly spoken from the den,
Softly, from Karachi, Pakistan

And when Daniel was lifted from the den,
So the Bible tells us,
No wound was found on him,
Because he stood his ground
‘Cause he stood our ground
So the Bible tells us.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

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 polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO