In the Absent Sublime
April 2014
And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— [They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T. S. Eliot, 1888 – 1965
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither,
William Wordsworth 1770-1850 Intimations of Immortality Nah, im Aortenbogen im Hellblut: das Hellwort. Mutter Rachel weint nicht mehr. Rübergetragen alles Geweinte. Still, in den Kranzarterien, unumschnürt Ziw, jenes Licht. Paul Celan GesammelteWerke 2: 202 1986
Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things which ye possess and contain. But they possess and contain you; or they are powerful deamons, manifestations of the gods, and are, therefore, things which reach beyond you, existing in themselves. No man hath a spirituality unto himself, or sexuality unto himself. But he standeth under the law of spirituality and of sexuality. C.G.Jung: “Septem Sermones ad Mortuos” The certainty of others… Their impoverished beliefs… Insufferable and overbearing, The Halachic minutiae of observances The infractions and focused obsessions of… The need for… Absolute control of behaviorisms, The intolerable self-‐righteous enthusiasm, The utter Holier-‐than-‐thou-‐ness. The absent voice of Whom? Paul Celan’s hymns to no-‐body? In the silence of no-‐response, In the stillness of the cosmic no-‐thingness, I lie motionless. Bereft of my Friend and receiver of thoughts He who once might have listened to my soliloquies My prior fullness of being Intimations of immortality Wordsworth’s sense of the sublime In nature and music Now laying fragmented in the satanic mills of the soul.
Left with only the nostalgia, regret, guilt Of what might-‐have-‐been-‐feelings Bereft of certainty-‐ of that sense of the sublime. After Maa’riv Kabbalat Shabbat the tansel In the customary solemn circle, Unexpectedly the Rabbi grabs my hand and squeezes it When singing “sanctify me with Thy Mitzvot… Purify our hearts” לבינו וטהר מצותכב קדשנו An electric shock of regret fires through my body from his hand, as a sense of insufficiency and fraudulence Fills my soul. My heart cries in jealousy for his simple faith. Then again at the Shabbat table The candles lend a golden glow To the beautiful silver laden white clothed altar. As the silent guests await my benediction קידוש This moment in time feels so holy-‐ It catches my breath-‐ as I hesitate to utter Words meant to fulfill their Halachic obligation By one who can no longer represent as a שליח (For heresy disqualifies.) I live in that space of desire For authentic words That reflect truth Knowing full well I can no longer Open my lips to produce the words, Oh for a doxology I could die for!
Or just believe in! A salvific higher authority! Not a mere projected wish for a return To a father figure I might have respected. A fulfillment of the little Julian’s urgent plea for Help from the cruel matriarch. (left unanswered) Herr Freud put paid to that idea! Reducing my once cherished beliefs to rot. Facing now my shame And the faith-‐less-‐ness Of the landscape-‐that is my terrain The absence of certainty That is the barren wasteland of my visual field It offends me to see it in others As if I have become intolerant to the very Presence of faith in others As if their Emunah, בטחווand הלכהmirrors And exacerbates My own lack, digging the knife even further in. In an adolescent rage of dis-‐ownment, I am repulsed. It is too fresh This wound For salting by others. Paralyzed by my inability to take a stand to act, To say no! despite authority’s ongoing hold Simultaneously by my resentment and my old friendly character defects The wounding of others The cruelty within me… Now with no religious impulse to confront me The ודויthe חרטהthe process of T’shuvah
No Higher Authority peering down from heaven No allegiance to Rebbe or halachic edicts The Four Ells עמות דלד have dissolved Leaving an open minefield of explosive rage Ordinance left to cause amputations of the heart In vitriolic self denigration No medicaments in my medical tool kit left to heal These wounds of the soul Caught between reverence for the tradition And a deep heresy and suspicion I am nailed to the cross of powerlessness. Now, only the daily-‐mirrored self-‐image The Dorian Grayed picture of decay The inventory of pain inflicted on those near and dear Keep me from sleep. Dreams of crumbled building basements Old authority figures from the past Pointing accusatory index fingers At the naughty boy once more Outside the classroom for some misdemeanor Yet emerging from this rubble The simultaneous realization Slowly, slowly An “intimation” That this rational mind does not do justice To the complexity of the psyche Cannot reduce it to mere conscious understanding Of self or text. That hidden beneath the surface calm lies layers and grottos Of unearthed truth
That I am still open to the very core Of what bubbles up Humbly accepting this as revelation Must suffice for now. The mystery of existence lies within this darkness Is born here in the recesses And I do accept its very deep and “holy” birthings. That I live on the edge of this precipice Of life and knowledge And the looming end of things Accepting my ignorance My pain My flaws And remain humbled by the incalcitrance of the truth Of history, text and the self. This is my lasting belief.