Like our father Abraham
who counted stars at night, who called out to his Creator
from the furnace,
who bound his son
on the altar--
so was my grandfather.
The same perfect faith
in the midst of the flames,
the same dewy gaze
and curling beard.
Outside, it snowed:
outside, they roared:
There is no justice,
no judge.
And in the shambles of his room,
angels sang
of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
-Translated by Marcia Falk
© All rights reserved to Zelda and ACUM
In the first
stanza of the poem, Zelda compares the events Abraham
experienced throughout his life, to the events her
grandfather experienced in his life. We would expect
Zelda to start off by writing, "my grandfather was like
Abraham the patriarch", then list the points in which her
grandfather is compared to Abraham. Yet, we see that the
order in which the first stanza is written, is revised,
since the main sentence - "was my grandfather",
comes after the listing of the compared events at the end
of the stanza, as opposed to coming at the beginning of
the stanza.
Zelda chose to
switch around the order, since she wanted to create
tension for the reader because it says "like
Abraham", but we are not told who is like Abraham.
Only at the end does she tell us who is compared to
Abraham - her grandfather. By revising the order Zelda
emphasizes all the great suffering her grandfather
experienced in his life just like Abraham. For example,
Abraham bound his son in order to sacrifice him, as did
her grandfather who probably lost his son in a pogrom in
Russia.
In addition, by
mentioning Abraham before her grandfather, Zelda is
showing respect to Abraham the forefather of our
nation.
In the second
stanza, Zelda describes her grandfather while comparing
both his looks and faith to Abraham. Her grandfather's
faith remains complete, despite the suffering he
experienced.
"The same dewy
gaze and curling beard"- dew falls at the beginning
of a new day; therefore dew symbolizes youth, while the
wavy beard symbolizes wisdom and old age. Through this
description of her grandfather, we learn that although
the tragedies he experienced in his life caused him to
age quicker, the young look still remained in his eyes.
The third stanza
describes what is happening outside. The physical cold
that is outside, symbolizes the spiritual cold and
emptiness that the people were feeling. The terrible
reality (possibly pogroms), caused people to yell out
"there is no justice no judge"- the calamity that
was going on outside caused people to believe that there
is no God. Contrary to their non-belief, her grandfather
sits in "the shambles of his room", and continues
to believe in God, in redemption and in the possibility
of making the world complete ("Tikun olam"), regardless
of both the people and reality's efforts to shatter his
strong belief.
Meira
and Miryam
Literature
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