LIght and Shadow in Ned Wolf Park
I just read a piece by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Israel, Hillel, and Idolotry. It is a wonderful analysis of the current events at Swarthmore College Hillel and International Hillel over Swarthmore's Hillel board declaring itself to be an "Open Hillel" in defiance of norms set down by international Hillel. Those norms define who can speak at Hillel. Waskow evaluates Hillel's policy through the lens of trying to understand what spiritual idolatry is.
Waskow writes,
What is idolatry? Worshipping any being – person, object, institution, community – as if it were Divine. “Carving it out” and “bowing down to it” as the Ten Commandments describe and forbid. (Exod. 20: 4). Not only “carving out” a physical object, a statue, but carving out from the One Great Flow of Life a piece that must not be criticized, not be questioned. A piece not only to be loved and honored for its usefulness and beauty, not only to be seen as a temporary aspect in service to that Unity — but treated as an Ultimate, Unchangeable good.
In the context of Waskow's article, I was reminded of the poem HavdallahPassages in Poetry. Each poem is set to music by Aminadav Aloni. The musical notation for each poem is included in the volume.
Here is Schulweis' poem.
Havdallah
Black into white
light into shadow
blessing into curse
doubt into belief.
Nothing comes divided
neatly severed
cut off
one half from another
trimmed polarities.
Nothing is given pure, simple, unalloyed.
Nothing is given in halves
except—idolatries.
In strange worship
halves and quarters
pretend wholeness.
A small coin held close to the eye
blocks out the world
and everything appears draped in darkness.
Simple solutions
blur distinctions
confusing blindness
with wholeness.
Light and shadow
sweet and bitter
the admixture is inseparable.
Accept it whole
fragrance and galbanum
together
elements of sanctified incense.
Accept it whole
yet not without distinction.
Ours is not theirs
day is not night.
Accept it whole
but not with cruel division
that amputates organic wholeness.
Accept it whole
without the conceit of absorption
to swallow up
the shadow side with light.
Accept it whole
not renting whole cloth
into convenient rags
sundering the universe
into segregated parts:
good and evil
week and Sabbath
them and us.
Divisions desecrate
hard disjunctives
rip apart
the underlying unity
the possibility of reconciliation.
Hallow the link between
darkness and light
mundane and festive
others and us.
Hallow the circles
which demark separate styles
but also the outer lines
that penetrate each other
without assimilation.
Creation and separation
Kiddush and Havdalah
different wines
different candles.
Shabbat shalom
shavua tov.
