Ad delo yada*
“Until you don’t know”
Keep celebrating
until you can’t tell
until they seem the same:
Esther and Vashti
us and them.
The invitation is
not to know
but still to care —
to send out colored bags
to the hungry and the not hungry,
to include them all.
Maybe it’s easier to care
without taking on the weight of judgment from above
to relax into the great green grass beneath all our feet
to feel the love that breathes through uncolored air
and that weaves its way through the trees
who stand witness to it all.
To turn to the other
outside us and inside out us
and to celebrate together
until we really don’t know
you from me
yesterday from tomorrow
sky from earth
but only us now here..
Venahafoch hu
Everything was turned around in the Purim tale.
We were down and then we were up.
They say the point is:
We did win in the end.
but It was a seesaw ride,
someone at the top,
and someone also at the bottom.
I am feeling a bit seasick now
from all the ups and downs
of thousands of years.
I was thinking it might feel nice
To sit side by side
On a park bench.
They say that Purim is the only holiday
we will still celebrate
In the Messianic age.
Maybe because it reminds us
not to go back to the seesaw,
but to keep moving forward
Ad delo yada
Until — until is a word
that reaches forward
Yearns
Redeems
Until we really don’t know —
have forgotten —
the illusion of separation
and feel only that we belong
Ish el re’ehu
Each person to her neighbor
her friend,
Herself.
Until
Our not knowing
Opens our hearts to know
One.
*Ad delo yada עד דלא ידדע, literally, “until one does not know,” is a phrase from the gemara (Megillah 7b) referring to an obligation to drink on Purim until one can no longer distinguish between “Blessed Mordecai” and “Cursed Haman.”
Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels
