What does it mean to be a Zionist today? Watching and Waiting with Yehuda Amichai
This post is an exercise in reading poetry
bilingually. The chosen poem is biting, but anyone who has ever had high
ideals, or still has them, only to see them compromised by the vagaries of
history, should be able to read it sympathetically. Yehuda Amichai describes
those who live within a horizon of hope in a place to which unrealized hopes
are attached. The place is Jerusalem; the theme is religious Zionism. If you are a
Christian and you think the theme does not regard you, think again. The apostle
Paul was a Zionist, as I will show in an upcoming post. The poem’s language
recalls many passages from the Bible and tradition.
Amichai’s vocabulary is not exclusively
classical, but with the help of milon.morfix,
it is conquerable by a second or third year student of biblical Hebrew. Personally,
I am unsatisfied with the way biblical Hebrew is taught today. The Hebrew of
Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Talmud and Midrashim and piyyutim, not to
mention exegetes like Rashi, ibn Ezra, and Samuele Davide Luzzatto, and poets
like Dunash ben Labrat, Bialik, and Amichai, remains terra incognita, a
vast unknown territory, to almost all non-Jewish students of biblical Hebrew.
Is it any wonder that most Christian Hebraists’ sense of what words and
expressions mean depends almost exclusively on gleanings from among the glosses
provided in their biblical Hebrew lexicon of choice?
It cannot be assumed, of course, that the usage and range of meanings of Hebrew words remained constant throughout the centuries. The opposite is clearly the case, but one’s mastery of the language is improved by getting enough Hebrew into one’s bones from different periods to be able to sense those differences, and also, the immense commonalities.
The following poem by Amichai is more than
language. It describes a religion and an eschatology with tonal perfection. Get
ready to feel miserable, to cry, and to yearn all over again for תקון עולם tikkun olam, a
mending of the world. The translation is my own; Chana Bloch’s translation, to
be sure, is excellent, and I have not hesitated to incorporate a felicitous
rendering of hers here and there.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם מְלֵאָה יְהוּדִים מְשֻׁמָּשִׁים
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם מְלֵאָה יְהוּדִים מְשֻׁמָּשִׁים
בְּהִסְטוֹרְיָה
יְהוּדִים יָד שְׁנִיָּה, עִם פְּגִימוֹת קַלּוֹת,
זוֹלִים יוֹתֵר.
וְהָעַיִן לְצִיּוֹן צוֹפִיָּה כָּל הַזְּמַן.
וְכָל הָעֵינַיִם
שֶֹל חַיִּים וְשֶׁל מֵתִים נִשְׁבָּרוֹת כְּמוֹ
בֵּיצִים
עַל שְׂפַת הַקְּעָרָה לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת הָעִיר
עֲשִׂירָה וּשְׁמֵנָה וְתוֹפַחַת
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם מְלֵאָה יְהוּדִים עֲיֵפִים
וְהֵם מֻצְלָפִים תָּמִיד מֵחָדָשׁ לִימֵי זִכָּרוֹן
וְחַג
כְּמוֹ דֻּבִּים מְרַקְּדִים בִּכְאֵב רַגְלַיִם.
מַה יְרוּשָׁלַיִם צְרִיכָה? הִיא לֹא צְרִיכָה רֹאשׁ עִיר.
הִיא צְרִיכָה מְנַהֵל קִרְקָס, עִם שׁוֹט בַּיָּד
לְאַלֵּף נְבוּאוֹת וּלְאַמֵּן נְבִיאִים לִדְהֹר
סָבִיב סָבִיב בַּמַּעְגָּל, וּלְלַמֵּד אֶת
אֲבָנֶיהָ לְהִסְתַּדֵּר
בְּמִבְנֶה נוֹעָז וּמְסֻכָּן בְּקֶטַע הַסִּיּוּם
אַחַר כָּךְ הֵן קוֹצְפִים לְמַטָּה עַל הָאָרֶץ
לְקוֹל תְּשׁוּאוֹת וּמִלְחָמוֹת.
וְהָעַיִן לְצִיּוֹן צוֹפִיָּה וּבוֹכִיָּה.
pre-owned Jews, discolored here
and there, great values.
And the eye is directed toward Zion
all the time. And all the eyes
of the living and the dead are
cracked like eggs
on the lip of the bowl, to make
the city
rich and fat and densely fluffy.
Jerusalem brims with exhausted
Jews,
and they are whipped over and
over again for days of remembrance and recurrence
like dancing bears on aching
legs.
What does Jerusalem require? She
doesn’t need a mayor,
she needs a ringmaster, with
whip in hand,
to tame prophecies, to train
prophets to gallop
in circles, to teach her stones
to arrange themselves
in a bold, audacious pattern for
the grand finale.
After, they spring down to the
ground
to the sound of applause, and
wars.
And the eye turns toward Zion, and weeps.
For example, how is one to translate a key word, משמשים, picked up עיפים and מצלפים? Note the
title given to this
drawing by the Dutch Communist painter Henri Pieck (1895-1972), who was an
inmate at Buchenwald: יהודים משמשים
כסוסי עבודה ‘Jews being forced to labor like workhorses;’ by analogy,
one might translate here ‘being forced to labor by history.’ But an expression
like ספורים משמשים ‘dilapidated
books’ seems closer to hand, especially in light of the following line. One
might just as well render: “Jerusalem brims with Jews dilapidated by history.” Still,
other expressions come to mind, such as שַׁמָּשׁ, ‘beadle,’ but also, the foremost Hannukah
candle; שֶׁמֶשׁ, ‘sun;’ בֵּין הַשְּׁמָשׁוֹת, ‘twilight.’ It
is easy to take an expression like משמשים and treat it like a multi-carated diamond
to examine in the light. Chana Bloch translates:
Jerusalem is full of used
Jews, worn out by history,
Jews
second-hand, slightly damaged, at bargain prices.
מלאה is
a participle of a stative verb which simply means ‘is filled with,’ but in
anticipation of הקערה ‘the bowl’ of a few lines later, I
translate “brims with.’ It is an over-translation, but it serves a purpose. The
image of the eyes cracked on the rim of the bowl of Jerusalem like so many eggs
to be stiffly beaten together to form a densely fluffy meringue – okay, I’m
overreading slightly, but not much – has got to be one of the most amazing images
in all of poetry.
צופיה ל, on the other hand, is under-translated by ‘is directed
toward’ and ‘turns toward.’ A צופה is more than that; it is also technical
term for someone who keeps vigil with prayers in anticipation of what Jerusalem
will become (cf. Isa 52:8; Hab 2:1; more on that in a subsequent post). The
under-translation, however, serves to keep the physicality of the action front
and center.
This poem by Amichai is
marvelous because, if you are a Jew or a Christian, after reading it, you still
want to be a dancing bear on aching legs. You still want to add your eyes to
those cracked on the rim of the bowl. A massive achievement by a poet who did
not believe, but who prayed in the midst of his unbelief:
אֲנִי זוֹכֵר אֶת אָבִי שֶׁעוֹרֵר אוֹתִי לִסְלִיחוֹת.
בִּלְטִיפַת מִצְחִי עָשָׂה כָּךְ,
לֹא בִּקְרִיעַת הַשְּׂמִיכָה מֵעָלַי.
וּמֵאָז אֲנִי אוֹהֵב אוֹתוֹ עוֹד יוֹתֵר.
וּבִזְכוּת זֹאת יָעִירוּ אוֹתוֹ
בַּעֲדִינוּת וּבְאַהֲבָה
בְּיוֹם תְּחִיַּת הַמֵּתִים.
I remember my father waking me up
for early prayers. He did it caressing
my forehead, not tearing the blanket away.
Since then I love him even more.
and because of this
let him be woken up
gently and with love
on the Day of Resurrection.
Bibliography
Yehuda Amichai, Poems
of Jerusalem and Love Poems: A Bilingual Edition (tr. Ted Hughes, Chana
Bloch, Stephen Mitchell, et al; Riverdale-on-Hudson: Sheep Meadow Press, 1988)



Amichai wrote with pointing????
Posted by: Iyov | May 07, 2008 at 07:15 PM
In the bilingual edition I cite, Amichai's poetry is provided with pointing.
Posted by: JohnFH | May 07, 2008 at 07:18 PM