Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TORAH OF THE VOID, by NACHMAN OF BRATZLAV


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TORAH OF THE VOID, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: God, / for mercy's sake / created the world
Alternate Author Name(s): Nachman Of Breslo
Subject(s): Jews; Mysticism - Judaism; Nothingness; Judaism; Nihilism; Voids


God,
for Mercy's sake,
created the world
to reveal Mercy.
If there were no world
on whom would Mercy take pity?

So -- to show His Mercy
He created the worlds
from Aziluth's peak
to this Earth's center.

But as He wished to create
there was not a where?
All was Infinitely He,
Be He Blessed!

The light He condensed
sideways
thus was space made
an empty void.

In space days and measures
came into being.
So the world was created.

This void was needed
for the world's sake,
so that it may be
put into place.

Don't strain to understand
this void!
It is a mystery -- not to be realized
until the future
is the now.

*

Once there was light,
much and powerful,
holy light,
and it was in vessels
-- too much light,
too much power --
and the vessels burst!

When the vessels burst
the fragments
of Holiness
took form
becoming the outered sciences.

So,
even of Holiness
there is offal:
Just as there is sweat
and hair and excrement,
so Holiness too
has its offal.

Holy Wisdom too has offal.
Outered wisdom
is the offal of the holy.
And when this offal is used
to twist the world,
you have sorcery.

Once, also, source-ery
was rooted
in a high wisdom.

He who can
should strive to avoid
the trap
of the outered sciences.
But whoever falls
into the trap
is not lost forever.

Seeking God
one can find Him there,
in the shards of Holiness
which give life to the sciences --
even in the very symbols
in which the sciences
express themselves.
For as long as there
is reason and rhyme --
and words --
there is Holiness
in the form of sparks.
As long as there is life
in the word, God is there.

*

And the void?

It is nothing but
the no-thing which takes up
no space at all.
All it does is separate
between the Divine which fills
and the Divine which surrounds
the world.

Without the void
all would have been One.
But then
there would not have been
any creature -- any world.
So the void is a kind of
Divine Wisdom of not being
so there can be division
between one kind of being
and another.

This wisdom of not being,
the wisdom of the void --
cannot be realized!
It is not a something
but it makes all somethings possible.
Each something is infused with
God
and surrounded by God:
There is in between
a void that is not.

*

All creation comes from
the WORD:
"By the word of God
Heaven was made,
and by the breath of His mouth
all their hosts."
In words inhere wisdom
and sense.

All speech is bordered
by the five limits
of the mouth.
All creation is a limiting
in three dimensions
and in time
and in substance:
"In wisdom hast Thou
made them all."

The void has no limits,
no echo.
Burning questions
are not answered there.
Martyrs who want to know Why?
are told "Silence."
Thus is the decree of the Thought!
Such thought is not given
to words.

*

How is the void made?
By strife!
One zaddik says this
and the other that,
and between
there is strained a void.

*

A zaddik sings.
If he is a "Moses"
he can raise souls
lost in the void.

Each science
has its own song:
Each science
issues from a melody.
Even the void's Unwisdom
has a melody of its own.

"What was wrong with the heretic?"
"When he rose,
Greek song books fell from him.
All day he hummed
the Greek's song."

The song and the heresy --
each depends on the other --
the wisdom and its tune,
the science and its scale.
For heresies fall
in bookloads
from one who sings the tune
of heresy.

*

And through the zaddik's niggun,
when in him tonguetied Moses
sings,
all lost souls
rise from the abyss,
find their way from the void.
All tunes are reabsorbed in
the song of silence,
all heresy integrated and dissolved,
Tune and word
in the THOUGHT SONG.

*

"Moses came to Pharaoh"
-- the void --
"and said
Tomorrow --
see --
I bring the arbeh,
the swarms
of locusts
into your midst."
For tomorrow
is the time
of the reward receiving.

What is the reward all about?
To perceive great perception
to have cosmic insight,
today unattainable.

And then we will know
how the void
was like the locust,
its cloak and being one,
all veils and garments
but He
outer, inner He
word and wordless He
end and endless He
Tune and singer He
Most high and abyss He
void He, fullness He
I-He
You He
He
He!
-- Amen!


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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