Passover 2002

This poem is powerful.

I gave me the creeps.

I can't decide if I like it or hate it.


First is the Hebrew, then the English translation.

PASSOVER, 2002

Instead of scalding
your pots and plates,
take steel wool
to your hearts:
You read the Haggadah
like swine, which
if put before a table
would forage about in the bowl
for parsley and dumplings.

Passover, however,
is stronger than you are.
Go outside and see:
the slaves are rising up,
a brave soul
is burying its oppressor
beneath the sand.

Here is your cruel,
stupid Pharaoh,
dispatching his troops
with their chariots of war,
and here is the sea of Freedom,
which swallows them.

by: Aharon Shabtai

© 1990, Aharon Shabtai

© Translation: 2003, Peter Cole

Passover 2002, of course, is when a terrorist bombed the Pasover Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanyah. Over 50 celebrants where killed.