Ellis Rivkin z”l

Education

When he was a boy,
He snuck off on Shabbes Afternoons –
“Ball Hawk” his teammates called him
so began his independence
and break from

expectations.

Intellectual Formation

He plotted the hidden ascent of the
British from his office
In the Klau Library
Wrestling his newsletters into light
Pouring over the secret
Sources,

The English are everywhere,

Predicting the fall of the Iron Curtain
Long before it collapsed –
“a society that cannot
produce
a decent razor
is no threat,”
he said in falsetto,
“it will collapse like a house of cards.”

The Classroom

His voice ascending
His eyes following ideas heaven-ward
Lifted
His voice
Into extra-sensory
Registers –
“tapping the mind of
God.”

Then there was the last session
Of the semester
When he kissed each of us as we left
As if we were second graders.

Then there were the nights he invited us
For hot chocolate

And the days he brought fine
European chocolates to the classroom,

And then there were the classes
Rarely history
He was planted in the future
And parsing the secret present –

To which he drove to and from
In his galleon Cadillac.

And then there was the time
He pushed the
Clouds

Away.

Ellis Rivkin,
sweetest teacher –

Good night
Dr. Ball Hawk.

james stone goodman
Cincinnati ‘81

Your Double Coursed Sister

I am your double coursed
Sister

My modal figure –
My yearning for voice.

I am a single line
I am the melodic serpent
Advancing by half-flats.

I am the hands of Ziryab
The blackbird
The one born in Baghdad.

I am oud player to the Umayyad court
Cordoba
8th century,
Ziryab
The dark one.

I am your hands
I am the reeshi in your hands
The eagle feather
As you pluck the strings.

I am the fifth course of strings
The ones introduced by Ziryab –

The soul –
Added to the four courses
The four humors of Aristotle.
I am the soul –
The fifth course.

I am the hands of the old man
Sitting by the Seventh Well

I am the sixth course
A single string
I am resolute
The absolute
The sixth course.

I am your hands
Rescuing you.

The Politics of Marriage

It was toast that brought us together
And without the toast
We were finished.

We disagreed on everything
Including toast.

Make one more piece of toast that way
And I’m leaving you.

All we wanted really was toast
The same toast that everybody else had
Or didn’t have
Fought over
The toast that brought us together
And the toast that drove us apart.

Toast, you said,
Is that what you really want?

Yes, toast.

Do you promise to love and cherish
Play scrabble
Make toast
Tart up now and again?

Clean the seeds out of your teeth
The detritus from the front yard
Make toast?

Are you going to make that ****-ing toast?

When marriage is trivial
When marriage is not trivial –
It is trivial when you have it
When you don’t it is of the highest consequence.

You want toast?
Marry me.

I married you for your toast.
Why not, marriage isn’t political
It’s love–
It’s love.

Plodding away we are through toast
And leaving our socks around the room
Empty toothpaste tubes
Not enough aspirin for the headaches you’ve given me –

Someone to curl up with on Sunday night
These lowly blessings of life
Passed up passion ages ago
As the enduring legacies of marriage,

Keep the politics in your pajamas
I will –

Toast please
Not burnt
All the toast I want
Whenever I want it.

jsg, usa

Build for me a Mikdash [KDSh]
And I will dwell [ShKhN]
Within them. Exodus 25:8

Two roots in that verse, one signifying outwardliness [KDSh] and one signifying inwardliness [ShKhN]. The terrible twos are integrated in our holy place in this the first objectification of the spirit. Why do we need a place at all for our prayers? My teacher asked. Don’t be deceived, he answered, into thinking it’s about place. It’s always about heart. Build Me a Mikdash but I will dwell within them.

We usually read the root of the word TeRUMah, out of which we will build the Sanctuary, as a root signifying “lift.” If we build it, we will be lifted by the building. But the Zohar reads the word out of an Aramaic root [TRY] signifying “two.” That changes everything.

All the terrible twos will be integrated in our holy place. Imagine inner and outer rather than upper and lower, or masculine and feminine. God said, build it and I will dwell within them. The work of the holy place is inner work. In the inner space, in the heart, that’s where integration happens, that’s where the terrible twos are one. Within them — I will come to rest, reads the verse. The game of the spirit is always an inside job. I want you heart, God said, I’m after your soul.

I asked Bezalel to draw it for me. He drew a blueprint of the architecture, and it looked like the diagrams I have seen of the human heart.