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hangingbyastitch in honor of Passover. It also fills the "Tree of Life" square in my 3-1-21 card for the Celtic Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the Clay of Life series."Etz Chaim"
For many Jews,
"next year in Jerusalem"
had suddenly become
"this year in Jerusalem."
A peace long in making
had finally borne fruit,
figuratively and literally.
So Menachem and Yossele
joined the caravans traveling
toward the Holy City.
It wasn't just Jews,
of course, but also
Christians and Muslims.
After centuries of bickering,
they had learned to share.
The Jews contributed golems
to do the heavy lifting and repair
the damage from years of war,
along with calculating machines
to tally resources and figure angles.
The Christians had made all kinds
of great discoveries in working
glass, metal, and stone as they
built grand cathedrals in Europe,
now turned to beautify Jerusalem.
The Muslims had discovered
that tiny djinn caused disease,
and devised ways to destroy them,
making it safer than ever to gather
people by the thousands in cities.
Working together, they managed
to create more than any of them
could have achieved on their own,
so at last the damage of Babylon
was undone and the people reunited.
It helped that most of the holy days
did not overlap, so the people of
each religion could trade off
who had what and when.
When the days did conflict,
they had tried a lottery at first,
but nobody liked that, so they
wound up doing services at
different times of day or even
pointed in different directions.
When Menachem and Yossele
reached the Holy City, they were
amazed, for Jerusalem was reborn.
Yossele was fascinated to see
that in the Muslim medical college,
golems worked tirelessly to move
the injured and the ill, for they could
neither catch nor carry disease.
Menachem stared in awe at
the Christian wondersmiths
making smallviewers from
gleaming steel and stacks of
finely ground crystal lenses.
Christians had made much
of the waterworks, too, and
Jewish gardeners had built on
that to create an irrigation system
so that water flowed everywhere.
Once there had been wellsprings
that watered the city, but these
had dried up over time or been
choked with refuse and ruins.
Now the water ran free and clear
in the great canals of New Jerusalem.
From this had sprung the miracles.
The Temple overlooked the river
whose banks on both sides bloomed
with green orchards, among them
the trees that people were calling
Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life, which
had grown from ancient seeds
discovered in the restoration.
Their perfume lay on the breeze,
heavy and sweet with promise, and
it was said that the leaves made some
of the best medicines for banishing
the tiny djinn that caused disease.
The fruit was not offered for sale,
but was given free to pilgrims
or whomever else needed it.
The fruit was not for sale,
but offered free to pilgrims
or whomever else needed it.
So Menachem tasted the fruit
and found it even more satisfying
than the fruit of the date palms
with which he was familiar.
Surely when it came time
to wave the lulav, this
would be the date palm
used to make it here, and
nevermore any other.
The other miracle was
the discover of a fungus
that had appeared in the city,
seemingly out of nowhere.
It was tiny and white,
exceptionally hearty, with
an odd seven-day cycle
of fruiting, so that people
came to call it manna.
It grew throughout
much of New Jerusalem,
not right by the water's edge
nor the edge of the desert,
but in between where the air
and ground were moist
without being soggy.
Menachem tried this too,
and found the flavor mild
but pleasant -- though when
he tried some with spices
at a Muslim stall, the heat
of it made his eyes water.
He would have apologized
to Yossele for celebrating
new foods so much in front
of someone who didn't eat,
but Yossele was entirely
taken by watching a team of
golems erecting a waterwheel.
So the two of them decided
to stay in the city for a while
and study its many marvels.
They would go to the makeplace
beside the medical college, where
Menachem and Yossele could
learn from the wondermakers
about how to build smallviewers
and the other fanciful devices.
Perhaps they would even spend
next year in Jerusalem, too.
* * *
Notes:
L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim (לשנה הבאה בירושלים) or "Next year in Jerusalem" traditionally ends the Passover Seder.
Jerusalem is considered a holy city in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They have fought over it for centuries. Ironically, the miracles did not occur until people began sharing it.
Read about the historic water systems of Jerusalem.
The Tree of Life appears in many traditions, including Judaism where it is called Etz Chaim.
Very old seeds can sometimes still germinate.
Lulav refers to a date palm frond, used to celebrate Sukkot.
Manna is a food from the Bible which G-d provided to the Israelites traveling in the desert. It has been interpreted as a type of fungus, among other things. While most mushrooms have few calories, they have many valuable nutrients. It is possible that some form of fungus might have more calories.