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10/09/11 - (1)
Charlotte's Kol Nidre
While I sit in temple, beside my dear Linda, Listening to the rabbi share the heritage of our people, Read invocations from the Gates of Repentance, So that all of us in reverential attendance, This awe-filled evening of the Kol Nidre service, This sundown of 9 Tishri, in the year 5772, This wondrous night of redemption, Might confess and repent, devote ourselves to teshuva, Transform our hearts, in our eyes, not His, Into agents of kindness, compassion, love, And be inscribed in the Book of Life, For one more three-hundred-sixty-five-day cycle, I'm reminded how my mother has always exulted In the majesty of Yom Kippur's first night.
But although she's been written, in that mystical book, Ninety-five times, It's now begun to close without her name, Lest it appear near the end, where flown souls reside, Abiding with Elohim, there for us to memorialize With the plaintive strains of the Kaddish — "Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba b'al'ma di v'ra khir'utei. . . ." Imbued with solemn resolve, we drive to her house, To wish her a sweet new era's year of existence eternal. But as we pull around the driveway, Our headlights startling the backyard's darkness, We mourn for my mother, Even though her faint few breaths yet hover in her chest, Smothering her final tiny gasps of hope.
10/09/11 - (1)
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