The Sea of the Talmud

THE

'HE moon is up, the stars shine bright, The milky way glows soft and white. We've spread our sails to catch the breeze That frets the vast rabbinic seas.

We've spread our sails to roam amain That profits neither gold nor gain, Whose shores are stretched along a land, Unmapped by man's designing hand.

Beneath no lowering, storm-mad skies
We start on our strange enterprise-
Set outward bound, where signals gleam
Beyond the shadows of our dream,

To realms no feet of mortal man
Have trodden on or ever can,
And port at quays no ship-bound crew
Has sighted in the cosmic blue.

The ports there made are set afar
Like distant morn or evening star,
And golden as the halls of Ind
Where hush the sobbings of the wind.

Who rides this main, he travels wide
And sees the flood and ebbing tide
Run up and down a fabled shore
Outlined complete in cryptic lore.

Our rigging firm, our compass true
And manned with brave and seasoned crew
We sail at ease this unplumbed sea
Of knowledge and of mystery.

Enroute we pass odd crafts and barks Whose pennants fly the signal marks Of playful whims that, fancy free, Glide o'er this vast rabbinic sea.

Then undulating like to grain
We rock, as out we head again
Our graceful sloop-or east or west-
It matters not which way the quest.

There flows in this rabbinic sea

The streams whose springs are poetry;
And rivulets from fancy's height
Drop down to add their welcome mite.

And islands, where the palm trees dim The visions of the Anakim;

And animals as high as these

Play quoits with fishes in the seas.

Along this course there's ever found

Elijah on his daily round,

Who unafraid of good or ill,

Strives but to do another's will.

What pageantry of kings we pass
Resplendent as the royal glass

The sages quaff, when at their feast,
The banquet hall lights up the east.

And all the winds that make the round Of heaven bring their freighted sound From halls where grey-haired sages sit And questions of their Torah knit.

Yet mists at times befog the way Where fretful white caps madly play; Then midst the storm the seraphim Becalm the waves by praising Him.

No other sea full-ebbed as this,
Bequeathed its sailors so much bliss,
For old as are its thundering shores,
Were ne'er bestrewn with spoils of wars.

No craft that ever dents their waves
Discharged its freight in watery graves;
For he who sails this unique sea
Returns with his own argosy.

The moon is up. The stars shine bright;
This mystic sea is swathed in light,
And from its depths droll voices lure
The land beset forth on a tour.

Far from the teeming ports and quays,
Where men and women fret their days,
No cruise as this makes sport of time,
Or breed or border, land or clime.

And in its wake a thousand ships
In gathering darkness evening dips,
Yet happy is each crew, and free,
That sails this vast rabbinic sea.

JOSEPH LEISer.

The Talmud

ANCIENT pages of the Talmud,

Legends, tales that there I view,
In my mournful life and dreary
Oftentimes I turn to you.

When at night amid the darkness
On mine eyes sleep will not rest,
And I sit alone, and wretched,
With my head upon my breast,

In those hours, as a star shines
In the azure summer night,
Memories amid my sadness

Then begin to glimmer bright.

I recall my love, my childhood;

Those sweet hours come back again
When I still was free from sorrow,
Free from anger, free from pain.

I recall those times, long vanished,
When I quaffed, without alloy,
Life's first, best and sweetest chalice,
Freedom, mirthfulness and joy.

Those old years so sweet and precious
Pass again before mine eyes,
And the pages of the Talmud
In my memory arise.

Oh! the precious ancient pages!
All the lights and stars I see
Burning, shining in those pages;
They can ne'er extinguished be!

Myriad streams and myriad rivers

Have flowed o'er them in the past;
Sand has covered them and hid them,
Storms have rent them-still they last.

Yes, the ancient, ancient pages
Still survive and perish not,

Although yellowed, torn and blackened,
Here a hole and there a spot.

What of that? Indeed it truly
Is a graveyard, old and hoar,
Where within the tomb lies buried
All that we shall see no more.

S. FRUG.

(Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell.)