Keter the Crown Known as Nothing - Poem

Judaism, Wntr, 2002 by Rodger Kamenetz

Crowns float on the leather spines

of the thick s'forim, Hebrew books

in the rabbi's basement, Boro Park.

His library stacked from foot to crown,

books north, south, east, west.

The walls lean in, a nightmare of law

or a secret dream of knowledge.

His hands tremble, volunteering for disorder.

He told me I was wrong, but softly--

to speak of meditation.

But what is wrong in Nothing?

In Nothing, a bookstore clerk could be king, and I a rabbi

in a book of rabbis, with leather straps

binding forearms and hand and fontanelle

where I chanted and chanted and saw and saw

how the Crown, known as Nothing,

floats above human understanding

above wisdom, invisible radiant,

low part of excellence,

bottom of a higher world.

I know nothing, nothing at all.

My Hebrew is dumb as a torn page.

On the red binding of the rabbi's book,

4 triangles, 4 golden knobs,

a four pointed crown

like the letter sh,

sound before silence.

The rabbi said, "Meditation?

I've heard nothing. My father

never heard of it either."

RODGER KAMENETZ is poetry editor of Forward. His books of poetry include The Missing Jew (1992) and Stuck (1995). He lives in New Orleans. Other books: The Jew in the Lotus, Stalking Elijah, Terra Infirma.