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The Memory of the Souls

A gaze
Welling with wisdom
And a fleeting laugh
Sowing beauty
In passing glimpsed -
And their souls in unison throbbed.
And a wash of bliss
as a shadowy mist
Hovered for a moment
At their head

And when eye from eye tore away
When soulmates splayed
On to lands of wandering and exile -
The cry of their hearts shattered
Upon the stones of streets

Many days passed
Generations of offspring issued forth -
A shoot of the root of wisdom
And a blossom from the vine of beauty
In the foreign met

It broke as dawn
The remembrance of their souls
And their hearts stormed
With terror and joy
As brother
His long-lost sister
Found.

From the Hebrew by Yanki Tauber

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Miknaf Ha'aretz

• The All-Inclusive (p. 8)

• Through Tranquility and Turmoil (p. 10)

• The Authors of the Tosfos (p. 12)

• A Prayer in the wee Hours (p. 13)

• Freedom of Choice (p. 16)

• The One (p. 17)

• The Spark That Shall Never Die (p. 20)

• The Luminaries of the Generation (p. 25)

• Eternity (p. 37)

• The Cry of the Holy Sparks (p. 46)

• Is This Man? (p. 52)

• Tear (p. 77)

• The Ascent of the Tzaddik (p. 89)

• The Dejected's Prayer (p. 96)

• Night (p. 120)

• The Heights of the Holy (p. 144)

• A Story About a Prince (p. 152)