[NGFP-BookClub] EMY - a short note from avigdor

[bhaber at presentartifacts.com]

Hi,
This is Beth, I am an artist and writer living in the Hudson Valley of New 
York.I too have been submerged by the demands of recent life events, but have 
found the discourse so interesting and enriching. This latest interchange 
recalled to mind a poem I wrote a few seasons back on EMY- so I am sending it 
along -

                                      Numbers

           a multitude of memories
           join us at our time-table 
           where again we set our hearts
           on  schedule and in order

           forgoing multiple of choice;
           choose chose chosen
           a break from the hieroglyphs
           coding our keyboards
           we pause from selecting
           all

           tonight we put aside
           polymath gods of Egypt
           in their many configurations
           to follow one story
           one path  one people

           for an evening or two
           together on a singular track
           a sea parts again
           and we sing our trinity
           ehad mi yodeah
           who   knows  one ?

    



> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "michele klein" <maklein at klein2.freeserve.co.uk>
> To: "NGFP Book Club" <ngfp-bookclub at lists.ngfp.org>
> Subject: Re: [NGFP-BookClub] EMY - a short note from avigdor
> Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 19:16:25 +0300
> 
> 
> Shalom,
> I have been following the correspondence with great interest, but have been
> too busy to reply (my children¹s weddings and my mom-in-law¹s funeral and
> shiva).
> When looking for images of pregnancy and childbirth in the illustrated
> haggadot (I found plenty), one of my sources was the EMY song. I remember
> reading (and I can¹t find the source just now) that the nine months is the
> one topic that isn¹t somehow embedded in Jewish tradition. Of course without
> childbirth there would be no Judaism and so this song, in addition to
> entertaining the kids, teaches that procreation is as important as the 5
> books of Torah and the 6 books of Mishnah and the 7 days of Shabbat, the 10
> commandments, and the 13 divine attributes...  Childbirth was especially
> important in times of massacres when the continuity of the people was in
> severe danger, time and again in Jewish history.
> 
> I found a kabbalistic website, http://www.inner.org/stages/stages2.htm,
> which may contribute to understanding the numbers in the Haggadah and
> perhaps also EMY:
> ³The Torah itself provides us with the necessary prototypes for conceptually
> ordering our reality. These models differ according to the number of
> corresponding levels one is interested in articulating. For instance, should
> one wish to express four levels of correspondence, the classic frame of
> reference in Kabbalah is the ineffable four-letter Name of G-d (Havayah);
> ten levels always relate back to the ten Divine emanations (sefirot) within
> Creation; thirteen levels, to the thirteen attributes of Divine mercy; and
> so on. (The importance of such models as educational tools is hinted at in
> the Passover Haggadah, the essential Jewish primer, which concludes with a
> song entitled "Who knows one?" delineating in verse thirteen models of
> correspondence, ranging from one G-d to the thirteen attributes of His
> mercy.)²
> 
> Michele Klein
> Author of ³A Time to Be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth², Jewish
> Publication Society, 1998, 2000.
> 
> 
> on 3/4/06 17:25, Avigdor Shinan at shinan at mscc.huji.ac.il wrote:
> 
> > shalom shalom
> > i got letters from Batya, Luka, Shoshanah, Sarah and Margalit regarding 
> Echad
> > Mi Yodeah. I intend to summerize different issue concerning this Piyyut 
> later
> > this week, but meanwhile let me tell you that the text from Cochin served 
> as 
> > a
> > song for weddings and that is has only 12 parts (i.e. it ends with the 12
> > tribes of Iarael - Shivtaya).Does this fact help to solve any of the 
> riddles
> > connected with this Piyyut?
> > More on EMY - later this week.
> > shalom
> > avigdor
> >
> >
> >
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