Rabbis of the Air: Poetic Term Paper

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Moving from the humor of matzo balls and used cars, the images of the poem grows darker as Terman recalls: "the dandruff of my dead friend's dark hair" that he values more "than the inscribed stones Moses/bloodied his flesh -- twice -- to attain." The reader begins to wonder why Terman values his friend's dandruff -- but this image recalls the hair left over from the victims of the Holocaust, hair shaved from the scalps of Jewish victims to make wigs. This stanza suggests that Terman is not merely deflating obscure mysticism, but suggesting that too much focus on piety and not enough focus on politics and the real lives and concerns of the Jewish people can have devastating consequences for the community. He is not merely speaking to a poet of the past, but to leaders of the present. Focus on the needs of the here and now, Terman cries, rather than being overly reverent about a falsely constructed past, either of the Bible, Talmudic scholars, or a mystical ideal.

At the end of the poem, Terman invokes his ancestors and the very real dead, other Jewish victims, as well as Jews who have triumphed: "their names the undertone whenever/my own name is called, their ghost-souls/more present than this corporeal furniture." Terman acknowledges the importance of the past, his Jewish heritage, and the dead, but this heritage cannot be encompassed in a book or under the category of religion and religious teachings, rather it is something far greater.

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He ends with an image of dust and ashes, again implying in his imagery if not with a specific reference, the tragedy of the Holocaust. The final lines rebuke the mystical poet for something the poet did not live to witness, but Terman suggests he should have been more concerned about, in his poetry.

Only after rereading the poem does the reader confront a curious paradox -- Terman claims to reject mystical Judaism, but he clearly knows what the Pentateuch, Kabala, and Torah are -- also, his poem is addressed to a relatively obscure poet. This suggests a final, additional nuance to the poem. Perhaps Terman is addressing himself, or his own tendency to be overly concerned with theory and art, rather than real, practical concerns. This explains why the poem is addressed to a Jewish poet, not merely a Jewish scholar. If Terman were not engaged in self-criticism as well as the criticism of the past, the poem could be addressed to a famous rabbi. Terman creates a strawman of a man whose life and works seems like a tempting path, but one Terman ultimately rejects in favor of his family, the beauty of mundane matzo balls, and a more fruitful way of coping with historical persecution and tragedy -- to deal with things in a practical, earthly, and constructive manner.

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"Rabbis Of The Air Poetic" (2007, December 06) Retrieved May 18, 2024, from
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