Mary Woten

First Miriam 1:1-16

Listen, O Israel,
Hear, O People of the Book.
Are you as a Child,
Never to Grow to Adulthood?
Are you as One who Studies,
Never to Learn?

When your Forefathers Wandered
They needed a Mark to Remind them
To Whom they Belonged.
As Wayward Children need a Punishment
When they Stray,
So Israel needed a Mark.
But have you not Learned,
O Israel?
Have you not Matured,
O People of the Book?
The Creation I have made
Is Good,
All that I have made
Is Pure.
Why then do you continue
To Damage my Creation?
Why do you Cut Off
That which I have Made?
What Use have I for your Foreskins?
What Pride have I in a People
That Mutilates its Young?


David brought Two Hundred Foreskins
To Saul as a Brideprice for Michal--
Did I show My Blessing
Upon that Union?
Am I Impressed by
Blind Following of Old Law?
Will you Gain Favor
By Wielding a Knife?

Spare your Young:
Shield and Protect them
As a Loving Mother would.
Spare your Young:
Teach and Inform them
As a Responsible Father would.
Do not Hand them Over
To Old Men,
Do not Hand them Over
As Lambs to the Slaughter.
Love them.
Suffer them Not.
Spare them.
Honor them.

Be a Mature People,
O Israel.
Grow into Adulthood,
O People of the Book.

Gail Weinstein

The prophecy of Gail Ellen Weinstein as revealed at YESOD…..

1) You will die one day. The rest is ancillary commentary.

• Cultivate joy. Practice noticing things that move you, things that please you. This is IT. Okay, kvetch a little. But then get over it and get on with loving life. Every little thing.
• Practice gratitude. As you walk by, talk to gardeners, janitors, garbage men, and other workers. Thank them for making your neighborhood or workplace beautiful. You can just say, “It’s beautiful. Thank you for your work”.
• Notice light- on water, on trees, through clouds, on skin, at dawn, at dusk, at mid-day. Experience wonder. Love brightness and darkness and every mysterious mix of light, including the awe of its absence in the thickest part of night.
• Acknowledge pain and fear, and then get off your tush and do stuff anyway.
• Err on the side of generosity. Give stuff away. Make time.
• Eat broccoli, yes, but do not forsake entirely cookies or chocolate.
• Make amends to people rather than to G_d. In the end, it’s the same thing, and a more direct route.
• Celebrate connection, accept occasional loneliness.
• Imagine that you may not have enough time. Do what matters most. Hurry!
• Make outrageous leaps of faith; work toward the impossible. Like, seek peace among Jews and Palestinians or any other people you love or have trouble loving.
• Do not be afraid to lose face. Show up even when you haven’t done your YESOD homework.
• Rise to each day, keep going; make many jokes, even stupid ones sometimes.
• Consider how others have imagined G_d, learn about your place as a Jew in the march of generations. Then imagine G_d as revealed specifically to you.
• Get quiet and listen for instructions. This, in my view, is prayer.
• Disregard my prophesy. Listen for instructions (that is, pray). Make your own prophecy. Then live by it. Time is short. Let’s go! And please pass the chocolate.

Marilyn Mercur

MIRIAM’S PROPHECY


(First two lines are to be sung to the tune of “Here she is, Miss America”)

Here she is, Prophet Miriam
Hearken well what she says!

Good evening,

I’m here on behalf of Prophet Miriam. Prophet Miriam doesn’t rant and she doesn’t rave.

Prophet Miriam, daughter of Amram, was my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. She was born in the year 2,361 … of, if you wish, in 1400 BCE.

Her father, Amram, took Jochebed, his father’s sister as his wife, and, as it says in Exodus 6, Chapter 20, she bore him Aaron and Moses. Exodus doesn’t even mention my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother.

No matter. We know how important she was. We know that if it weren’t for her, Moses … well, who knows what would have become of Moses …

… unless there was this “intelligent design” thing, which is in such favor with some of your 21st century brothers and sisters.

PROPHET MIRIAM came to me last night in a dream. She was concerned. She knows your worries and fears. She knows the world is in terrible disarray. She knows there are too many SUVs on the road. She knows there’s apathy and lethargy. She knows your president can’t pronounce Nu-clear. And he’s embarrassing the entire country with a syntax that even a Chimpanzee could improve. She knows the planet is being destroyed … that there are too many people … that the ozone layer is vanishing.

And if you think it was bad having leprosy, she says, look out for skin cancer. USE SUN BLOCK!

And you know that “Song of the Sea” …

“Then sang Moses and the children of Israel, this song unto the Lord, and spoke, saying: I will sing unto the Lord, for He is highly exalted … etc. etc.”

Well, my great, great, great, great (you got the picture) grandmother WROTE THE MUSIC … and SHE WROTE THE WORDS! No copyright in those days.

But it’s true – Miriam the Prophetess, sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam sang unto them:

“Sing ye to the Lord, for he is highly exalted: The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.

She told me she was sorry about the horse.

Did she impart any prophecies in the dream? Only these did she leave:

BEWARE FALSE PROPHETS.

CAST YOUR OWN SHADOW.

DO NOT WALK IN THE SHADOW OF OTHERS.

DO NOT FOLLOW A PATH; FOLLOW YOUR OWN FOOTSTEPS; YOUR PATH WILL CREATE ITSELF.

And you know the book, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”? Her advice is “Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff.” Just do a little each day, and you’ll make the world a better place!

And that was the end of Prophet Miriam’s advice and prophecy. The dream was over, and she was gone.

Except for these Mandelbrot … her very own recipe!


PROPHET MIRIAM’S BISCOTTI*

½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
3 eggs
¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 heaping tablespoon anise seed
1 heaping teaspoon powdered ginger
2 tablespoons chopped candied ginger
2 tablespoons grated orange peel
¾ cup chopped pistachio nuts
¼ cup chocolate morsel bits
¼ cup currants or chopped orange-flavored dried cranberries
3 cups flour


Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add all other ingredients, except flour, and stir well. Add flour and mix thoroughly.

Divide dough into three parts on well-floured board. Shape each part into a long roll, about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Place rolls onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Flatten each roll slightly.

Bake at 350º for fifteen minutes. Remove from oven and slice rolls crosswise about ½ inches thick. Lay cut side down on cookie sheet and return to oven. Bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove and cool on racks. Makes about 4 dozen.

*This is a variation on "Aunt Mary's Italian Biscotti"

Katherine Lieban

ISAIAH 3.16

The Lord said:
“Because the daughters of Zion
Are so vain
And walk with heads thrown back,
With roving eyes,
And with mincing gait,
Making a tinkling with their feet”-
My Lord will bare the pates
Of the daughters of Zion,
The Lord will uncover their heads.

And then-
Instead of perfume, there shall be rot;




KATHERINE 3.16

Thus said the Lord –

What do you see?
Our daughters
Lie with heads thrown back,
With roving eyes
And open legs
Making a tinkling with jeweled wrists and ankles.

For this our mothers marched and bled?
Were beaten
Died on butcher’s tables
Unwanted seed bringing premature death.

Now our daughters
Fully liberated
Emancipated
Choose to prostrate themselves
As objects
on the altar of consumer desire.

Starved
Listless
With dead eyes
They are willing partners
A la moda
In vogue
Heights of sophistication?
O depths of depravity!
False goddesses do you seek, do you emulate
Can you not see the true face?



You are dead to me, O daughter.
Complicit in your own annihilation
Supine
Passive
Let them fondle you
Between the glossy sheets
Of this fashion magazine
Your plastic mouth has no breath
No ruach,
You are mere flesh, ready to rot.
Let the crows gather, and devour you.

Collette Rowland

Eager to read the love poetry of the Tanakh, I read the passages assigned in Song of Songs. Let’s set aside the debate of G-d/human love vs. human/human love, and just go with the human/human, “I love you and desire you, so therefore I am going to attempt to express how much with words.”

The passages described the physical features of the loves (Woman: 4:1-5, 7:2-5, 7:7-10; Man: 5:10-16). All I could do was laugh when I read the description of the woman. What a bunch of farmers! My hair is like a herd of goats?! My teeth are like bathed lambs?! My breasts are like fawns? And the man wasn’t much better, all wood, stone and metal – not very cosy.

For my final project, then, I set out to portray how funny I thought this was, through collage. Much to my surprise, beauty came forward. (It surely helped that I started with a Modigliani female form and a Stewart male form.)

So, using those things most precious to us to describe our most precious love evidently works!