In the afternoon on March 30th, just before the start of National Poetry Month, I was waiting nervously to be invited to share a poem I’d written about being the new rabbi here at CBT. For me, offering divrei torah, words of Torah, or iyyunei tefilah, insights about the prayers, from the bima at CBT is a cake-walk compared to offering a poem in a Zoom room of poets, even though I’ve spent countless hours in a Zoom room with these poets, in conversation and in silence, sharing our lives through reading and writing poetry.
Now, as National Poetry Month concludes, I offer gratitude to God; and to our Spiritual Poetry Writing teacher, Donna Baier Stein, the founder and publisher of Tiferet Journal; and to my colleague at Clal, Rabbi Julia Appel, for her editorial support; and I invite you to read my reflection and poem, Shepherd’s Lament, that appeared on The Wisdom Daily.