Reish Lakish said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda Nesia: “The world only exists because of the breath of schoolchildren.” Tractate Shabbat 119b

It’s your first Friday night
day-old scrap of boy
though you don’t have a name
your soul is full-blown
like glass in the hand of the blower.

The men flow into the courtyard to welcome you,
enter the room where your father sits, luminous,
as the shabbos candles flicker and fade.
Your brothers and sisters stream out of the kitchen
bearing bowls of arbis – yellow chickpeas,
platters of honey cake, bottles of beer.
Each man brings a gut vort of Torah,
takes a drop of chivas in a paper cup,
a handful of arbis for the circle of life – l’chaim.

One grandfather offers a parable of bees
says every letter of the aleph-bet
has numerical value – honey and wife the same
to teach us this: the feet of bees
dragging through nectar
ought to render it impure.
Yet God allows us honey to eat.
So, too, a wife takes the grimness of the world
transmutes it into blessings
her home a courtyard to the world to come.

Wendy Dickstein is an American born poet living in Jerusalem. She has won prizes in poetry and fiction. Her books can be found in The National Library of Israel and on Amazon.