Is: Heretical Jewish blessings and poems

By Yaakov Moshe, Andrew Ramer and Jay Michaelson

This book's heretical prayers, Dharma aphorisms, neo-Hasidic koans, and unorthodox blessings for unexpected occasions asks the question of what it means to live as a human in a world infused by the sacred, the profane, and the magical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Yehuda Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781963475203

Book preview

1Ayin

if you have an idea of god

it is not god

god negates your idea

god is not anything you can think of except everything

god is not anywhere you can be except here

and when you are only here

you are not here

Sometimes you realize it, and sometimes you don’t.

But either way, it is.

the memory of the timeless times

when everything dropped away

when even silence was too textured

a word

an open sky over fall leaves

an empty room

a turn in which the all looks back:

Because nothing conditioned lasts

you must let go of everything

if you want to see

your peak experiences are gone

the love and the calm are