Pesach 5773 - 18/03/2013 - Federation Of Synagogues

Last and First Man
By Steven Schonberg (also the title of a classic work of modern British Science Fiction, by Olaf Stapledon)
It was Adam, You, and Me,
A Garden of Eden, built for three
Who are none other than Adam, Eve,
and the serpent that connected them –
Which then, through an Apple, brought into the world, Men;
Men, who had, the knowledge of G-d,
Men, on G-d’s Garden, their very soles, trod.
That became transformed into, a temple,
where one man’s sacrifice
Became for another man, on his head, a price;
And there was created, for the very first time,
the passion of hate –
A passion between brothers – only coming – as they both,
lacked a soul-mate.
Do men ever have, a true soul-mate, in life?
Or, are their lives merely tales, filled with sorrow and strife?
Can Man, actually, build a Temple, based on love?
Or, is this ‘love’ merely, a mirror, of a G-d above?
A G-d Who has given Man choice, after choice, after choice;
Whereas Man has not even bothered to hear His voice:
A Voice once heard on a mountain, loud and clear –
In fact, so loud and clear, that men were filled with fear;
The irony being, that only because Man felt fear,
Was he able to conquer himself, and hold ‘love’ dear.
A love, that springs from his soul, as well as from his heart;
A love, denied to the experienced,
only because their previous innocence, was but a jump-start;
Of course, you can jump-start, any car battery –
But you cannot save Man, through the untruth of flattery.
Indeed, Man cannot even, control, his own soul.
If his mind has not, his heart, actually stole.
For it is only when both, Mind and Heart, fall in love,
That a Divine Presence on earth, descends, from Above –
In order to construct a dwelling-place,
for Man’s everlasting soul –
A soul that he knows, he will never understand, or control;
For the apple of Knowledge, that Eve gave to men,
Was a test, very much like Daniel’s, in the lion’s den:
A test of Man’s will – to choose the Good or the Bad –
A test ending in salvation, yet another ‘experience’,
that Man’s soul, never had.
For the truth of the matter, was that,
when the apple was eaten,
Almost at the same time, was Man’s evil inclination, beaten;
The serpent was punished, by becoming a snake,
And the first man, by his own choice, did his future, make.
It was a choice, that bound him, to Eve, as his wife -
A choice so final, that it became a choice for life.
We can say that Adam, by eating that apple from the Tree,
Actually brought love into the world,
consisting of just you and me,
By eating that apple, Adam chose Life over Death –
Through a free will given by G-d,
from Adam’s very first breath;
For, did not G-d create Man, in His own image, at first –
To save Himself, from a similar loneliness, that only His very
own creature, through Woman, could slake his thirst?
So let me conclude, then, that the Knowledge,
derived from that Tree,
Was a knowledge that, only through love, could Man,
be truly free;
Provided, of course, that this truly liberating emotion,
Be linked with a second, equally liberating, notion –
That ‘love’, on its own, is just an innocent’s dream –
Only when combined with fear, does it become more,
than it seems.
Now, to return to that Temple, of which we spoke, before, -
It will be only be built, if love and fear – together -
become enshrined, as Law.
* * * * *
Note: The last line of the poem is a sort of justification for a
Torah-based state.
Herzog Hospital, Givat Sha’ul, 6.9.12
18th Elul 5772
Hamaor / April 2013
Page 21