A prism of experience

BASYA LAYE

More than 50 poems fill the pages of LaKol Z’man: A Time for Everything, a recently published “poetical journey through the Jewish year” by Los Angeles-based writer and poet Yossi Huttler. Taking its title from the first words of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), “There is a time for everything,” LaKol Z’man contains a small but significant collection of poems arranged by the Jewish lunar month. While some poems were previously published in the Jewish Daily Forward, many are available for the first time in this collection.

In attempting to capture the spirit of the Jewish calendar and its festivals, it is Huttler’s hope “that the poems in this book will inspire interest in, and observance of, the Jewish holidays, which are so fundamental to the experience of Judaism,” he writes in the introduction. His intent is to provide an additional instrument in the reader’s spiritual toolkit and to engage the Jewish calendar “through the prism of an additional year’s life experience.”

Spare, quiet and meditative, the poems emerged out of a period in the author’s life, starting in 2005, when he was experiencing serious health issues and transitioning from his thirties to his forties. While deeply spiritual, even religious, in nature (a glossary of terms appears at the back of the collection), the poems in LaKol Z’man are accessible to those who are less knowledgeable about Judaism’s specifics but who are intent on developing a spiritual or contemplative practice within a Jewish framework.

The first poem in the collection, “Molad” (“Birth” or “New Moon”), “refers to the commandment to sanctify the new lunar month, a process that was repeated for every month of the year when the Temple stood,” he writes. It reads:

in the evening sky / I caught sight of an arcing sliver of moon; / I hung my hopes on that / thin white ledge clinging to / a larger dark circle I could discern / only in outline

having lost track of our time / and with no witnesses to quiz / I wondered: had the month just begun / or just ended / and in the coming nights / would I see more of you / or would you disappear entirely from me?

Readers can start with any month or poem in the book, but one option is to use the poems as meditations around a formal or informal observance of Rosh Chodesh, the start of the new month, a traditional time for developing an extra consciousness around cycles, well being and creativity.

Many of Huttler’s poems contemplate what seems like a very personal struggle to stay upright and confident in an ever-changing world, but they also express a profound wrestling with God that is universal – and very Jewish. Indeed, Huttler’s poems underline the active relationship that Jews have with the divine, apparent in the first poem for the month of Nissan. For example, “Bedikas Chametz” reads:

in his darkness / he trains a light / on those places / he’d been / not wanting to know / or be reminded of / what lurks in those / nooks and cracks / the crevices where he may have been / hiding from himself

farther in / room to room / peering deeply / he collects those things of his / which he hopes never to own again

One of Huttler’s fans, to whom he refers as a “spiritual and moral authority,” is Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, an author and psychiatrist, whose endorsement reads, “Perhaps because of my familiarity with the subconscious mind, I found profound meaning in Yossi Huttler’s poems. However, even without such knowledge, one can gain wisdom and insights if one studies the poems properly. Think about each verse. What does it mean to you? Like a diamond that reflects many colors, each poem can have multiple meanings.”

Two ruminations on Tu b’Shevat are included in LaKol Z’man. The second, entitled “Tu B’Shevat,” was originally published in the Forward in 2008 along with a brief explanation that, in Chassidic tradition, “Tu B’Shevat is considered a propitious time to pray that one will find a beautiful etrog to use on the coming Sukkot.” Writes Huttler:

besieged / is man / a tree of the field

entreating for a future / mehudar [beautiful] heart / an esrog graced with life’s ridges and troughs / on this full moon / new year

There are countless guides that cover the who, what, when, where, why and how of the holidays; Huttler’s collection cuts away the obligation and didacticism to reveal the essence and quiet rhythms of the Jewish year. LaKol Z’man is available by e-mail to [email protected] or by calling 1-323-655-0973.

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