What are we thinking
as we witness
the agitated talmidim
of the great Rebbe
jostle toward her,
self-thrown
in the dust
in the Rebbe’s way,
at his feet?
Do any of us cry out
to warn them
before Rabbi Akivah speaks?
Do we wonder right then,
do we doubt the efficacy
of the eminent
Rabbi’s teachings
after watching
his students’ revulsion
to this wife in rags
who’d sold her braids
to sustain her husband?
Could we help but wonder
about having our own sons
in his yeshiva?
When he speaks,
he speaks absolutely,
“What is mine,
what is yours,
is hers.”
Do we shake our heads
on our way back to
our own modest homes
from watching this
procession of honor
and consider
what might have
happened, how might
the situation have turned
had this humble mother in rags
not been Rachel?
Later, much later,
might we wonder,
might we consider,
would it be below us to think,
after all that will transpire,
the dust of the dead
still in our lungs,
that the tragedies
that decimate us to ruin
had all been foretold
at this very moment?
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