“Tumah is the result of our confrontation with the fact of our own mortality. It is the going down into darkness.  Taharah is … the reentry into light.”  Rachel Adler*
Oh beloved priestly text transmitting
      tamei*, transmitting tahor*
this ancient two-way street, this bi-

cycle of purity.  We who are
      so easily contaminated, so easily
broken out into joyful burning

holiness—either way, great danger.
     Either way bright ecstasy bleeding
out in agony.  Still, we must

keep moving through all the coming
     going perils.  From wake time
into sleep, cleaving to Your truth,

her kissing cousin kindness.  Help us
     dwell in yearning so we may cycle through
the curves of each revolving moment

where our peace, our justice, those
     fractious tumbling children
may embrace.  Be one.
                                      3/22/2019

*tamei/tum’ah = ritual impurity; tahor/toharah = ritual purity.  See Rachel Adler’s “Tum’ah and Toharah: Ends and Beginnings,” Summer 1973 for a full meditation on these body/spirit states: https://cdn.jwa.org/sites/default/files/mediaobjects/tumah_and_toharah_adler.jpg