The Nation Lives - A Poem by Leon

Jerusalem Fri Aug 12th 2005

The Nation Lives.
I'm a Jew you are a Jew.
Because the Nation Lives.
Abraham died.
Moses and David all died.
I will die and so will you.
We are all parts
of a nation called the Jews.
Parts may come and parts may go.
Parts replace parts.
There are parts and parts and parts.
But the nation Lives.
Look how the parts have suffered.
In Jerusalem, Massada, Mainz,
Speir, Cologne and Auschwitz.
The suffering has become a part.
The people and their suffering
keep the Nation alive.
Defeat is individual like death.
But Victory is national like life.
When the Torah say "choose life not death"
it means join the nation don't live alone.
We join the nation by learning
about the history of the suffering
of individual parts of our nation,
in Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon and Germany,
and passing this on to our children.
We pass it on and
The Nation Lives.