Born pure into an impure world.
And why shouldn’t a babe cry.
Birth, the greatest miracle of all –
The birth of a child, the birth of
An idea, the birth of a concept, the
Birth of a dream, the birth of a world –
The birth of birth itself.
The greatest miracle – the miracle of
Purity.
Who gave us the right, the ability to create
Such purity, such joy, such innocence, such
Life – who gave us the right to give birth?
From where, this gift to allow for purity,
In an impure world, a ray of light in a dark
Dungeon, a slice of heavenly truth in the false bottom
Of earth?
A woman
When she conceives
And gives birth…
We give birth – to children, to purity, to innocence.
Again and again we give birth:
We give birth through a good deed, through a warm hug,
A beautiful smile.
And we are born – not again, but
Again and again and again…
We are too busy giving birth to worry about dying;
We are too busy being born to be dying.
But it isn’t easy being born; nothing important is,
And this is the most important of all. The simplest,
Purest things are the most difficult to accomplish.
(This may be why purity is a lot less common than, well,
The common cold – one cannot catch purity, though it
Does have a contagious element; one must earn it.)
But, sometimes, in order to earn purity, we need to enter an impure
World; in order to be born, we must walk the skeletal streets of
A dead world.
And so we cry.
We don’t cry so that we can breathe;
We cry because we have to breathe.
We come from heaven, and in heaven we don’t breathe.
In heaven we are breath.
In heaven we don’t live –
In heaven we are life.
But in heaven we cannot give life, cannot give birth –
We have to be born in order to give birth.
The question is:
Does everything I touch become pure?
Does everything I touch become newborn?
Born pure into an impure world.
And why shouldn’t a babe cry.
Because, by being born,
We can give birth.
To purity.
Mendel Jacobson is a writer, poet and journalist living in Brooklyn. His weekly poetry can be seen at jakeyology.blogspot.com
The words of this author reflect his/her own opinions and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Orthodox Union.