Each of the poems in this book is an expression of a personal encounter with a teaching by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook (1865-1935), Torah leader, scholar, mystic and philosopher."Little Psalms"Cynthia Ozick: "I so much liked your perfect Little Psalms, some of them so much in the spirit (and often the language-of-feeling) of Yiddish poetry. You've created a fine amalgam of the American tongue and its sensibilities, and your new/old yeshiva explorations.""Airport Lights"David Sears (head of the Breslov Center): "Yaacov David ...
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Each of the poems in this book is an expression of a personal encounter with a teaching by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook (1865-1935), Torah leader, scholar, mystic and philosopher."Little Psalms"Cynthia Ozick: "I so much liked your perfect Little Psalms, some of them so much in the spirit (and often the language-of-feeling) of Yiddish poetry. You've created a fine amalgam of the American tongue and its sensibilities, and your new/old yeshiva explorations.""Airport Lights"David Sears (head of the Breslov Center): "Yaacov David Shulman has created a number of important translations of both contemporary and classic Jewish scholarly works, especially his translations from Rav Kook and Rabbi Nachman, for which his readers are rightfully grateful (myself among them). But with this collection of his original poems, he expresses his personal spiritual vision. He does so with a keen sensitivity to language and sometimes startling juxtapositions of images, coupled with a surrealist's evocation of the wonders of the everyday. One of the great Chasidic masters recalled that in the court of the Maggid of Mezeritch, there were "miracles piled up under the benches, but we couldn't bother to pick them up!" I'm glad that Yaacov David Shulman has bothered to do so in his spiritual travels, and made them into poems.""Backstage Lights"Gila Fine, editor-in-chief, Maggid Books"This is a beautiful, deeply moving collection."Natan Ophir, author, Jewish meditation expert"Thank you so very much for Backstage Lights, your incredible gift in expressive poetry responsively reflecting upon the Lights of Rav Kook."Ruchama King, best-selling novelistVery exciting, soul and mind-thrilling kind of, even if the meaning might elude me, like tehillim sometimes eludes me, but I feel so connected and good, reading the words anyway, such hard, pure words, like silver. So many amazing phrases-"the sun caught in a hazel nut."Peter Himmelman, Grammy-winning songwriterYaacov David Shulman's poems, like the spiritual life of the Jew, are full of dualities; there are rules and regulations, such as his clever rhyme schemes and his staunch insistence on never employing similes. But his structures, which might be conceived of as a metaphor for Halacha, are not meant to confine, but to show the way to depth and mystery. Reading his work has left me pondering just how much more there is than meets the eye.Yehoshua November, award-winning Chabad poet"In Backstage Lights, Shulman manages to squeeze complex theology into the constraints of poetic form." Rabbi Dr. Zvi LeshemThe Holy Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook expressed himself in many genres; prose, theology, mysticism, legal writings and even poetry. When applying the teachings of a great person to our own spiritual lives, it is sometimes necessary to blur the distinctions between, or even to cross, these literary boundaries. This is what R. Yaacov Dovid Shulman has done in his collection of poetry "Backstage Lights". He has taken the overwhelming "frontstage" lights of Rav Kook's theological prose musings and recast them as poetic "backstage" lights; small personal illuminations for our time. In doing so he has shown us yet another path within many of how Rav Kook can truly light up our world.
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