No. 1

A Poem by Max Carl Kirk

The Grass of Jerusalem

The Land of Israel is already bread

and all other lands are uncooked dough

One who desires to have a God

will settle their heart on Abraham’s land

No one can move there to fight with God

or settle their family there forever

without God’s invitation

The unrepentant become indentured slaves there

Why, if they were the free children of the Almighty?

What belongs to the Temple

cannot be used for war or profit

But a rebel steals his own soul from God

and makes his heart into a weapon

The Torah of God defends the widow

She must go up and build in Sarah’s land

She must not go up alone without her Defender

The land is measured according to her need

One widow will have a home in Judea

another across the Jordan

and another in Galilee

The Grass of Jerusalem

Should you wake or rouse the love?

Who would pressure joy before its time?

Those who are possessed of love

are faithfully locked in its arms

Who would tell her secrets to a rival?

Yet Jerusalem runs through the wilderness

like the gazelles and the deer of the fields

While from Isaac’s land the Earth hears the Heavens

and with the stones of Rebecca’s land the Earth prays

The bones of Rachel’s children are forgiven

Like the bones of the altar they will live again

The flood came out of the mouth of the dragon

like a serpent’s tongue to devour the widow

and to snatch her straggling children

The earthen altar helped her and swallowed up the flood

Escape! You who have received your correction twice

You who dwell with the daughter of Babylon!

You who will be taken into the hidden place of the Messiah

that place prepared for you in the Corner of Salvation

that place concealed in the shadows of Benjamin

Your beauty will be like the mustard tree in the morning

The righteous dead shall roll out of the prison of the nations

through the tunnels of your roots

and shall rise again in Leah’s land

Souls that are lost sit around or stand around

or walk round and round

They do not honor themselves nor their mate

They cannot find the door to life

They follow their own thoughts as their god

Their spirit is dry and cannot taste the drop of heaven

the dew of Torah

the nectar of the God of joy

On their tongue the Torah burns like a consuming fire

Let them cling to the threads of the garment

of the one who walks inside the Temple menorah

and ignites its flames

He will burn away the callouses of their heart

He will circumcise their eyes

that they might find the door of life

No. 2

No. 3

The living Redeemer has made the widow his bride

The seed that was lost in the wind shall be found

It shall sprout like fields of wheat in Jerusalem

They will rise up in Jacob’s land like the grass of Heaven

like the grass of Jerusalem

the grass that never withers or dies

Those who died in rags shall arise in spun gold

Those who were tossed into heaps of grief

shall be lifted up on waves of Heaven’s wine

They shall be fed and watered with joy

The rivers of the wines of Jerusalem

shall fill the earth with the knowledge of her God

For the Land of Israel shall be the salvation

of all the Earth and Heavens

See notes on Kesubos BT 110 - 111 following, which this poem was based upon.

Mellow Wolf Publications

Copyright ©2009 Max Carl Kirk

Serving Sizes

Mellow Wolf PublishingCopyright ©2009 Max Carl Kirk

Ideas for this poem were taken out of the Babylonian Talmud Kesubos 110 - 111 and put into a context of the revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach and the Good News of Israel.

Kesubos is a tractate of the Talmud that deals with the marriage contract designed by the rabbis according to the Torah to protect the wife in case of marital discord, break down or death. In the section of Kesubos from which the ideas of this poem are taken circumstances which complicate contracts are being mentioned and this leads to a consideration of the differences in legalities for marriages in Judea, Transjordan and the Galilee. This leads then to the discussion about a husband or wife being able to force their family to go up even unto Jerusalem to live. In connection with this, the importance of dwelling in the Land of Israel is discussed and the question of how and when it is permissible to return from Babylon to The Holy Land of the Torah. The discussion focuses in then on how important it is to live and die in Eretz Yisroel, which is the womb of the resurrection of the dead.

Excerpts from BT Kesubos 110 - 111 with comments for reading the poem

A husband or wife can force their family to go up to live in Eretz Yisroel, even in Yerushalayim. BT Kesubos 110b

If a husband is thus forced by his wife but will not go he must release her from the marriage.

Such true conclusions from the Torah divide even the house of God so that it cannot stand, leaving the bride of Mashiach a widow in need of her Redeemer. Mark 3:25 Romans 7:1-3

notes on Kesubos 110 - 111

No. 4

Whoever dwells outside Eretz Yisroel is considered to be as one who is Godless. BT Kesubos 110b For:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God, Leviticus 25:38.

Therefore let them who are called Goyim, and are without God in the world, take hold of the tzitzit of him who is a Jew. For salvation is of the Jews. Ephesians 2:12 Zechariah 12:8 John 4:22

Wheat is destined to grow up straight as a palm tree, rising up with the mountain tops. Its produce will rustle like Lebanon.Psalms 72:16 BT Kesubos 111b

The LORD the God of Israel, will send His Ruach to blow on the stalks of wheat that stand with the top of the mountains in forests like the Lebanon, and their fine flour shall be harvested. Psalms 72:16 BT Kesubos 111b

These are the mountains with which that wheat shall stand, even the mountains of Eretz Yisroel, and Mount Zion, the chief of the holy mountains. For it shall be called the grass of Jerusalem.