Eyes - wells of wisdom
Brows - pure as snow
Countenance - of heavenly brilliance
and Minds -
That uproot and pulverize
Mountains of knowledge.

And looming in the background:
The howling of Crusaders,
The cry of martyrs
Surrendering their soul,
The screams of the innocent
Brutally violated,
A father in siege
Killing his young
and a bridegroom slaughtering
His hearts beloved

Yet upon the surface
of the fields of Tosfos
Among the furrows of insight
and the flowerbeds of understanding,
Not a tremor, not a shadow.
Only faith as a rock
and thought as a scalpel.

From the Hebrew by Yanki Tauber

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