Monday, August 8, 2011

Repost: The Mourner's Chair- a Tisha B'av Poem

Looking around the world,
We forget what it's about,
Yes there are some troubles,
But we are comfortable, no doubt.

We look around at life,
At the good times that we see,
We look at all the wealth we have,
Every luxury that could be.

So we become complacent,
Our Galus-cast away.
Minor problems crop up,
And only then we pray.

We ask Hashem for this and that,
But do we know what we need?
If we'd only Daven properly,
Then surely He would heed.

We ask for a good shidduch,
A job and a bit of wealth,
We ask for children who make us proud,
We ask Hashem for health.

But what we really need,
Yet always seem to forget,
Is to see the light of Moshiach,
A light we haven't seen yet.

Sometimes it's a shake-up,
That makes us stand back and say,
How can we have let ourselves
Slip up along the way?

How can we have let ourselves,
Forget why we are here?
Why are we not working,
To bring Mashiach near?

I walk into the shiva house,
And sit down among loud wails;
And I listen in silence as those chairs
Tell us their terrible tales.

Yes the chairs, they tell of pain,
That I can not comprehend.
The pain these chairs see constantly,
They know we need an end.

I may not see much suffering,
When we look at only me,
But think about those mourner's chairs-
That witness suffering collectively.

While we've become complacent,
In a Galus that we can bare,
We must strain to listen to the tales
That come from the mourner's chair.

How many tears has this chair seen?
How many families torn apart?
How many newly orphaned kids,
Crying from the depths of their heart?

Look at these low chairs,
They hold mourners every day.
They never see the easy side,
Of our Galus cast away.

They see the pain of loss,
Of a loved one torn away,
They see the pain of a widow,
Whose world has now turned grey.

How much pain have we all faced,
When we join it all together,
Oh how bad this storm seems now!
How much longer can we weather?

We know we can't continue,
We can't go on this way.
We need Moshiach here,
We need him here today.

This Tisha B'av we'll cry along,
We'll join the mourners in their tears,
We'll ask for an end to this Galus,
That has plagued us for all these years.

We won't become complacent,
We won't forget the chairs,
We won't let ourselves forget,
The mourners and their tears.

We must Daven, we must beg,
We must try to change our ways,
We must look within us and try to see,
A yearning for better days.