For Yom HaAtzmaut: Shuli Rand's "The Poet" and the Journey Towards Peace

In honor of Yom HaAtzmaut, I taught a song of Shuli Rand’s in the high school this week called Hameshorer, “The Poet.”

The song tells a story about Shuli Rand, a Haredi Israeli singer, and a friend of his, a famous secular Israeli poet. In the song the two meet while swimming in a pool and again on a city bench. Both times they connect and converse but end up in argument and discord over religious questions. “You said no. I said yes. If I said there is, you laughed, there isn’t.” The second time, Shuli says they almost end up coming to blows over the argument. A huge gulf opens between them.

The song begins with argument but ends with peace. In the final scene, the secular poet is sick in the hospital, “entangled in frightening tubes” and Shuli comes to visit him. This time, they talk little. Shuli says, “I had feelings. I had no words.” They both sense the end is near. They both see the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, above the poet’s bed. They do not speak. They cry together. Shuli blesses his friend: Sa Leshalom. “Travel in peace.” And the friend answers: “Amen.”

Peace. Shalom. How do we move from argument to peace? Shuli Rand shows us here. The answer is Shekhinah. Not just Divine Presence, but human presence. Perhaps we can even say that the Divine Presence is drawn down to earth in places, as here, where humans are being present for one another. There is a quality of presence here that we don’t normally achieve. It is presence beyond words and beyond the ego involvement of an argument. Beyond -- I’m right. You’re wrong. We each need to defend our positions. To be present is not to be right but to care, to connect. The illness of the poet helps them see what matters, helps them see their shared humanity and mortality and understand that to be right is not as important as to love, to connect, to be at peace with another.

Ideological divisions abound in this world. What ultimately drives peace may not just be national or international work, but simple encounters like the one described in this song, person by person, in intimate and less intimate relationships, simple everyday encounters where we learn not always to assert our views with words and arguments, but to cry together, to feel together, to be present and connected, simple encounters where we ask ourselves – do I want to be right or do I want to be at peace?

Sa Leshalom. May we all be travelling daily toward peace and presence.