K’mo Rachel (Like Rachel) from Kol Ha-shirim ad Ko (All the Poems Until Now, United Kibbutz Press, 1995) is an extraorinarily powerful poem by Dahlia Rabikovitch, a contemporary Israeli poet. In it, she imagines the death of Rachel, the Biblical matriarch, during childbirth. The poet deliberatey divorces every other outside object from her consciousness in order to focus almost monomaniacally on the condition of her subject.
The poem is deeply feminist (if that’s not a dirty word to use these days) in invoking the alienation, isolation and oppression suffered by Rachel and her kindred women in the Biblical era (and today as well). The language and syntax of the poem are relatively simple and straightforward which meshes very well with the profound emotional pathos Rabikovitch attemtps to induce in the reader. Like Lincoln’s Gettsburg Address, the simplicity of the rhetoric blends with a profundity of emotion to create a classic expression of humanity suffering.
Special thanks to, Leah Schechter, of the Jewish Theological Seminary Library for providing me the Hebrew text.
Chagall’s Meeting of Jacob & Rachel
To die like Rachel,
With the soul quivering like a bird
Seeking to flee.
Across from the tent stood Jacob and Joseph terrified.
They spoke about her in a shudder.
All the days of her life tumble within her
Like an infant seeking to be born.
How hard.
The love of Jacob devoured her wholly.
Now, as the soul departs,
She has no more desire for all this.
Suddenly the infant wailed
And Jacob came to the tent.
But Rachel does not feel
Rejuvenation washes her face
And head.
A great peace has descended upon her,
The breath of her soul will not rustle a feather.
They laid her between the stones of the hills
And did not mourn her.
I wish
To die like Rachel.
translation © 2003 Richard Silverstein
published in the Berkeley Graduate, January, 1982
כמו רחל
למות כמו רחל
כשהנפש רועדת כציפור
רוצה להימלט.
מעבר לאוהל עמדו נבהלים יעקב ויוסף,
דיברו בה רתת.
כל ימי חייה מתהפכים בה.
כתינוק הרוצה להיוולד.
כמה קשה.
אהבת יעקוב אכלה בה
בכל פה
עכשיו כשהנפש יוצאת
אין לה חפץ בכל זה.
לפת צווח התינוק
ובא יעקוב אל האןל
א רחל אינה מרגישה
עדנה שוטפת את פגיה
ורואשה.
מנוכה גדולה ירדה עליה.
נשמת אפה שב לא תעיד נוצה.
היניחו אותה בין אבני הרים
ולא היספידוה.
למות כמו רחל
אני רוצה.
[apologies for Typepad’s scrambling of Hebrew punctuation]
