God's Repentance On Yom Kippur Poem by gershon hepner

God's Repentance On Yom Kippur



Tricks are narrative competing
in contests for belief
between two parties never meeting
halfway. Like a thief,
each party steals attention that
the other party claims,
asserting it can smell a rat
when those whom it calls names
have narratives they think support
their versions. All is fair
in battles that are fought in court
when truth is not laid bare,
as narratives compete in trials
while neither party budges,
though both may be waylaid by wiles
and knowing winks of judges,
allowing dubious evidence
to help the parties whom
they favor, and this way dispense
their verdicts that spell doom
to those whom they don’t favor, and
in ways quite similar suppress
the evidence that might well hand
to one side the success
that it deserves because of it.
The judge determines who
will win and who will take a hit,
and authorized to do
whatever validates his power,
full of sound and fury
towards both parties. He won’t glower
ever at the jury,
which trusts the narrative, according
to every judge respect.
He’d lose it if they saw him lording
over the effect
which juries think that they, not he,
should have on what he tries,
by what he rules compelled to be
accomplices in lies.

Having written this, it’s odd
that we think we may win
our life trials when the judge is God,
the evidence our sin,
for He is not our peer, although
we’re in His image made,
so how can He correctly know,
while programmed to upbraid,
what makes men do what they all do
because they are not gods.
He doesn’t share our point of view,
and gives us dreadful odds.
I do believe that on Yom Kippur
when to Him many Jews
make journeys as a one-day tripper,
we all ought to refuse
to let Him be our judge before
He’s willing to repent
for being a judgmental bore,
and give divine consent
to all appeals that we may make.
On that day on the rest
I’m willing to give God a break
if He pleads “No contest.”

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