Roamin Poem by gershon hepner

Spazieren is a word that means
to roam without restraint
when spirit takes you to the scenes
that planning cannot taint.
Spontaneously do it, without
a guide book or a map,
Shabbat the best time to break out,
once you have had your nap,
but if your schedule’s tight and you
have then no time to roam,
because it’s hard to be a Jew
unless you are home,
you have to leave home to explore
without restraint the places
that otherwise you might ignore,
while stifled in your stasis.


About two years ago I heard Rabbbi Dr. Nathan Cardozo talk about Shabbat as the ideal time for a Jew can go spazieren, and walk around without any ulterior motives or goals. He explained that this may be the reason why carrying is forbidden on Shabbat, and explained that once every four weeks he pretends there is no eruv, not carrying anything. Abby Aguirre writes about the pastime of an Arab in Ramallah, which is “sarha, ” the Arabic word for roaming (“Roaming Freely in the Land of Restraints, ” NYT, August 13,2008) :
There is an Arabic word for Raja Shehadeh’s pastime. “Sarha is to roam freely, at will, without restraint, ” he writes in “Palesinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape, ” an account of six walks in the West Bank, which won this year’s Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent award for political writing, and was published by Scribner in the United States in June. “A man going on a sarha wanders aimlessly, not restricted by time and place.” Of course, it is difficult not to be restricted by time and place in the occupied territories, where movement is everyday more limited by a growing number of Israeli-built fences, walls, barriers, checkpoints, settlements and the separate roads constructed to link them. But Mr. Shehadeh — a lawyer and founder of Al Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization, who apart from a sojourn in London for law school has lived his entire life in Ramallah — still tries. One recent walk began on the side of a road near the village of Ein Sinya, a short drive from the city center. Mr. Shehadeh took measured steps down a trail lined with sage, Syrian thistle, flowering oregano and wild artichoke. On either side rose limestone-buttressed terraces of olive trees. “We have an exquisite quality of light here, ” he said, motioning to the surrounding buttes.

8/13/08