February 3, 2003

He was all of us

And he knew he was all of us.

He felt it to the bone.

As Colonel Ramon pierced the firmament of planet earth

reaching yet higher, past his home, upward to enter the endless heavens

he held his mother's hand,

and his father's

and his grandparents'.

All their memories and memorabilia, their suffering and their victory.

He held my hand, too, and the hand of every one of us that ever was

and he held all the millennia of our people as living objects in his 

capsule

Not sefardi, not ashkenazi

Not secular, not ultra-orthodox

Not north, not south, not West Bank, not Diaspora

Not Ramon

A Jew.

And in that final moment of a space pilot's glory

as the Unfathomable One stretched forth his arm in embrace

as the stars made room for him in the heavens

In that ultimate moment of supreme oneness,

in awe, through his lips the Eternal Jew uttered,

"Listen, Israel, the Source of Being, our G-d, the Source of Being is 

One."

And the vast emptiness beyond

echoed an awesome voice,

"Who is like Your people, Israel! A nation of oneness

upon the earth."

There is hope, for we are one.

There is hope for all our planet earth.

By Tzvi Freeman