With Feathers

Lately I feel that I have been more cautious and cryptic here than once.

I am fascinated by the connection between jealousy and hope. Five months ago I wrote this tanka on the topic, which I posted together with some other things, such as excerpts from Debra Winger's memoir. That post had a nice thread of comments.

When one is jealous

One seeks to destroy that thing

That makes one jealous

Unless there is hope that is

Then one learns from jealousy

Nine months ago I conceived this paragraph, based on the insight of a friend, which later led to the tanka:

Jealousy is most destructive when hopelessness runs high. Jealousy is human. If one is jealous and has hope then one can combine the information gained from the jealousy, i.e. what one really wants, and then with the surrounding hope make positive efforts. If, G-d forbid, hopelessness is pervasive, then one destroys that which one is jealous of, both in others that have it in a developed form as well as whatever amount of the desired trait one has within oneself.

Over this Shabbos I thought of a chidush:

The mishnah says that kin'ah, ta'ava, and kavod - jealousy, desire, and honor remove a person from this world. If these things can remove a person from the world then that means you need to be struggling with them - to some extent - to be in this world in the first place.

This poem just came to mind:

Hope

By Emily Dickinson

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Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune--without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

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I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.