If this year was a book ...
Plus more on Sarah and the alphabet and opportunities to write your next chapter with me!
One summer, when my niece was a little girl, my family was gathered at the beach for a week, stretched out on our towels or relaxing in our sand chairs and reading books.
One by one we’d flip to the final page of the novel in our hands and sigh, as if saying goodbye to an old friend.
There should be a special prize or ceremony for finishing a book,” my niece, who was about 6 or 7 at the time, exclaimed.
And sure enough, she got to work with markers and scissors and made bookmarks, which she ceremoniously gifted to each of us when we finished our next book.
In the decades since, I’ve cherished the wisdom of her impulse.
There should be a special ritual or blessing for each time we complete a book … or a chapter of our lives.
I’ve since learned that in the Jewish tradition, there is something close: A prayer, which translates as, "Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened!" is chanted upon completing the public reading of each of the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible.
This week, in the communal cycle of reading the Torah, we have completed the book of Genesis, where Sarah’s story lives — and we are about to embark on the book of Exodus, where we pick up on the story of Moses and liberation.
Coincidentally, this moment in the Hebrew calendar lines up with the New Year on our shared calendar.
Together we are turning a page, each in our own life, as we look back and begin to shift our gaze toward what lies ahead.
It’s a liminal time to pause and reflect on where we began and what we are becoming.
So my friends, as you close the book on 2023, be strong, be strong. And whatever The Book of 2024 holds in store for us, may we be strengthened together!
This Week’s Poem, “Sarah With an H.”
Today’s poem is a celebration of the building blocks of any story in its written form: The alphabet.
Why is this project called The Life of H: Sarah Reimagined?
Because the letter H has a starring role in Sarah’s story. It’s the letter that’s added to Sarai and Abram’s names to make them Sarah and Abraham. Hagar, the other main character in this story, didn’t need her name to be augmented, she entered with an H.
What is it about the letter H that is so significant?
When that question first arose in my poetic imagination, I thought: I could write a book about it!
Meanwhile, here’s a poem about it:
Listen to my poem, “Sarah with an H.”
Note: The equivalent of H in Hebrew is the letter Hei. It looks like this: ה
”Sarah With an H,”©️ Copyright Tzivia Gover, Third House Moon, LLC, all rights reserved.
There’s so much I love about sharing The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined with you as a book-in-process, rather than as a finished product.
One of those things is that I get to learn as I write, thanks to feedback from readers.
Last week I wrote:
Sarah’s story was composed for an audience who couldn’t read, because reading, not to mention the alphabet, wasn’t a thing yet.
In response, Dr. Curtiss Hoffman, a friend and a professor emeritus of archaeology, explained that in Sarah and Abraham’s time (anywhere from 2000-1700 BCE) and place (Ur), writing was already well-established. He explained:
… both syllabic and alphabetic cuneiform were in vogue, the former especially at Ur, Abraham's home town. There are also some ancestral Sinaitic alphabets dating a few hundred years earlier which may have been the antecedents to the later Hebrew alphabet.
Speaking of the alphabet, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to study Biblical Hebrew so I can translate some of the texts I’ve been writing about for myself! Stay tuned for more on that …
If you’ve been enjoying The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined, you’ll love these NEW classes:
The Golden Shovel: Digging in Text for New Meaning
Thursday, February 1, 2024, 12-1:30 p.m. EST. FREE
To receive the spiritual impact of our traditional texts, sometimes we need to turn the words upside down and inside out. In this workshop, we will use poetic forms and techniques to bypass the logical brain and discover new levels of meaning and insight in verses from the Torah.
Finding Our Place in the Stories of the Hebrew Matriarch: Sarah
Thursdays, February 29 and March 7, 14, 21, 2024, 12-1:30 p.m. EST, $180
In this 4-week course, we will learn how reclaiming the stories of Sarah and the Hebrew matriarchs through poetic writing can empower us to know ourselves more fully—and access the gifts of wisdom, healing, and joy that are our universal birthright.
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Tzivia, I love this poem—framing (forgive the pun) its theme around a letter of the Hebrew alphabet is such an original and interesting perspective. I appreciate your generosity in sharing your imaginative journey with H and Sarah as it unfolds. May it continue to light our way in 2024! 🤞❤️