Wake up!  The day marches on.  It's redemption day!  We're free!  Redeemed of our slavery to our restrictions.  It's redemption day!  Pack your belongings.  Pack their gifts.  There's a perilous road home just outside these gates.  Don't be afraid.  HaShem's Will and wisdom is your guiding hand.  The terrain is rough, filled with pits, Amalekis and broken glass.  We will make it together, together with Him.  It's redemption day!  Our freedom to perform mitzvos is our freedom from the ties that bind.  Hurry!  Hurry! before the soul of the animal within has time to protest.  Now is the time to free ourselves of the chometz that inflates the everyday.  We need to be flat, nullified, moldable, for the love of G-d to enter us like our only breath.  It's redemption day!  The taste doesn't need to be bitter anymore.  Tonight our tears can be as sweet as the 4 cups of joy we drink.  It's redemption day!

 
Chag Sameach.

Efrayim & Devorah Levenson

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To submit your poem of Jewish and/or Israeli content email bbresky@israelnationalradio.com with the subject line: Poetry Submission.

The yeshiva rock competition is back. Unity of the Bands is this Thursday Feb 25th.

Featuring:
* Nechemia and Az Yashir (last year's winners)
* Avi Ganz - Gushe's "Jerusalem Sound Factory"
* Yaniv Hoffman - "Shirah Atikah"
* Sruli Portnoy and The Steeze
* Psalms - yojo140
* DJ Ezra Leyton
* Yehuda David of Rockiah
* Shtar - acoustic hip-hop set and preview of new album

Location: Shorashim in downtown Jerusalem, 13 Shamai Street, 8pm.

For more info visit http://www.music4theyouth.com or call 057--317-5856.

Day After Day
by Roni Kadish
Moshav Neve Yarak

Dedicated to my daughter-in-law's mother, a survivor of Auschwitz and slave laborer.

When winds gale,
Freeze eyes shut,
I think of her
Driven on icy feet in a weaving line
Over bodies buried in mud.

I shudder at her memories-
Stories of furnaces,
Beatings,
Tears that dried before they fell.

See scattered bones,
Her hands outstretched for crusts of bread.
I'm with her
When hearts stop beating,
And flames devour souls.

My mother's cries follow me day after day.

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To submit your poem of Jewish and/or Israeli content email bbresky@israelnationalradio.com with the subject line: Poetry Submission.

Life is a Riddle
by Nosson Kohn
 
Life is a Riddle,
who can figure it out?
better know the secret,
don't be in doubt

That which seems sweet
turns out to be bitter,
you only find out in the end
once its too late

That which is feared most of all-
death is its name
turns out to be
-just life re-birthing-
in a higher plane
 
Letting go of what you want
is the only way to get it,
to improve your performance,
stop thinking about it.

To make the most of time,
loose track of it.
To avoid worrying about the future,
focus on the present moment

The way to the pleasant life
is through hard work,
those who destroy their desires
experience endless pleasure.

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To submit your poem of Jewish and/or Israeli content email bbresky@israelnationalradio.com with the subject line: Poetry Submission.

5th lumbar remade
by Yosef Tzafnat-Paneiach

in a small dark room
before the dawn, memories
of treblinka and sobibor,
of warsaw and tel hai.
in iraq, david raziel dies--for the enemy.
in america, uncomfortable questions--
suppressed but never silenced.
a victim, but a victor...arlosoroff, shalhevet, gandhi.

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To submit your poem of Jewish and/or Israeli content email bbresky@israelnationalradio.com with the subject line: Poetry Submission.