FEATURE
POEM WITHIN
A YOUNG POET’S SEARCH FOR SPIRITUALITY
AND HIS DESIRE TO REACH OUT TO HIS DYING
MOTHER LED HIM TO PLACES HE COULD NEVER
HAVE IMAGINED BY GABRIEL ETHANS
D
ID YOU EVER LOSE SOMETHING THAT YOU
really loved? You search aimlessly in
the dark, running back and forth
from one room to the other, hoping desperately to find it. Your mind is eaten up with
thoughts about where it might be, who
might have found it. You imagine it lying
somewhere all alone, afraid. I spent years of
my life searching for something that I had
lost, trying to fill the lonely, homesick feeling I had inside. The only problem was that
14 JEWISH LIFE
ISSUE 67
I had no idea what I was looking for.
I was anxiously waiting to graduate high
school and get far away from New York
City. The city was stifling for me; I couldn’t
breathe under the shadow of the great dark
towers that blocked out the sun. My soul
yearned to travel and be alive, free of the
faceless metropolis. The first chance I got
after graduation, I bought a standby ticket
for any flight to Europe, and ended up flying to Ireland with a childhood friend. That
was my first taste of the world, and it tasted wonderful. It only succeeded in whetting
my appetite for more.
My next trip was much longer. Six
months backpacking in Europe – France,
England, Spain, Italy, Hungary. Nothing
could stop me. I had discovered spirituality
and was searching for answers to quench
the thirst inside my soul. Everywhere I
went I met spiritual people who helped to
guide me in my quest. I wanted to study the
world’s religions, and Judaism was the last
on my list. I decided to stop telling people
that I was Jewish.
After months of travelling, I started to feel
that Europe didn’t possess the answers I was
looking for, and decided to go to the Far East.
There I could find the truth. The only thing
that kept me from attempting to hitch to In-
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FINDING THE