The Debt of the Light

 “The Debt of the Light”

I begged, I wept, I called His name,

and suddenly the heavens came.

A flash of warmth, a holy breeze—

I thought I’d found eternal ease.

But the Light that comes without my sweat

is a loan the soul will soon regret.

For every spark I did not earn

must burn me back until I learn.

The prayer was sweet, the labor spared,

but later came the weight I dared.

The debt collectors of the night—

They take from me my borrowed light.

The heart must bleed to make a Kli,

the vessel forged in agony.

Each tear a coin, each sigh a fee,

for Love’s true home is poverty.

So don’t believe what shines too fast,

the Light unearned will never last.

Labor till your bones are numb,

till every “I” is overcome.

Then when the darkness starts to sing,

and ego dies beneath its sting,

the Light returns—but now it’s yours,

engraved in toil, not Heaven’s stores.

Only he who pays in pain

can keep the joy that’s born from strain.

The debt of Light is love’s decree—

I labored, found—now I believe.

The Dot that Burns Forever

“The Dot that Burns Forever”

I stand in the night with no lamp in my hand,

A slave to a will I don’t understand.

The light has fled, the songs all died,

And still I whisper, “There’s nowhere to hide.”

I am a dot, black, alone, unseen—

No white around me, no in-between.

The proud fall high, the wise go blind,

But I stay tied in one knot, mind to Mind.

They call me beast, they call me dust,

They mock my faith, they crush my trust.

Yet in this ruin, a secret grows—

The darker the wound, the brighter it glows.

No more do I beg for abundance or show,

For what comes and goes is not mine to know.

I serve in the ashes, I breathe in the pain,

Till exile turns into Eden again.

For I am black but beautiful, scarred yet whole,

A vessel cracked open, revealing the Soul.

The Shechina sighs through my broken chest,

“I live in the dust—but here, I rest.”

So let me stay empty, humble, and small,

For that’s where the Aleph enters all.

And the dot—once dead, once lost, once shamed—

Becomes the spark through which worlds are named.