With the chaos and problems in the world, some would say there is no time for poetry. But when done well, it can help inspire and remind the Jewish neshama that there are still days ahead and it is our duty to use them to the fullest.
Touro University Professor Baruch November’s new book, The Broken Heart Is The Master Key, employs a storytelling, cinematic style that fuses introspection and humor with perilous pain. The title of his book are words said by the Baal Shem Tov, and one of November’s strongest poem’s is the final one called “The Loudest Language.”
“Despair is the loudest language in all worlds/Ask the mother of the stolen seven-year-old girl/ Ask the widowed wives still in love/Ask the newly dead as they look down/Ask the soldier missing both arms.”
Note that November claims it is the loudest language yet does not comment on whether or not it is understood.
On a much lighter note, we’ve all been at stores wondering if a certain food item was fresh. In “The Stars Drowned Beneath Us,” he describes a scene featuring his grandfather, who battled Nazis and later worked as a kosher butcher. “Once a lady asked him/if the ground meat was fresh/again and again and again/until he took a handful of it – pressed it against her face.”
A prevailing theme of the book is having emunah despite not having one’s desires met. In his first poem, “After Esav,” he muses that perhaps he is still single because of his red hair as the Biblical figure had. November, who is Modern Orthodox, recounts in another poem how he dated a Cuban Jewish woman who told him she loved him, but it did not work out. It is considered somewhat taboo for an Orthodox man to complain about never being married, but it is commendable for a poet to allow vulnerability when many others in the same position would not do so.
In “Closer to Mars,” November takes a small shot at environmentalist atheists, writing “The authorities believed in the immortality of plastic bags but not in G-d.”
The standout poem, which deals with the age-old hatred of Jews, is “To Be Wicks.” He writes: “But after ages of being trampled, buried in shallow pits, racked in the Inquisition, experimented upon by the master race, still we build our schools and shuls everywhere, learn our mystical texts telling us that only our bodies serve as wicks for the flames of G-dliness.
With a month left of summer, The Broken Heart Is The Master Key is a fine fit because it is an entertaining read that throws in the whole kitchen sink but manages to cook. As a baseball fan, I appreciate “The Tiger of Detroit,” positing that every homer hit by Hank Greenberg in 1938 was against Hitler. He uses an example of missing a shot in basketball as missing some goals in life, and is self-deprecating, referring to himself as a “miserable guest” at a giant party for Jewish singles, without saying why.
Part of November’s talent is including great rabbis and musicians like Johnny Cash in an organic way that comes across as a heartfelt expression rather than a literary stunt.
November’s book is a delightful smorgasbord of poems you will want to put on your plate, though some will take some will take time for emotional digestion. The funny moments sometimes come out of nowhere, like they do in life. This is a book by someone who believes poetry should be easily accessible to people, and also someone who shows humility.
This book is more personal that his 2019 book Bar Mitzvah Dreams, while demonstrating a greater sense of urgency. Jews face battles on a national level and on an individual level in our personal, religious, and work lives. We will not win every battle. But these poems hint that even if we feel defeated in any fight, G-d leaves the door open.
November is he older brother of award-winning chassidic poet Yehoshua November, whose latest book is The Concealment of Endless Light.
The Broken Heart Is The Master Key is a captivating book that that will make you laugh, think of your family, and question what tools you are using in your daily and lifelong battles.
