Poem: Do Not Allow a Witch to Live

Torah shouts:
all women who practice witchcraft must be put to death!

Talmud reports:
rabbinic sages believed their wives all practiced witchcraft.

How could they know—
with hoary heads bent deep in ancient texts,
eyes squinting, dimming, failing—chanting incantations—
black beards growing grayer, longer as each black word
was ripped apart and scrutinized?

Did they carve out time
to follow us to caves where we baked our holy cakes
lovingly shaped like our own sacred vaginas
that delivered their sons and redeemed our daughters?

Could they discover
with myopic eyes—for study with men and boys alone—
our fragrant green groves deep in heavy woods
where we offered cakes to the Queen of Heaven
chanting woven incantations,
dancing slow in snaking rhythms
shaded by the oaks?

Were they watching closely
when we kindled Shabbes candles
with fire from our burning fingertips alone
or etched amulets in praise of Mother Eve
who dared to dally with the serpent theologically—
her husband’s heavy lids closed but never close
until food was on the table,
when we sang our poems in transgressive women’s voices
that could drown their own in holy praise
if only they would let us sing?

How observant are these men
when I braid my Shabbes challahs in snake-like strands
as God wove Eve’s hair in Eden moments
before the day of rest,
or when I form the challahs’ vulval shapes,
bake them golden in the cave of my oven,
presenting them hot and holy on the oaken table
for their blessing or their curse?


Poetry Editor Alicia Ostriker comments: Now that the world is ready to “let us sing,” Jewish women are invoking prehistories in which their ancestresses offered worship to holy female figures and formed emblems of their sacred sexuality, implying perhaps that we should see these women (and ourselves, when we bake cakes shaped like vulvas) not as witches but as priestesses. Remember that in Jeremiah ch 44. the prophet angrily rebukes women for worshiping “the queen of heaven,” but they defend themselves saying that women have always done so — and that the people prospered then, and are “consumed by famine and the sword” when they stop this worship. Notice that the word “observant” has multiple meanings in this poem — men may be “observant” to Jewish law, but be unable to see — to observe — the realities of women. A nice irony here.