God's Amusement Park
A Discussion into English of Yehuda Amichai's "Avinu Malkeinu"
By Joseph Lowin

Twenty-five years ago, in the introduction to her translation into French of Yehuda Amichai's poems, Liliane Tuboul acutely observed that the prayers Amichai learned as a young child became one of the elements of his poetic language. Further, she said, Amichai "has done what no one else had 'dared' to do before him, to integrate the phraseology of holiness into daily spoken language." Tuboul concluded that by rendering the holiness of the language less sacred Amichai made it more vivid in the reader's mind.

What was true twenty-five years ago is no less true in the poem reprinted here, taken from Amichai's last collection of poems, Open Closed Open, published in 2000 on the eve of his death. The poem is found in the section of the book entitled, somewhat irreverently, "Gods Change, Prayers Are Here to Stay." In one of these poems, in the translation of Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld, Amichai rewrites the "Ani Ma'amin" (I Believe) declaration of faith, asserting "I declare with perfect faith that prayer preceded God," who only after that created human beings.

The question arises, should we translate as "Our Father, Our King," the way Bloch and Kronfeld do, the phrase "Avinu Malkeinu," that serves as beginning (line 1), middle (line 5), and end (line 10), of the poem discussed here. Many would agree that no English phrase can do justice to the powerful euphony of the words avinu malkeinu, found in Jewish liturgy most notably at the end of the closing Ne'ila prayer of Yom Kippur.

In the first section of the poem, the poet, flooded with memories of his childhood, is incited by the words avinu malkeinu to ask strange questions about fathers. (1) Avinu Malkeinu, what is a father to do (2) when his children have become orphans while he is still alive? These lines beg the question, how can a child become an orphan if his father is alive? An answer can be found in Amichai's short story, "The Times My Father Died," where the writer laments observing as a child his father's loss of manhood≈a sort of death≈when he was humiliated by the Nazis in Germany.

And then, alluding to present-day Israel, Amichai asks another question that is not exactly the opposite of the first one. What does a father do (3) whose children have died and he becomes a bereaved father till the end of time. (4) He will weep and he will not weep, he will not forget and he will not remember. Here, the father bereft of children will find it possible to weep, to be sure. But mostly, he is to be described in the negative, as having lost more than his children≈as having lost his very humanity. In his bereavement, the father can neither forget nor remember.

And so we turn to the king. (5) Avinu Malkeinu, what is a king to do (6) in a republic of sorrows? He will give them (7) bread and amusements, like all kings, (8) the bread of remembrance and the amusements of forgetting. Once again, in lines 5 and 6, a question asserts itself. What is a king doing in any republic? In a kingdom, one is a subject, and sorrows are meted out indiscriminately. In a republic, one is a citizen, where everyone receives sorrows, so to speak, "equally." Further, why does the poet in line 7 use the word sha'ashu'im, instead of the Hebrew word for circuses? "Bread and circuses" is a familiar term in Western culture, after all. Amichai, however, places his poem inside Jewish culture. Thinking back to his childhood, he is likely alluding to the biblical phrase yeled sha'ashu'im (Jeremiah, 31:20), the dandled child, like the child Amichai was, who has seen the shame and humiliation of his father.

Is this king like any king, despite what Amichai seems to be saying? Every king gives bread and circuses so that his subjects will forget their sorrow. This king gives out bread so that the citizens will remember a better time, and amusements, so that the citizens will forget, not the past, but the present.

In the last two lines, the poet corrects himself and veers away from sorrow and toward a happier ending. (9) Bread and longings. Longings for God (10) and for a better world. Avinu Malkeinu. In verse 9, Amichai changes the sha'ashu'im to ga'agu'im, not forgetfulness but longing. And longing for what? Seemingly out of nowhere (out of the whirlwind of Amichai's musings), Amichai gives us God and a better world, the God that is created by the prayer Avinu Malkeinu, and the better world that only God can create. Leading us back to the beginning of the poem, Amichai ends where he began, with the sound of his childhood, Avinu Malkeinu.

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