Reflections by Rabbi Karen Martin
The Man from Gath by Silvia Margolis (1900-1966) from As the Dial to the Sun
Some vowed it was abandonment
To pure philosophy
That made his stillness biting
And bitter as the sea.
While others swore his arctic silence
Derived from some deep need
To do uncommon penance
For an old and grave misdeed.
But one who knew him best of all
Had only this to say:
Not all the dead are buried,
Not all are laid away.
A few months ago, I was gifted a copy of As the Dial to the Sun by Silvia Margolis. It’s a small book of striking poetry, with images that are poignant and at times perplexing, and at other times gripping in the way they capture a moment. Born in Poland, she was a graduate of OSU and made her home in Dayton. I could have shared any number of her poems here (and will likely share more in the future), but this simple poem felt right for this moment.
In “The Man from Gath,” Margolis creates a portrait of a man who is remote, still, cold, bitter, and uninviting. All these traits are seemingly designed to keep people at a distance. Still, the man is the object of curiosity. It is possible that the title holds some hint as to why this man is an object of interest. Gath was a Philistine city, famously the home of Anakites, giants, including Goliath, David’s outsized opponent. Perhaps there is something about this man’s stature, physically or figuratively, that draws the eye.
The man is not wholly unknown or unknowable, as there is one who knows him at least to some extent, though the narrator is somewhat cagey since “best of all” is relative: it could suggest an intimate, a longer but not necessarily deeper acquaintance, or somewhere in between. From this friend or acquaintance, we learn that the man is cold, remote, and bitter because “not all the dead are buried, not all are laid away,” suggesting that this man is one of this number—dead, but still among the living.
It’s October, so I imagine I’m not the only one whose brain took a little detour to vampires or zombies, but of course Margolis is being metaphorical rather than leaning into the paranormal. Some animating force inside this man is gone.
Margolis’s poem paints the image of one who has closed himself off to companionship, who pushes people away and holds them at a distance. For some reason, something has died within him. The poem speculates about philosophy or past misdeeds and guilt-fueled penance, but the way others hover at the edges, the force with which the titular man drives people away, and even the title’s reference to a city made famous by the death of one of its own all suggest that grief is the cause of the man’s inner death, though we can only speculate on the cause.
At the end of Sukkot, on Shmini Atzeret, the final day of the festival, we change a line in the second blessing of the T’filah, G’vurot, from morid hatal, “who causes the dew to fall,” to mashiv haruach u’morid hagashem, “who causes the wind to shift and the rain to fall.” This change reflects the seasonal change from summer to winter (we switch back at Passover).
In this second blessing, traditional liturgy blesses God “who gives life to the dead” (m’chayeih meitim), and the insertion of dew and rain ties this prayer to the cycles of nature. Reform, reading this phrase literally and rejecting the theology of bodily resurrection, has long substituted the language “who gives life to all.” Mishkan T’filah and Mishkan HaNefesh, our Reform prayerbooks for Shabbat and the High Holy Days, offer both options.
During the Neilah service, the final service of Yom Kippur, I was struck by the following reading offered on the left side of the page:
When greeting a friend after more than a year—say:
“Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.”
When the prisoner is freed and the sick one is healed—say:
“Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.”
When asking forgiveness and the other forgives—say:
“Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.”
When words of Torah unlock the heart and open the eyes—say:
“Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.”
When evil is stopped and goodness prevails—say:
“Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.”
When hope fills the spirit of one who despaired—say:
“Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.”
When the hearts of the parents turn to the children
and the hearts of children turn to the parents—say:
“Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.”
The prayer ends with this translation of the final line of the blessing: “We praise You, eternal Power—Source of our immortal yearnings, our undying hopes.”
This blessing, which draws on the Talmud (B’rachot 58b) and the words of the prophet Malachi (3:24), challenges the idea of death as a permanent end. When read against Margolis’s poem, it is a reminder of hope—we can rekindle lost friendships, we can make amends for wrongdoing, and even in the darkest of despair, so long as we live, there’s the possibility of hope.
As the seasons make their steady way toward the bitter darkness of winter, may we find good companions and nurture that which keeps us warm. And should we encounter the man from Gath, or someone like him, let us extend our hands and try to share our light in the hope that life will find a way to bloom again. Praise the Power that gives life to the dead.
L’Shalom,
Rabbi Karen Martin
September 27, 2026