For Sarah

Sarah, we're needing a good laugh these days,we're needing eyes that refuse to flinchat the absurdities. We're needingclarity eccentric enough to namewhat really is instead of what everyone elseis saying is. Sarah, we're needing you.

It's a wild world out here, Sarah.Contradictions go unnamed, injustice reigns.Haredim in Holy Jerusalem deluge the copswith dirty diapers to protest a parking lot;the Feds here arrested a Brooklyn rabbifor laundering dirty money. His friend,another rabbi, admitted he boughtkidneys low to sell high.

I hear you say, "Some living."

In the U.S. Congress, no one questions ifhuman health should be a for-profit business.In the great state of Californiathey solved their budget crisis today by cuttingfunds for public education,aid and services to the poor, the elderly,the handicapped,because they won't raise taxes on yachts.Unemployment is soaring but bailed outGoldman Sachs is making more money than ever. Sarah, since you left, the worst became even fullerof passionate intensity and the best?The best twitter.

Sarah! surely a new musical comedy should be at handsurely if you were here you would be immersedin writing the libretto. I can see it now—as organs play "My Yiddishe Mama," the stage fills upwith black-coated, white-bearded rabbis drawingclothes pins from golden sacks as theyhang each other out to dry whileSophie bedecks herself, Wall Street lucre, Molly prances,and Fanny belts out one of your songs.Julie—just married, you should know—applauds.

Together they overwhelm us allwith wry, pointed, outrageous jokes, makingus all laugh, laugh, laugh awaythe exorbitant pain around us,in us,just as, for most of the years of your life, you knewso remarkably how to do.