Hineni, Here I Am - An Interpretation Of The Akeida - The Binding Of Isaac

Hineni, here I am

And here I will stay

Through socketed heads and crescent shaped blades 

Crusading madmen forsaken - and Inquisitorial courts

Xenophobic monarchs - and the goose stepping sort

Hineni, here I am

My soul ceaseless and free

From the pales of settlement and Zyklon-B

In the face of red and white keffiyeh – and children strapped with bombs

When under the arm of skulking crossbones - and tsarist pogroms

At God’s behest I once was bound

But at His hand, a goat spared my life

Foretelling four thousand years of survival, amidst four thousand years of strife

Hineni, here I am – Am Israel thrives

Od Avinu, Od Avinu, Od Avinu Chai

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Postscript:  The "socketed heads and crescent shaped blades" is a description of battle axes - one of the tools of the Crusades.  The "skulking" crossbones were an intentional play on words, an allusion to Nazi Germany.  The red and white keffiyeh is an allusion to Hamas.  The "pales" of settlement, also a play on words - an allusion to the Jewish settlement that was created by Catherine the Great (Czar Catherine II), the "Pale of Settlement," where the Jewish people were subject to Russian pogroms.