Cousin Mendel Expounds

When cousin Mendel got carried away,
Arguing politics, or religion, or
Proper social behavior—
What’s the difference —
When cousin Mendel got carried away,
Which was often,
As he took the world 
Quite seriously,
When cousin Mendel got carried away
His Yiddish inflected accent,
Basted in Warsaw Polish,
Cured with functional German,
Spiced with care by Parisian French,
Simmered for a few years
In Barcelonan, then Havanan, Spanish.
He was nearly unintelligible in
His late acquired New York English.

So when cousin Mendel got carried away,
He became quite fastidious 
In his choice of words.
He knew, with dictionary certainty,
Exactly what the word he used meant,
And would not tolerate my
Native English sloppiness.  
“We are not humpty-dumpty.
Each words means what it means.
If it doesn’t mean what it means,
How could we agree as to what
It might mean.  After all,”
He noted with a residual
Talmudic pride,
“It is by words that worlds
Are moved.”

So argued this ninety-odd year old
Who demanded that words 
Are what are used
To make sense of the world.

He had left the synagogue at
Thirteen, and went left and red,
Befitting the day, shul life
Too stifling.
But he was proud
To retain the method.
Even if God did not form the world,
He still created it with a word.

Cousin Mendel
01/28/1906 - 03/17/2003
Ta’anit Esther
13th Adar
13 March 2025