Shabbat

By Maya Pindyck

Dig the ditch for the dirt
and not for the hole, as does the man
who wishes to skirt the holy laws,
and whose sons, in the same spirit,
butcher open bags of potato chips
so that no bag remains, so that no one
can accuse them of reusing that bag
for some utilitarian purpose.

Cutting off the head of a chicken
is another story. You think you can
cut off a chicken’s head for its beak
and the chicken won’t die? The rabbis
have decided that no such intention
can be true, unless the Jew in question
is really stupid. Such are the laws
hanging by a thread from the mountain.