This evocative line is from the Baal Shem Tov and is also the title of the recently released book of poetry by Baruch November, a literature professor at Touro University in New York City (published by Ben Yehuda Press, 2025).
The poems in this volume travel physically to New York City, Eastern Europe, and Israel; and psychically through regrets, missed chances, and lost love. It is at times so achingly vulnerable it hurts to read. Interspersed among these works on heartache, but no less important, are poems of Jewish and familial history as well as on Jewish sports heroes the reader may or may not be familiar with, such as the boxer Victor Perez. All of his poems are infused with a feeling of Jewish strength as well as a Chassidic beauty that could only be written so effortlessly by one who has studied deeply its lessons.
At times the poems veer close to pathos then turn sharply, often to remind the reader of greater traumas, as in this stanza from The Lost Golem:
Like a beam of light,
loneliness seems infinite:
Your intended’s lineage
must have severed long before she could even exist-
her ancestors rounded up at Babi Yar or some place
no longer on a map.
With an artist’s eye, November is skilled at creating streetscapes and landscapes with words, so painterly in vision that the reader is there with him as he fills these scenes with people, events and often heartache. This is no surprise as the poet curates at least one social media page devoted to visual art, with an appreciation of 19th Century and early 20th Century masterworks.
One comes away from The Broken Heart is the Master Key understanding that the poet’s unique voice expresses the same belief in every aspect of his life, which is that little separates him from God, the light that infuses our world, and the heartbreak within it.
The Jewish Poets Collective will be hosting Baruch on September 18. Link to register for the poetry reading is here.
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