The poems in Yehoshua November’s recently published Two Worlds Exist very much reflect the everyday—but not necessarily mundane—realities of the author’s life, which revolve around upholding his commitments to career, family, and God as a ḥasidic Jew. Reviewing the book, Sarah Rindner compares it with the author’s first published effort, God’s Optimism.
In November’s first collection, one sensed the earnest journey of a young religious poet as he experimented with different ways in which Jewish themes could be brought to poetic life without pushing theological boundaries. One poem was titled “How a Place Becomes Holy,” another, non-ironically, “The Purpose of This World.” In these short, sweet, and fundamentally optimistic poems, November expressed the faith of a ba’al t’shuvah [a newcomer to religious observance] who has discovered a new world. . . .
From a literary standpoint, [some of his observations were] a bit pat. [But] November was giving voice to an aspect of human experience that modern poetry, the precious lyrics produced in MFA workshops, had largely if not entirely forgotten. I borrowed the copy of God’s Optimism that I read from a man who kept it in his tallis bag.
November’s new collection is not disillusioned, but there is an ache and a weariness that wasn’t present in his earlier book. November seems to have made some discoveries about what it means to be a ḥasidic family man in suburban New Jersey, which, while perhaps no more onerous than any other kind of existence, involves its own unique challenges. Faith is not an end-point in this collection—he isn’t defending the wisdom of Judaism in a way that might be credible in a graduate poetry seminar. In Two Worlds Exist, Judaism is [instead] the ground on which November grapples with the seriousness of life. As he writes at the end of the title poem of the collection. . . . Judaism may not solve life’s problems, but it may, perhaps like poetry itself, heighten one’s sensitivity to them.
Read more on Jewish Review of Books: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2537/mystical-teachings-do-not-erase-sorrow/