"Cokboy" by Jerome Rothenberg

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link to other Rothenberg articles on the wiki Total Translation

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Possible context: Looking at Jerome Rothenberg's Polish Trilogy, Triptych
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This link says 1974

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Is this an earlier manifesto? How do we connect the commentary afterwards to the rest of the anthology / how we have received him. Can we find the interview was excerpted from?

the numbers vanishing in kabbalistic time
that brings all men together
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the distance vanishing in kabbalistic time
(he says) the old man watches (Rothenberg “Cokboy”)

Kabbalah (Hebrew, lit. “reception”) is the esoteric study of Jewish literature. Rooted in close readings of the Torah, Kabbalistic readings indulge in poetic thinking that attunes the reader to the concealed reality underlying all existence. Take for example the lyrics of Moses in Psalm 90:

For in Your sight a thousand years
are like yesterday that has passed,
like a watch of the night.

One reading of this passage explains the cosmology of the seven day creation myth in the first book of the Torah, Genesis. A Kabbalistic reading will infer the length of the age of the world, 5785 at the time of writing this wiki-page, and project a teleological end of days at the completion of the 7th millennium, that is, a transition from the world that we know into a Messianic future. Other examples of Kabbalistic time would be reading into the symbolism of the festivals, like the counting of the omer, a ritual count between two pilgrimage holidays, Passover in the spring and Shavuous in the summer. With kabbalistic knoweldge, the count becomes a transformative spiritual exercise, a rectification or a cleaning up of the soul through a mystical relationship to time. For more on the seferiotic structures of the omer visit Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg'sneohasid.

Check out this book chapter by Moshe Idel for further reading on the diversity of chronotypes: “higher than time⇝: Observations on some concepts of time in kabbalah and hasidism”

Because of the kabbalist's affection for linguistic play and the Hebrew language's dual use of letters as numbers, gematria, or numerological symbolism, opens up a portal of cosmological understanding through literary learning that values puzzles and riddles. Rothenberg explored the creative constrains of gematria for the creation of English language poetry in his book Gematria Read me on the internet archive

when the Baal Shem visited America
he wore a shtreiml
the locals all thought he was a cow boy
maybe from Mexico
“a cockboy?”
no a cowboy (Rothenberg)

The custom to wear this festive fur hat is a distinguishing look of many chassidic men, a stylized outward representation of the inward holiness of the Sabbath and holidays.

moving up & down
in the vision of the Cuna nele
the virion of my grandfather
vision of the Baal Shem in America

Chassidus emerges in Jewish literary history with the teachings of Israel Ben Eliezer (1698-1760), known by Chassidim as the Baal Shem Tov , Hebrew “Master of the Good Name” or by the acronym BeShT בש׳׳ט . From the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the town of Mezhbizh, the Baal Shem Tov attracted local attention as wandering sage and miracle worker. His teachings drew upon the esoteric dimensions of Jewish mysticism brought down in Kabbalah that emphasize the role of ecstatic prayer and the individual experience of devokut, ecstatic union with G-d. The Besht would teach primarily in Yiddish, the spoken language of Eastern European Jews during his days. His students would pass down his sayings and prayers, but a majority of the Besht's teachings were transcreated into Hebrew. Such as it is with most translation ethics in Jewish literature, the legacy of the original text depends on the translator's capability to package the source material for the present. The transmission of the teachings of Eastern European Chassidic rebbes, who followed after the Baal Shem Tov, relied on an organized dispersion of personal correspondence, scribal copies of letters, ma'amarim (discourses on mystical topic in the Torah and Kabbalistic texts). Through the spheres of dynastic influence across Eastern Europe, the courts of the chassidic rebbes dispersed their Torah knowledge through original compositions, thus actualizing their central monist doctrine that “there is no place devoid of Him” (Tikkunei Zohar, Tikkun 57).

Repeated without words for centuries
“hey heya heya” but translates it
as “yuh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-hum”
when the Baal Shem (yuh-buh) leans to do a bundle
what does the Baal Shem (buh-buh) put into the bundle?

“in a large tent somewhere in America
the story of the coming forth begins” (Rothenberg “Cokboy”)

The sacred place were Moses would learn the Torah from Hashem. Rothenberg draws parallels between the indigenous tent sanctuary of the Jewish people during their nomadic period of forty years in the Sinai desert. For more on the symbolism of the tent in the Torah, especially the arrangement of the camp based on tribal affiliation visit this Sefaria source study sheet.

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“vot em I doink here
how vass I lost tzu get here”
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וואט עם איי דאינק הייר
הא וואס איי לאסט צו געט הייר

“jews & gentiles
who bring the Law to Wilderness
(he says) this man
is me my grandfather
& other men-of-letters
men with letters carrying the mail
lithuanian pony-express riders”
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“who threaten my beard your hair”
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“& will make our kind the Senator from Arizona” –> who is this in reference to Barry Goldwater (pennsounds reading)
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“has all the letters going backwards”
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“but will search for my brother Esau among these redmen”
“ what have they seen in common
by what light their eyes
have opened into stars
I wouldn't know
what I was doing here
this place has all the letters going
backwards a reverse in time
toward wilderness”
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QUESTIONS I have
What is pripitchok? Is it related to the song —> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyfn_Pripetshik???

Here is a performance of OYFN PRIPETSHIK - A Yiddish Classic (Lea K & Rabbi T). Lea Kalisch is a contemporary recording artist. Here is an excerpt from her youtube bio: “Lea creates eclectic, JEWCY music, blending languages and styles, like a smoothie. From Hasidic to Hip Hop, Rap to Rumba, she does it all. She's a SHTETL Neshume and a Jewish glamour QUEEN. Her goal: To sing in Yiddish at the super bowl with a shtreimal on her head!”