Hello! My name is Yaacov David Shulman, and I'm a creative writer, translator and editor.
I so much liked your perfect Little Psalms, some of them so much in the spirit (and often the language-of-feeling) of Yiddish poetry. You've created a fine amalgam of the American tongue and its sensibilities, and your new/old yeshiva explorations.
—Cynthia Ozick, winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award, 2008.
Yaacov David Shulman is a master translator who is able to capture the language, the poetry and the beauty of Rav Kook’s Hebrew, which is often very difficult to read in the original, even by people who are very literate in Hebrew.
—Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, president emeritus of the Orthodox Union (OU).
Dot-Letter-Word is my opportunity to share with you:
My Writing: mostly poetry.
My Translating: great spiritual Jewish texts by Rav Kook, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the Piaseszner Rebbe, and others.
Bonus: occasional songs.
Click here to join the mailing list and get the latest updates or to hire me to edit or translate your work..
what's new
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New Poems, Stories, Songs
July 21, 2019 In the Maelstrom July 19, 2019 You Wear Your Praying Mantis Mask July 17, 2019 My Tank Was Drained, and I Looked Around July 14, 2019 The Ship Slips from Its Moorings July 11, 2019 If You Forget the Forest July 8, 2019 Words Seep Down July 5, 2019 I'm Not a Kangaroo What's Worth Forgetting July 4, 2019 Sometimes, It Helps to Read a Book July 3, 2019 The Fake Nice Guy June 28, 2019 When You Get Right Down to It June 27, 2019 The Holy Road June 25, 2019 Song is the Source of Wisdom June 21, 2019 Jules Verne Didn't Know June 19, 2019 One Can Ask a Hundred Foot Wave June 18, 2019 Great June 17, 2019 Many Times June 14, 2019 It's Only Natural June 12, 2019 The Best Thing for the Living June 11, 2019 Through the Body The Sound of the Creek June 7, 2019 The Judean Date Palm Lives in Ketura June 3, 2019 A Field of Gravity June 2, 2019 The Branches Got Tangled in the Wind May 31, 2019 All Those Little Seeds May 24, 2019 If You Leave the Small Mountain May 23, 2019 The Giant Tramps Back and Forth Whatever the Gull Wants The Music Is Only There Because He Forgot that His Body Was a Part of Him May 17, 2019 If You're Thirsty, Have a Drink Sit Down There, and Stay Alert May 15, 2019 The Truth Is Your Soul May 14, 2019 All He Wanted Was to Leave May 10, 2019 There He Was, Claude Rains May 8, 2019 I Remember Every Road May 3, 2019 Yes, in the Middle of the Foggy Night April 29, 2019 The Geese Are Eating Kernels April 25, 2019 The Person Lives in the Holy Land April 18, 2019 Light Will Billow in the Brain April 12, 2019 Don't Worry. You Can't Catch Rabbits April 11, 2019 The Birds Are Pecking at Breadcrumbs April 7, 2019 The Alarm Clock on the Left of the Bed April 5, 2019 Why Are We Here, Bringing More Boxes? April 4, 2019 The Air is Cool and Fresh April 3, 2019 From Thought and Not Just Any Thought April 1, 2019 Do Not Stop the Image March 29, 2019 Upstairs, She's Playing the Keyboard Again March 28, 2019 The Vehicles Come Wheeling Down March 26, 2019 People Built My First Two Houses March 24, 2019 This Is the Only Way to Know March 22, 2019 Beloved Is Man March 20,2019 When He Told a Story March 18, 2019 The Sun Is Coming in the Window March 15, 2019 Imagine Your Bride Was Flown in by Helicopter March 11, 2019 You Say You Want to Go Up March 8, 2019 The Angels Weren't Happy March 5, 2019 We Need a New Rule of Thumb March 1, 2019 What's Worse than Finding a Worm in an Apple You Can See Her in the Mirror The Dung Beetle Likes Dung February 24, 2019 Consider the Sea Breeze February 22, 2019 The Troposphere February 17, 2019 Something Tells You to Be Afraid February 15, 2019 Without Pressure, without Darkness February 14, 2019 What Counts Is Coming Back Down the Stairs February 10, 2019 There Is a Law of Being Kind February 8, 2019 Sometimes the Light Goes Out February 6, 2019 That Which One Person Sees in Heaven February 1, 2019 Sometimes (But Only When You Are You) January 27, 2019 So We Put This Camera on a Weather Balloon January 23, 2019 You Can Understand January 22, 2019 Hello! January 20, 2019 There Are Centipedes in the Basement January 18, 2019 The Rain Is Coming Down From the Core of the Sun January 15, 2019 Rain Fell Last Night January 11, 2019 The Lab January 8, 2019 The First Rule of Life January 4, 2019 The Leaf January 2, 2019 The Bear Didn't Mind Getting Stung on the Nose December 28, 2018 You are a Pulse or a Particle December 28, 2018 He Who Has Learned December 27, 2018 You Were Asked to Be Your Worst December 25, 2018 The Stellar Stream December 21, 2018 Here Was a Beautiful Island December 20, 2018 If One Eye Isn't Aligned with the Other December 19, 2018 A Paperback Novel December 18, 2018 Things Are Thought of December 14, 2018 To Eradicate the Centipede December 13, 2018 You Can Hear the Water Gurgling December 12, 2018 Outside, It Is Drizzling December 9, 2018 The Leaf Absorbs Light December 7, 2018 It Takes a Lot of Confidence First, You Have to Decide December 4, 2018 Fire Creeping across Brush December 2, 2018 We Rise November 30, 2018 Heat Rises November 23, 2018 The Brain November 21, 2018 I Don't Understand the Multiple Merger Assembly November 19, 2018 He Didn't Build the Bridge November 16, 2018 It's Only Natural If You're Walking on Phobos November 15, 2018 Add Light to Light November 12, 2018 The Pigeon Feeds Her Chicks Crop Milk November 9, 2018 I Had It All Wrong November 6, 2018 Chaos Tears Apart Clouds November 5, 2018 Something Bitter November 4, 2018 Electron Streams November 2, 2018 Should I Go to the Concert? October 29, 2018 Not Everyone Has Laws October 26, 2018 A Solar System October 21, 2018 A Scrap from "The Daily Mail" October 19, 2018 Yearn to Pull All of the Furniture September 30, 2018 The Tongue Is a Wad of Flesh September 25, 2018 Everything Feels Right Sometimes, a Single Act Sometimes, One Act September 21, 2018 The Air Is Full of Lights September 20, 2018 Light Produces Glucose When the Lights Are Alive September 18, 2018 When the Sun Shines The Clouds Draped September 9, 2018 Gather the Sunflowers A Higgs Boson Becomes a Proton 73,000 Years Ago The Mssive Lemurs Lumber August 31, 2018 The Beam Splitter Birds Were Flying in the Aviary August 28, 2018 His Heart Was Broken Because August 26, 2018 All of These Thoughts Clump Together August 23, 2018 Sometimes, We Take in Impressions August 22, 2018 Maybe Not You or Me August 19, 2018 She Came from Algeria The Stars Were Falling August 16, 2018 Timelessness Pours into Time August 15, 2018 The Electric Fan August 13, 2018 When the World Is Filled August 12, 2018 Well, the World Is Filled August 8, 2018 You Know How It Is August 7, 2018 The Snake Coils Around August 5, 2018 In a Little World August 3, 2018 What's Fit for a Sardine July 27, 2018 The Laws Create Fields of Stalks July 25, 2018 Miracles, the Investment of Miracles July 23, 2018 First, You Move Your Fingers July 20, 2018 Hidden among the Burgundy Snails July 13, 2018 The Moon Is the Servant July 6, 2018 The Towns Are Shattered June 27, 2018 The Image of the World June 25, 2018 Every Mind Sees Its Own Tree June 21, 2018 The Mind Must Spiral Out June 19, 2018 If the Sun Didn't Shine June 17, 2018 You're Good, You're So Good June 15, 2018 When Your Faith is Consumptive June 14, 2018 The Desire for Many Gods June 11, 2018 Seeing a Jumble of Rocks June 10, 2018 All Those Spider Zebras June 8, 2018 The Lizard Runs along the Step June 7, 2018 The Universe Must Expand June 3, 2018 At the Core of the Core June 1, 2018 I Spread out Into the World May 27, 2018 If You Know May 23, 2018 The King Breaks through a Fence May 22, 2018 The Glinting Flames of Water Surge May 20, 2018 (post-Shavuot) The Whole World Is in a Sandwich May 18, 2018 It Is All Revealed, in a Sense May 13, 2018 From the Top of the Cosmos May 10, 2018 If We Are Stunned May 8, 2018 It Gets in Your Bones May 6, 2018 If We Don't Reveal May 6, 2018 The First Thought Requires No Adjustment May 4, 2018 If You Are Weak and Tired April 29, 2018 Bees Are Buzzing around My Head April 27, 2018 The Trees Lack the Energy to Grow April 5, 2018 The Foundation When You're Doing Something Whole April 4, 3028 The Ocelot April 1, 2018 An Engine Pulls the Train to Saskatoon March 30, 2018 What Tells the Cell to Be a Cell? March 27, 2018 A Clear Mind, a Clean Forest March 25, 2018 He Was a Simple Man March 23, 2018 The Bear Is Wading through the River March 21, 2018 The Dark Matter Wind March 18, 2018 The Air We Breathe March 16, 2018 This Is a Strong House March 14, 2018 Quite a Lot of Weeds Here March 13, 2018 Out There in Nepal March 12, 2018 We Are Looking for the Road March 8, 2018 A Field of Dust Covers the Star March 7, 2018 Carefully Check the Records March 6, 2018 A White Sun March 3, 2018 In the Naryn Region of Kyrgizstan March 1, 2018 Look February 28, 2018 The Hollows February 23, 2018 Dragon Bones and Mugwort February 16, 2018 In Green Light February 14, 2018 First, We Irradiate the Roots February 9, 2018 Sometimes LSD Has a Delayed Reaction February 9, 2018 Knowledge Itself Ducks into a Hole February 6, 2018 The Minus Is by Nature Dead February 5, 2018 Skyscrapers and Centipedes February 4, 2018 The Indigo February 2, 2018 On the 310th Floor January 30, 208 In a Coccoon January 28, 2018 The Light Itself January 26, 2018 The Possum and the Sycamore January 24, 2018 The Sea Recedes from the Bay January 22, 2018 The Script, It Has a Cosmic Ring January 14, 2018 It Is All Quite Remarkable. Your Hand January 12, 2018 You See Every Brick, You See the Traces January 10, 2018 It Is Everything, It Is January 9, 2018 The Stream No Longer Feeds the Pool January 7, 2018 Far, Far from the Light of the Sun January 2, 2018 His Home Was on a Hill, One Felt January 1, 2018 The Ants Carry Seeds in Wavering Lines December 29, 2017 The Water Trickling Down the Mountain December 28, 2017 We Must Consider the Worth of a Thought December 22, 2017 It Is an Advanced Sense, Perhaps December 22, 2017 The Dragonfly Glows He Embodies December 18, 2017 In the Dark, the Quiet, the Cold December 15, 2017 A Lone Planet, Undisturbed by Other December 8, 2017 All of the Breaths Are Organized December 6, 2017 The Frog Egg and Sperm Float December 4, 2017 Here Is an Infinite Mechanism--Or November 30, 2017 A Bird Has to Have Wings. A Photon November 26, 2017 "Come," Say Saturn and Fluorescent Neptune November 24, 2017 The Moon Is a Placid Lake. The Light November 23, 2017 Ask Nicely. Say Please. It Shows November 21, 2017 "No," Said the Shopkeeper to the Shoplifter November 19, 2017 A Light that Shines from Upstairs November 14, 2017 The Knowledge of Evil Spreads, It November 12, 2017 Those People in the Condominiums November 10, 2017 What Your Heart Is Feeling, If You November 8, 2017 The Word for the Future Is Kindness November 7, 2017 There Are Realities that the Mind November 6, 2017 So When You Knock Down the Walls November 3, 2017 Sometimes a Little Mental Scraping October 30, 2017 Well Now, Here's a Wall October 27, 2017 Well Then, Figure It Out October 25, 2017 First You Set Your Mind in Order October 24, 2017 First of All, the Song October 20, 2017 One Thought Filled with the Epitome October 18, 2017 It Is All One: The Honor of October 18, 2017 The Cascading River Carried an Armada October 16, 2017 Here You Are, You're Yearning for That October 8, 2017 The Body Listens to the Soul Ring October 6, 2017 A Holy Soul Needs a Body That October 4, 2017 What Do We Understand What They Had to Work For September 29, 2017 Among the Forgotten Things, from Kung to Dunung September 28, 2017 I Remembered, I Forgot September 26, 2017 When You're Coming Back to Life September 24, 2017 The Desire to Say a Word September 20, 2017 I Look at White Light with Smoky Lenses September 19, 2017 The Flow of Light Swamps the Soul September 17, 2017 Like an Entire Beach September 15, 2017 Only Something Clean Can Stop September 15, 2017 A Highrise Apartment September 13, 2017 An Intensity that Doesn't Pause September 6, 2017 Every Soul, Great and Small September 5, 2017 A Holy Fire, Heat September 3, 2017 Inside Me, Perhaps September 1, 2017 There Are Prayers Carved August 30, 2017 There Is No Way August 27, 2017 A Small Point Stream August 25, 2017 To Return to the Law August 22, 2017 When We Remember God August 20, 2017 Supercooled Helium Can Flow August 17, 2017 Sometimes, Words of Prayer Glow August 16, 2017 In You I See a Field August 14, 2017 There Are Two Types of Trails August 13, 2017 How Difficult to Decide August 11, 2017 You Broke August 10, 2017 The Argus Pheasant August 6, 2017 This Beautiful Song August 4, 2017 The Dimness Grows Bright July 30, 2017 You Take in Impressions It Isn't Easy to Find July 28, 2017 In Xaafuun, the Wisdom July 25, 2017 Oh We Are as Refined July 23, 2017 My Thoughts Are Elephants July 21, 2017 You Know Who You Are July 18, 2017 This World of Doorknobs July 16, 2017 The Infinite Gesture, the Palm July 14, 2017 There Is a Small Kind of Sadness July 12, 2017 If You Want Nothing for Yourself July 7, 2017 Before the Idol July 5, 2017 The Natural Avenues July 2, 2017 Pride (The Kind that Expels June 30, 2017 The World of Gods and Ziggurats June 29, 2017 The Kind of Life We're Leading June 23, 2017 There Are a Few, Here and There June 21, 2017 I Have an Idea. It Looks Like June 18, 2017 Everything We Make June 16, 2017 An Empty Hole Is Filled June 16, 2017 It May Be Described June 11, 2017 The Contours of the Earth June 8, 2017 I Must Wait, and Wait June 5, 2017 The Whole World Takes Up June 4, 2017 Service I Don't Mean Plates \June 2, 2017 When We Are Cleaned and Shine June 2, 2017 I Am More Afraid of the Small Worm June 2, 2017 All of the Names in the World May 30, 2017 What Does It Mean to Cling May 25, 2017 Everything Has an Up and May 23, 2017 Our Thoughts Trundle May 22, 2017 I Was Sitting in Class, and May 19, 2017 For Everything We Need, We Use May 16, 2017 Light Is Streaming May 14, 2017 Here's Just One Letter, Well May 12, 2017 Everything Has Free Will When the Lights of Joy May 11, 2017 At the Pinnacle Prayer Turns Everything We Can Enrich the Entire World May 9, 2017 The Letters Inside Me May 7, 2017 Heaven is Not Stingy May 5, 2017 One Cup of Silver Melts May 4, 2017 This Bird Knew May 4, 2017 Sometimes Resting Is Not Rest May 1, 2017 I Forget, and All the Letters April 28, 2017 OK, Knowledge Is All About April 26, 2017 There Are Some People Who April 21, 2017 There Are Some People April 20, 2017 The Freedom of Thought April 18, 2017 My Mind Is Sinking (Like April 16, 2017 This Here Body (Even If April 14, 2017 There Is a World that Is So Large April 12, 2017 Thinking about Faith, Thinking April 10, 2017 We Refine Our Praise Because April 6, 2017 Oh How I've Come Down April 2, 2017 You Are (You Say) Ashamed March 31, 2017 Don't Be Scared March 30, 2017 I Shake All Over with Rossby Waves March 28, 2017\ The Light Is On, But Inside March 27, 2017 I Think (I Think!) There Are Thoughts March 24, 2017 When You Cannot See the Light of March 23, 2017 What Is Holiness? Is It March 19, 2017 The Truly Great Soul March 16, 2017 Don't Be Afraid (Of What?) March 12, 2017 להרים את הגורל March 10, 2017 The Sweeter the Water March 9, 2017 Mind and Heart, at Their Peak March 8, 2017 God's Lamp Is Shining March 7, 2017 There Is Nothing in the World March 5, 2017 Healthy Bodies, Meaning: Pure and Clear March 3, 2017 The Songbird Sings March 1, 2017 When It Is Love February 28, 2017 If You Think that Your Prayers February 27, 2017 Why, We Never Have to Leave February 24, 2017 If Only My Imagination Would Be As Clear February 23, 2017 My Window Was So Clear (New & Improved!) February 23, 2017 My Window Was So Clear February 21, 2017 It Is Hard to Balance February 19, 2017 My Body Needs Iron, and So Does My Soul February 17, 2017 Sometimes the Individual February 16, 2017 When Our Senses Are Like Glass February 14, 2017 Until the Good Fills the Canals February 12, 2017 All We Know Is Rays of Light February 10, 2017 All of These Books February 10, 2017 Your Eye Is as Big as a Lunar Parasol February 8, 2017 When My Eye, Which Is Open and Rational February 7, 2017 The Story of Creation February 6, 2017 How Foolish People Are February 3, 2017 Sometimes Pure Faith January 31, 2017 My Thoughts Contradict Each Other January 30, 2017 I Guess the Stars Are High January 25, 2017 Truth Doesn't Appear Bit by Bit January 24, 2017 As You'll See, If You Follow Me Down into the Cellar January 20, 2017 Does Knowledge Make Man Happy? January 19, 2017 How, You May Say, Happy Are You January 15, 2017 Without Wisdom, Prayer Is Not Much January 15, 2017 Twelve Times Twelve Is a Hundred and Forty Four January 13, 2017 The Sea Has No Water January 12, 2017 Each Island Has Its Own Fruits January 5, 2017 It Reaches But It Does Not The World Was Created for Me January 4, 2017 A River Flows It Wishes to Flow January 1, 2017 As Jagged as a Cracked Wave December 30, 2016 The Honey of Insight, Its Expanding Lines December 28, 2016 Oh Fierce Nostalgia December 27, 2016 The Spirit Grows December 23, 2016 Do Not Deprecate December 21, 2016 Every Soul of Cobalt Blue December 16, 2016 No More than What I Have, I Have December 8, 2016 I Fled the Moose, I Stalked the Bear July 22, 2016 My Dear Friend, I Do Not Write These Words July 4, 2016 You Call the Enemy to the Gate June 13, 2016 A Song about a Skulking Bird: Aquarius (go to bottom of page) June 5, 2016 A Stroll through Jerusalem June 3, 2016 You are a Cloud, a Fuzzy Swarm May 31, 2016 ...The Women White Were Wearing May 23, 2016 Bear, Dreaming of Old Age May 20, 2016 "Why Do I"--Aye Aye Aiie-- The Bridge: A Short Story (can you be religious and creative?) May 19, 2016 The River Barreled Topsidedown May 17, 2016 The Marvelous Revival of Rabbi Barton: A Short Story May 14, 2016 Never Stay in Forests Nor Love the Hind There Are Ships that Are Lustful The Houses Huddle upon the Onyar River I Put Off Living Because May 13, 2016 Thought Is Kind The Orb Described a Curve The Mouth of the Lion Lies to My East Has Any Mind Imprisoned You? April 14, 2016 South of Chios Spearhead Island April 7, 2016 The Name of the District Even that which Is Creatures of the Moon Loud-Roaring, Wine-Colored Sea March 23, 2016 (Purim) The Story of the Third Little Piggy March 10, 2016 I Found Myself Out- Poetry Is, Please Being Hated Has There Are So Many Heads The Meadow Flowers Flow in the Breeze Between Today and Tomorrow, My February 10, 2016 "Arrow..." in which I take "An Arrow that Shoots" and transform it into a poem with an A-A-A rhyme scheme, in which the rhyme appears in the first, middle and last word of each three line stanza (each time in a different order). February 9, 2016 "An Arrow that Shoots"--where I take "There in the Heavens," based on a Pablo Neruda poem, and transform it into a series of "choka" poems. February 7, 2016 "There in the Heavens," a poem whose body was robbed from Pablo Neruda February 3, 2016: A few "choka" poems and two "sedoka" poems (both Japanese forms). January 31, 2016: A few poems in the Japanese "tanka" style: lines with syllable counts of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. January 30, 2016: A few poems experimenting with alliteration, assonance and rhyme schemes. |
New Translations
August 24, 2017 All Streams Rule in Me by Rav Kook June 29, 2017 Driven to Sin by Overwhelming Desire (Tzidkat Hatzaddik) July 15, 2016 Likutei Moharan Hamevuar: Teaching 3, Complete! June 5, 2016 Likutei Moharan Hamevuar: Teaching 2, Complete!--Rabbi Nachman's Magnum Opus, with commentary by Rabbi Yehoshua Gross May 14, 2016 by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook: The Wonderful Tzaddikim From the Comprehensive Light All Descriptions of Life The Intelligent Eye Every Authentic Creation The Big Truth Even When the Body is Broken and Crushed Literature and Prophecy The Creative Soul March 18, 2016 Prologue to Likutei Moharan, with the commentary of Likutei Moharan Hamevuar. March 10, 2016 Rabbi Nachman's Pleasant Song, which appears at the beginning of Likutei Moharan February 22, 2016 Profound Creativity, by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook February 13, 2016 Three translations of Yiddish poems: Ballad of the Ragged Man and the Crucified by Itzik Manger Treblinka Candidate by H. Leivick Autumn by Itzik Manger February 5, 2016: Fifty years after the passing of Rabbi Shlomo Elyashiv, author of the Kabbalistic classic, Lechem Shevo Ve'achlamah, a brief biography and appreciation by Rabbi S. Deblitzki. (Notice that sadly, because of prejudice in certain quarters, he avoided citing Rabbi Elyashiv's colleague, Rav Kook, by name and only referred to him as "one of the great leaders and tzaddikim of the generation.") January 30, 2016: Rabbi Aryeh Levin ("A Tzaddik in Our Time") wrote a brief biography of his father-in-law, Rabbi Shlomo Elyashiv, author of the Kabbalistic classic, Lechem Shevo Ve'achlamah. It appears here for the first time in English. |