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Blessings For You From Head to Toe
Sixty seconds on the phone that makes it all worthwhile
(If you don't have the requird plug-in to hear the audio file automatically, click here.)
“Hi Dr. Bloom... This is Michael Valovcin; I needed to call you... only so that to tell you that I picked up three copies of your book [Blessings For You From Head To Toe] today.I just finished one of them... and I have to...I have to say to you, that, you never finish that book. That I never finished... I will never finish that book. It is one of the most powerful, inspiring, heart- touching books I have ever read. And to say you read it... it would do it a dis-service. You don’t read what you’ve created. What you have created, and what you actually... you and your wife created and I am humbled, and I am so incredibly thankful, to have our paths cross, no matter in the manner in which they crossed.... but to just to go ahead and I'ill just thank you immeasurably...all right... for...for who you are. And that ultimately... is the bottom line. Ok, take all good care, Goodbye.”
~ Michael Valovcin, a devout, very modern, ecumenical ‘Catholic' active in his local church. He is a former High School Administrator and currently is an Adjunct Instructor of English at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.
"Rabbi Jack H Bloom of Fairfield loves words. He rolls them on their backs and rubs their bellies to make them wiggle and squirm. These are three lines from a poem entitled “Heart” in a collection of his poems just published with beautiful illustrations under the title, Blessings For You From Head To Toe. Each poem uses a part of the body to express the poet’s feelings about life as it is and as it ought to be lived.
Head over heels
bewitched with control
We head out with no clear heading
plunging headlong into the headwind
pursuing a headlock on life
An ordained rabbi and practicing psychologist, Dr. Bloom uses his love of words and puns to convey some Hebrew Bible wisdom and his own observations in an original and amusing format. On the first page he refers to them as a blessing for “all you are and for all those for whom you care.” There are twenty-two poems in all, each featuring a body part and accompanied by a full-page detail fro a painting by Bloom’s wife, Ingrid. They present sunbathers on the beach, young women bicycling in the park, a small boy watching ducks on a pond, sailboats in a cove, and a bald eagle. The eagle accompanies a poem entitled Blessed be the Eye. It begins:
An eye opener it is that having I’s for others
we say aye to God’s creatures
If inner I be nurtured, allowing open I’s
we celebrate your public I
and cherish your private I
detecting the primeval I
whom we are modeled after
In some of the poems I can hear echoes of Kipling’s If or Polonius instructing Leartes:
Be evenhanded with all
highhanded with few
and underhanded with none
that by lending a hand
and living hands on
we hand on to others
handwritten in our hand
a handsome chapter in our life’s book
This is a small book, but not one you want to read through quickly. You want to savor each one in sips like a fine wine, giving the bouquet time to go to your head. And share it with someone you love."
~Julian Padowicz, author of a poignant award-winning memoir; "Mother and Me, Escape From Warsaw 1939”
"WORDS CAN DANCE AND TEACH. For many years now, Jack H Bloom has been sending out New Year’s cards. They are very special greeting cards, cards that I like to go back to and reread many times during the year. And so I am glad that he has now published a collection of these cards, accompanied by some very beautiful illustrations, done by his wife. Jack Bloom has had a good career as a pulpit rabbi, and then, as a therapist. But, after reading this book of poems, I would suggest that he consider a third career—this time as a ballet teacher. For he has a talent for making words pivot and pirouette the way a good dancer does. Under his direction, the words leap about on the page, never tied to just one meaning, but able to move from one sense to another with grace and ease. Let me share just one example: The word ‘body’ seems clear enough. We all know what it means. But look at how many different ways the word dances about the page, and how many different meanings it has in this brief poem:
Afraid of being nobody,
striving mightily to be somebody
now and then
anybody will do
Everybody has a body,
hardly ever the ‘right’ body,
we body-build and body-pierce,
body paint and body-mold
in quest of a celestial body,
perhaps an out-of-body experience.
There are limits to all bodies,
no matter how body centered we are
our body clock ticks,
the body politic falls short,
the corporate body deceives,
alien bodies promise hope and disappear
the best bodyguards cannot protect
Embody who you are,
modeled after and molded by Divinity
Embodying God’s presence in the world
Your body language will hold true as you enjoy
The full-bodied melody of a life that is yours.
Count up the ways in which this four letter word ‘body’ twists and turns and takes on new meanings in this brief poem. In the first stanza alone, it goes from the fear of being a nobody to the willingness to settle for anybody, to the frantic ways in which we body-build and body-pierce and body-paint and body-mold in the desperate effort to have the perfectly divine body that will enable us to have an out-of body experience. And then, in the second stanza, he tells us to come to terms with the limits of the body, and reminds us that the body’s time clock clicks, that the body politic falls short, that the corporate body deceives, that alien bodies may promise all kinds of things but they inevitably disappoint, and that even the best bodyguards cannot protect. This stanza is meant to give a measure of perspective to those who worship the body so much, and who fail to understand that, in the end, every body is frail, fallible, and ultimately, mortal. So how then should we live? The poet tells us in the last stanza: We live well by embodying who we really are---which is an embodiment of the Divine, God’s Presence in the world. If we can only learn to be that, then we will merit the full-bodied melody of a life that is authentically ours. If you find this sample instructive and enjoyable, then read the rest of the poems in this collection, which make the head, the hand, the blood stream, the heart, the bones and the veins do verbal tricks as adroit as these, and which teach serious lessons about how to live, disguised as puns and word-plays."
~Rabbi Jack Riemer is a frequent and renowned reviewer of many books and journals, in this country
and abroad. He is the author and editor of six volumes of Jewish Thought.
Blessing others and being blessed by them
is crucial to any relationship.
The blessing poems herein, created by Jack H Bloom are presented without attribution.
Originating over the years as New Year’s greetings,
the poems use various parts of the body as starting points.
The poems and readings attributed to others
have touched and blessed me deeply.
The wonderful paintings were created by Ingrid Bloom my ‘Schatz’,
my wife,
the love of my life,
a blessing beyond compare.
May our work bless all you are
and all those for whom you care.
Sample Inside
On the inside of the book cover, there is a special area designed for you to place an inscription or greeting to a recipient.
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