After this, the kohen shall come to look at the house.
-Leviticus 14:36
Buying a home is complicated.
(I’d also like to mention, if you
are lucky enough to buy a home
it is worth every signature,
on every piece of digital paper.
It is worth every phone call
and inspection and visit.
It is worth all the pennies you
spend on the process.)
It is several Torahs worth
of words on papers.
It is Rabbis disguised as
realtors and city inspectors
asking questions you never
knew should be asked.
They will discover things
inside your new walls. Things that
will surprise the current owners.
Things that need to be changed
before the final Kohen comes
to hand you the keys. Be grateful
for these complications.
Like our laws from on high
they are there to protect you.
To keep the lesions from migrating
from your walls to your skin.
To keep the inside air you breathe
palatable to your lungs. These will
be your walls for, if you’re lucky,
decades to come.
May you be so lucky to meet
a city inspector. May the keys
of your dreams be in your future.
Sign everything. (Though maybe
read it first.) Double dot your i’s.
They’ve been doing this since
the foot of the mountain.
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.
