All the Generations Before Me

What duties are we bound to?

All the Generations Before Me, by Yehuda Amichai, 1967:

All the generations before me
donated me, bit by bit, so that I’d be
erected all at once
here in Jerusalem, like a house of prayer
or charitable institution.
It binds. My name’s
my donors’ name.
It binds.

I’m approaching the age
of my father’s death. My last
will’s patched with many patches.
I have to change my life and death
daily to fulfill all the prophecies
prophesied for me. So they’re not lies.
It binds.

I’ve passed forty.
There are jobs I cannot get
because of this. Were I in Auschwitz
they would not have sent me out to work,
but gassed me straightaway.
It binds. 

This poem becomes more beautiful — more haunting — with every new read. Amichai perfectly captures the sorrow of living under the weight of a collective history, one that demands constant tribute. Millions suffered and died so that he might exist. How can anyone be worthy of such an inheritance?

---

America is descending into a fascist order, in which the leader — an extreme nationalist — wields dictatorial power to silence opposition and amass autocratic control over the state. This is the kind of leader that our soldiers sacrificed their lives to defeat in Europe, and which our Founders hoped would never arise in America. The Declaration of Independence was written with us in mind.

In the words of the poet: It binds.