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Mensch
Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he does— Arthur Schopenhauer.
‘Mensch’ is a German-Yiddish word
meaning a person of integrity and honour.
the opposite of a “mensch” is an “unmensch”
meaning an utterly unlikeable or unfriendly person.
There is nothing in between, no semantic shades of grey
maybe the divine gift, which Germans have been known to spurn,
is to say nobody is mensch or unmensch
Or, my preference, everyone is mensch and unmensch
if I say ‘she is noble’, ‘she alone has all the virtues’
even as I speak, I know this is romantic blindness
In this myopia, devils or or angels are equally out of reach
for most. תודה לאל. Thank G-d.
Possibly the reason why, throughout a long life
Goethe eschewed the label ‘romantic’, insisting upon his classical credentials
Was it that romanticism robs the ordinary of its inherent extraordinariness?
Some human mothers can distinguish their human babies by smell alone
of all these tiny beings only this one dressed in green is mine
