Are we totally separated from you?/ Is there not a breath of your peace,/ Lord, or your message/ Intended for us in such a night?

Can the sound of your word/ Have so faded in Zion's emptiness,/ Or has it not even entered/ This magic realm of appearance?

The great deceit of the world/ Is now consummated./ Give then, Lord, that he may wake/ Who was struck through by your nothingness.

Only so does revelation/ Shine in the time that rejected you./ Only your nothingness is the experience/ It is entitled to have of you.

Thus alone teaching that breaks through semblance/ Enters the memory:/ The truest bequest/ Of hidden judgement.

Our position has been measured/ On Job's scales with great precision./ We are known through and through/ As despairing on the youngest day.

What we are is reflected in endless instances./ Nobody knows the way completely/ And each part of it makes us blind.

No one can benefit from redemption/ That star stands far too high./ And if you had arrived there too,/ You would still stand in your own way.

Abandoned to powers,/ Exorcism is no longer binding./ No life can unfold/ That doesn't sink into itself.

From the centre of destruction/ A way breaks through at times,/ But none shows the direction. The Law ordered us to take.

Since this sad knowledge/ Stands before us, unassailable,/ A veil has suddenly been torn,/ Lord, before your majesty.

Your trial began on earth./ Does it end before your throne?/ You cannot be defended,/ As no illusion holds true here.

Who is the accused here? The creature or yourself?/ If anyone should ask you,/ You would sink into silence.

Can such a question be raised?/ Is the answer indefinite?/ Oh, we must live all the same/ Until your court examines us.

Gerschom Scholem, 'Didactic Poem', 1934. It concerns Kafka.