Leonard Cohen’s Wisdom and Poetry: 4 soulful lyrics on Longing, Light, and Love
“There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen passed away on November 7, 2016, but his voice, poetry, and spirit remain. From the moment I first encountered his work—whether in the form of a song hummed on a quiet evening or a line of poetry that seemed to speak directly to my soul—he became more than an artist to me. He was a guide, a fellow traveler in the labyrinth of longing, love, faith, and mortality.
Cohen captured the ache of being human with an unmatched depth, tracing the contours of rejection, passion, despair, and hope. In his early years, his words painted raw portraits of love and heartbreak. As he aged, his voice deepened—both literally and metaphorically—grappling with the weight of existential questions, depression, and faith. His poetry became a conversation with God, sometimes reverent, sometimes irreverent, but always honest.
I recently took a photo of his towering fresco in downtown Montreal, where his enigmatic smile looms over the city like a quiet guardian. Looking at it, I thought about the many nicknames Cohen had acquired over the years—each one a testament to his complexity. Poet of Existential Despair. Troubadour of Love. Jeremiah of Tin Pan Alley. The Restless Pilgrim. The Coolest White Man on the Planet. I smiled at that last one—yes, he was.
The Anthem of Imperfection
Of all his songs, Hallelujah remains the most famous, covered by countless artists, but Jeff Buckley’s version is the one that lingers for me. It is a song about longing, about the agony and ecstasy of love, told through the biblical story of King David and Bathsheba.
“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord,
That David played, and it pleased the Lord,
But you don’t really care for music, do you?”
📌 Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley Cover)
Yet, if I had to choose Cohen’s greatest verse, it would be Anthem. In a world obsessed with perfection, Cohen whispered a different truth:
“Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack, a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.”
This is Cohen at his most transcendent—a reminder that beauty exists not in flawlessness but in imperfection. That even in despair, there is light.
Who by Fire: A Reckoning with Mortality
Another of Cohen’s masterpieces, Who by Fire, is a haunting adaptation of the Jewish Unetaneh Tokef prayer, recited on the High Holidays to acknowledge the fragility of life.
“And who by fire, who by water,
Who in the sunshine, who in the nighttime,
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
Who in your merry, merry month of May,
Who by very slow decay,
And who shall I say is calling?”
At my spiritual community, Nashuva, the lead guitarist, weaves Cohen’s melody into the prayer, creating an intimate bridge between ancient tradition and modern contemplation. Cohen never strayed far from his Jewish roots, even as he embraced Zen Buddhism. His search for meaning was never static—it was fluid, a dance between disciplines and doubts.
Marking Evil: Cohen’s Eichmann Poem
Perhaps one of Cohen’s most chilling works is a lesser-known poem, All There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann. In the wake of Eichmann’s trial, the world wanted a monster, something grotesque, something visibly evil. But Cohen offered a stark and unsettling truth:
“EYES………Medium
HAIR………Medium
WEIGHT………Medium
HEIGHT………Medium
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES………None
NUMBER OF FINGERS………Ten
NUMBER OF TOES…………Ten
INTELLIGENCE…………Medium
What did you expect?
Talons?
Oversize incisors?
Green saliva?
Madness?”
Eichmann was ordinary—a man with “medium” eyes and an unremarkable height, yet responsible for atrocities beyond comprehension. Cohen forces us to confront the banality of evil—how it does not always arrive with horns and fangs, but in a suit, with paperwork, with bureaucracy.
The Hebrew translation of this poem has always resonated more deeply for me, perhaps because of the weight of history that lingers in the language:
עיניים… בינוניות
שיער… בינוני
משקל… בינוני
גובה… בינוני
סימנים מיוחדים… אין
מספר האצבעות… עשר
רמת משכל… בינונית
למה ציפית?
טלפיים?
שיניים תוחנות בגודל ענק?
רוק ירוק?
שגעון?
A Reflection on Longing and Legacy
I have often returned to Leonard Cohen’s words in moments of contemplation, seeking solace in his poetry’s wisdom. His music has been my companion in sorrow, in joy, in the quiet moments between.
One of the things I admire most about him is his willingness to embrace the unknown. He did not claim to have the answers—he simply asked the right questions. As I grow older, I find myself drawn more to those questions than to any concrete truths. Perhaps that is why Cohen’s work continues to resonate—it acknowledges the cracks, the longing, the searching.
May his soul rest in peace, though I suspect it is still out there somewhere—wandering, questioning, and, as always, searching for the light.
📌 My reflection of the painter Agnes Martin
November 2019