בס״ד
Vayigash
Seventy souls to Mitzrayim descend,
There are seventy faces of Torah,
Seventy nations with seventy tongues,
And seventy elders for Moshe.
It wasn’t enough for just one to go down,
Or forty or twelve or five,
It had to be based on this number profound,
And the parsha works hard to comply.
So when you attain three score and ten years,
In the fullness of life, thank Shamayim,
You echo through time with those seventy souls,
That descended, back then, to Mitzrayim.
בס״ד
Mikeitz
My father wouldn’t let me go,
To Egypt with the others,
He would not risk I would be lost,
Just like my older brother.
They returned with sacks of grain,
And a tale beyond belief,
My brother Shimon left behind,
To add to Aba’s grief.
But the Wizard of Egypt wanted me,
For a reason he kept well hidden,
When eventually the food ran out,
They brought me down as bidden.
But “in the end” it all worked out,
The Wizard was my brother,
We held each other close and cried,
For ourselves, and for our mother.
בס״ד
Chanukah
It was thin and made of tin,
With colored, waxy candles,
It stood shimmering on the sill,
By the window with the handles.
Each chanukiah after that,
Could somehow not compete,
With that simple, hidden glow,
From Antiochus’ defeat.
Metal, Silver, Porcelain, Glass,
None could hold a candle,
To that brassy, tinny thing,
By the window with the handles.
Watching now my dancing flames,
Curled wisps of memory appear,
Every wick and every flicker,
Spanning all these seventy years.
So glimmer on oh sacred lights,
But I’ll always see within,
Those skinny, colored candles,
And my menorah made of tin.
בס״ד
Vayeishev
Sometimes what’s right becomes a mistake,
And what’s wrong brings about the right thing,
Onan marries Tamar, but Er’s name he forsakes,
With Yehudah, she mothers a King.
בס״ד
This week's parsha poem is dedicated l'ilui nishmas Shterna Sara bas HaRav Asher Yaakov
and for her mother, Henya Rivka bas Bracha Dvora Leah
Vayishlach
Rivkah and Rachel,
They die before living
To see their children
Blossom.
A child’s memory
Holds but a shadow
Of the whispered,
Human warmth
Of a mother’s lost embrace.
And righteous children
Of righteous mothers
Should surely live to enfold them
With lives
That reach fruition.
A blessed, sacred sadness,
A shimmering shard of love, lingers,
An everlasting ember.
Fortunate is Leah,
The so-called despised wife,
Who sees her children thrive,
And to bless her.
