בס״ד
Beshallach
There are times
when events
overcome us.
And we respond,
with weeping
or with song.
When love is won
or lost.
When life is bright
or tossed.
When from despair
or illness
one is healed,
that’s when
G-d’s presence
is revealed.
Split then is our sea
of tears,
and we are awash
in music.
בס״ד
Bo
G-d said to ask for just three days,
A well deserved vacation,
To serve our G-d without offense,
In a more discrete location.
We’d been driven way too hard this time,
Well beyond our legal capacity,
And been given His permission,
To fall back upon mendacity.
We had no intention to return,
But we never said we would,
And Pharaoh saw right through it,
And we all knew that he could.
But Pharaoh, he was desperate too,
He’d seen enough to know,
Things would keep on getting worse,
He’d better let us go.
Although our Avos also fibbed,
In compelling situations,
How are we to judge when truth is wrong,
And what’s right is fabrication?
בס״ד
Bo
A three day journey,
A three day fog,
Three days in the belly of Yonah’s dag.
Crippled by choshech,
Three days straight,
We have three Avos to emulate.
A three day fast,
While Esther prays,
Yehoshua’s spies hide for three whole days.
If you haven’t fought,
M’tmol shilshom,
There’s a refuge for you in the Levite’s home.
At Har Sinai,
We’ll wait three days,
Three castes of Jews will stand amazed.
בס״ד
Vaera
If a tree falls in a forest,
And no one hears it,
Does it still make a noise?
If Moshe speaks his message,
To an Am too burdened to listen,
Were the words ever said?
If signs descend from heaven,
And the blind see only plagues,
Has anything been revealed?
And how is it,
That the gift to hear,
And the gift to see,
Lie dormant?
Perhaps these gifts,
Having been given,
Remain silent,
Until found.
בס״ד
Shemos
Desperately she wracks her brains,
For a way to save the infant,
If Pharaoh’s henchmen find him,
They will drown him in an instant.
She harks back to the parsha,
Of that primeval patriarch,
Righteous Noach and the flood,
With clay and pitch he sealed an ark.
If Noach’s tevah rescued,
Every beast and all humanity,
Perhaps it too could save her son,
From a watery calamity.
She entrusts a basket to the reeds,
Lays the baby on his back,
She seals it tight and prays that he,
Will reach his Ararat.
Water can bring life or death,
Which one will G-d bestow…
Then, behold, the river lays him,
In the arms of bas Pharaoh.
בס״ד
Vayechi
A father eventually has to cast off,
Aspirations he’s had for his children,
To honestly see them for just who they are,
The wonders that he should take joy in.
Yaakov’s brachos are not so much,
The paths he wants them to take,
As they are insights about who they are,
And the impact they’re destined to make.
One might have thought Yaakov hadn’t a clue,
Of the nature of each shevet mentioned,
But, we can see from the brachos he gives,
That he’d really been paying attention.
So why did he give Yosef, Rachel’s son,
A clear designation of preference?
Sometimes a dream seems like insight as well,
To which we are wont to give deference.
But wisdom comes late to the wisest of us,
And I know I am not an exception,
So be, kleine kinderlach, just who you will be,
Your futures beyond my reflection.
