Acharei Mos-Kedoshim

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Acharei Mos-Kedoshim

HaShem is cloaked amidst the smoke,

Behind a curtain hidden,

Aaron alone can enter there,

But only when he’s bidden.

With love and awe and humble heart,

He bathes before he enters,

Then lights the incense carefully,

From living coals and embers.

The fragrance smells of reverence,

For parents, and for Shabbos,

Of chesed flooding far beyond,

The corners of each harvest.

Kedoshim we are meant to be,

If realized, be not proud,

That gift has drifted down to us,

From the Kohen, in a cloud.

Tazria-Metzora

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Tazria-Metzora

“Mindless speech blocks the brains”,

My Pele Yoetz note expounds,

“Mindless pleasure blocks the heart”,

Quoth Rabbi Yitzchok Lowenbraun.

Was this his innovation?

Of this I do not know,

Perhaps it was passed down to him,

By a Rebbe long ago.

So thoughts, conceived like children,

Connect tazria and metzora,

In both forms of conception,

There’s both tumah and tahara.

Brain and heart resemble kelim,

That give birth as from a womb,

If the seed is sown in carelessness,

It must effect the bloom.

Alas, as oft it is the case,

Our acts are stained by tai’va,

These kelim can be kashered,

Through hagalah, and korban’s fire.

Shemini

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Shemini

How is it that

Mishael and Elzafan

those particular sons of 

Uzziel HaLevi

are called upon

by Moshe Rabbeinu

to drag 

the scorched

bodies

of their cousins

Nadav and Abihu

by their tunics

from the mishkan

while Aaron himself

remains silent

and the Chanukas HaKohanim

continues

without

missing

a

beat?

Shevi'i shel Pesach

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Shevi’i shel Pesach

The gates of music are,

The gates of prophecy,

Or so the Zohar says.

Imagine what we must have seen,

In our song, crossing the sea,

The vision soon lost, as closed the waves.

No two of us sounded just alike,

Each voice a navua of it’s own,

Of that shimmering radiance, one ray.

The music of the words is with us still,

Each letter, vowel, and taam,

A nuance shrouded within the staves.

And each new voice today that sings,

Uncloaks treasures yet unfound in

This song, as we sang it, that day.

Shabbos Chol HaMoed Pesach

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Shabbos Chol Hamoed Pesach

You shall have no idols,

For I am your G-d,

Who took you from Egypt,

Against all the odds.

It’s repeated to Moshe,

When the parsha is read,

On this Shabbos of Pesach,

In Chol HaMoed.

 

So is not keeping Pesach,

Considered akin,

To worshipping idols,

As big of a sin?

Maybe taking strange gods,

Leads to loss of our past,

So remember who saved you,

‘Cause we’re made to last.