בס״ד
Vayechi
Oh, bury me not by the river Nile,
The lair of the jackal and the crocodile,
Crimson with the blood of slaves,
Let me rest, instead, in Efron’s cave.
***
Please don’t leave my bones behind,
When finally comes the redemption time,
In far Shechem, that’s where I’ll sleep,
Where my brothers tended speckled sheep.
בס״ד
Vayigash
Pharaoh’s visions weren’t meant to save,
In the way that we might think,
He turned all Egypt into slaves,
In return for food and drink.
Was this what Yosef had in mind,
When he presented his conception,
Or was he subject to the Pharaoh’s will,
And was forced in that direction?
Or did he glimpse in Pharaoh’s dreams,
The path to our salvation?
First Pharaoh turned his own to slaves,
Which introduced our subjugation.
And from that fiery kiln was forged,
A leader like no other,
Moshe Rabbeinu, "son" of Basya,
Not of pharaoh, but our brother.
There are pharaohs still within our days,
Who will first enslave their own,
As they plan and plot to immolate,
The gardens they’ve not sown.
בס״ד
Mikeitz
Asenath,
maid of Mitzrayim,
or foundling daughter of Dina,
castaway atop the wall of Egypt,
or perhaps beneath a thornbush.
Asenath,
raised by aish-es Potiphar,
in the grip of idolatry,
like our other mothers.
Asenath,
wife of Yosef,
like Rochel his mother,
the bearer of two sons,
the lifespring of two tribes.
Asenath,
though her youngest will be greater,
now, without rancor,
the brothers are blessed together,
by the youngest son of a youngest son.
בס״ד
Vayeishev
About Yehuda I have a shayla,
Why he kept Shey-la from Tamar,
Since Shey-la also spells Shel-La,
So Shey-la could also mean “hers”.
But I suppose to Er is human,
And the same could be said of Onan,
Salvation’s not born of bas-Shua,
Beis Dovid is up to Tamar.
