Yom Kippur

 בס״ד

Yom Kippur

Like our days, which revolve

Around evening and morning,

So do our years convolve

Around our Seventh Months.

Nisan and Tishrei are doubles,

Each a seventh, and also a first,

Like the Earth, the year wobbles,

Between these two poles.

Can we say which is morning, which evening?

Does Freedom follow from Accountability?

Or must Responsibility, from Freedom, spring?

Which begets which?

The strands of this double helix,

Reach deep into each soul,

With each revolution a new contribution,

More sustainable than the last.

Nisan is the month of Spring and warmth,

Tishrei, the month of Fall, brings crispness,

Only a week of months separates them,

Sisters, like one Shabbos and the next.

Vayeilech/Shabbos Shuva

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Vayeilech/Shabbos Shuva

Be strong and courageous,

do not be afraid.

Be strong and courageous,

know Who goes before you.

Be strong and courageous,

you will lead them into the land.

Be strong and courageous,

I shall be with you.

It takes strength and courage,

to ask for forgiveness.

It takes strength and courage,

to open your heart.

You are strong and courageous,

when I am in your midst.

You are strong and courageous,

when, like Me, you desire kindness.

Rosh HaShanah

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Rosh HaShanah

Av HaRachamim,

You know from the rechem who we are,

Like Avraham, sanctified from the womb,

So Your name, Rachamim, is plural,

As a mother’s love can’t be plumbed,

So rechem is just the beginning

of many kindnesses.

Rachamim is more than chesed,

Avraham didn’t spare his son,

But you, HaShem, did,

You saw what he had done,

And you lifted his heart upwards,

From kindness to tenderness.

So, though our dove offerings have ceased,

We need not lose hope,

We feel Avraham’s presence, as we recount,

How his emunah pshuta, 

Drew down rachamim pshutim,

And a new offering, soared to the Heavens.

Inspired by the slicha אם אפס רבע הקן in the Sefardi nusach

Netzavim

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Netzavim

Know what you stand for,

Recall who you are,

You are My chosen people,

Mankind’s guiding star.

They often will curse you,

And expect even worse,

They’ll cry out from their steeples,

Citing chapter and verse.

The more they despise you,

You may rest assured,

Your trajectory’s true,

Their complaints are absurd.

So think not about them,

Give them no thought,

They prefer to be blinded,

So do what you ought.

Ki Savo

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Ki Savo

How can this be,

Threats and curses and imprecations,

To be visited upon us,

As individuals, and as a nation?

In both Devarim and Vayikra,

Predictions of the unthinkable,

These common human horrors,

We hear of them every day.

They are to be expected,

Imprisoned not only by our own choices,

But those of others, near or far, in time and space,

Yet, if we see fault in ourselves,

There is, perhaps, a chance for rectification.

What we call “inhuman” is all too human,

Within the darkness, an opportunity to glow,

Whether we take it or not,

To choose to shake off our bonds.

To come to the Land,

To free our angels,

And be redeemed.

Ki Seitze

 בס״ד

Ki Seitze

How can it be

That the mantle of leadership is so often

Not inherited by the bochur

But by the younger.

So many examples

Too many to mention

Yitzchak and Yaakov and Yosef, and such,

King Dovid, himself, an exception

The younger or youngest,

It seems, many times

Is the one 

Who advances the family’s mission

Yet this parsha insists, that the eldest son

Even if the child of the less loved

Must inherit all that is the Father’s

But not, necessarily, the path to

The future.