Mikeitz

 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.

Chanukah

 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.

Vayeishev

 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.

Vayishlach

 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.

Vayeitze

 בס״ד

Vayeitze

Bachora and bracha he bears to the Place,

Where he dreams that he sees a sulam,

While a circlet of stones,

 Surrounds his head...

Then he leaps in a flash to Haran.

A shepherdess leads her sheep to a well,

And a man moves the rock with no bother,

He waters her flock,

 And kisses her there,

Says your father is my mother’s brother.

He works seven years but gets Leah instead,

Though it seems to him less than a week, 

The next thirteen years,

 Feel like twenty to him,

Till he bolts while Lavan is asleep.

Both time and space appear relative here,

To expand and to shrink on a whim,

Maybe to teach us,

 Truth, too, can be stretched,

And a lie can collapse from within.

Toldos

 בס״ד

Toldos

What is more important?

A birthright or a bracha?

Why would Esav spurn the one,

And cry about the other?

And Yaakov shows no interest,

In the bracha from his father,

He only goes to seek it,

On the urging of his mother.

In Rivka’s eyes he needed both,

To bring him to fruition,

Twinning ruchnius and gashmius

Was crucial to his mission,

The ruchnius is vital,

It’s the light that G-d reveals,

The gashmius essential,

It’s the vessel that conceals.

So the birthright he acquired,

Is to cast illumination,

And the bracha that’s bestowed,

The very kli that forms a nation.

Chayei Sara

 בס״ד

Chayei Sara

“ I will go”, is what Rivka answered them,

With little hesitation, she just left,

No thought of return…

Forever.

Prepared to go at the very first word,

Like a true daughter of Avraham,

To the place she will be…

Shown.

Aching to leave the home of Betuel,

Bearing the shards of kedusha,

 She had thus far…

Gathered.

To illuminate Yitzchok’s empty tent,

Left dark after Mother Sara,

Her rekindled light…

Glowing.

Little dreaming that a son yet unborn,

Would flee one day to Haran,

And there redeem the last two remaining…

Sparks.