Beha'aloscha

 בס״ד

Beha’aloscha

It might have been a better choice,

The munn to cease, when raised our voice,

For it is the way, when lacking nothing,

To think you need some other something.

Would have been wiser to rely,

On food from earth, and not from sky,

Which we had a role in making,

Growing, raising, cooking, baking.

Our offerings brought true satisfaction,

Joy and achdus, born of action,

We filled our hearts, from what we gave,

Not just our stomachs, like some slave.

Some blame it on the erev rav,

That traded, for a flight of slav,

Was single heart that we had gained,

When love, not quail, upon us rained.

Naso

 בס״ד

Naso

In the shul where I grew up,

Above the Aron, with its cover,

Two lions there, each other faced,

The luchos guarding over.

That’s how it appeared to me,

When I was just a child,

I told my friends God spoke from there,

Between those lions wild.

How could I have known as Moshe knew,

In this parsha’s brief conclusion,

God’s song ascends the covered Ark,

‘Tween golden winged cheruvim.

That image still resides in me,

And when I feel disconnected,

I strain, in tears, to hear His voice,

As if from Mishkan, just erected.

Could it be that best His words we hear,

Not in our isolation,

But when one listens, and is heard,

 God joins the conversation?

Bamidbar

 בס״ד

Bamidbar

Each half shekel was not the same

worn edges and tarnished faces

unique to each

a history and personality of its own

Yet valued as if newly minted

each coin carrying the imprimatur

of its bearer

whom the Molder had fashioned by hand

By this we were counted

like the gifts of the Nesi’im

identical, but not

no two hearts beating just the same

And the One who knows recognizes

from every unseen trace of sweat

and each adhering speck of arid dust

the soul who bore it

Behar-Bechukosai

 בס״ד

Behar-Bechukosai

“Do what I tell you”, it reads not ungently,

You’ll be better off, both physc-ly and ment-ly,

Go as commanded in the path that I set,

(It’s not a suggestion, on that you can bet.)

About Noach it says that he walked with HaShem,

Avraham travelled before Him, but then,

The path that we follow is not quite so clear,

The trail that we tread, which we hope brings us near.

Nusachim, minhagim, they all play a part,

They grab at our kishkas, they pull at our heart,

Halacha is subject to: where, when, and how,

Sometimes its hard to know what to hold now.

Are we given more credit than our Fathers before us,

If we get it wrong, is there less of an onesh,

Like blind men we edge along, tapping our cane,

On a cliff masked with shadow, temptation, and pain.

We depend on Your brachos, the ones that You pick,

Please guide us with carrot, instead of the stick,

We cannot walk with or before as they did,

We have to seek after…’cause You’re so well hid.

Emor

 בס״ד

Emor

Food for HaShem?

Served by an untainted Kohen,

Only the best is offered,

With a wave.

Is HaShem such a picky eater?

Did he not bestow every blotch

And blister which appears upon man or beast?

But HaShem only does what is good for us,

“The castaway shall not remain cast away”,

He declares.

So, it is not for Him that the

Blemished are banished, but for us,

So that we should not err as

Kayin did, in the beginning,

Saving the choicest for himself,

Thus diminished,

By his own hand.

Acharei Mos-Kedoshim

 בס״ד

Acharei Mos-Kedoshim

Horn-ed he-goat, picked by lot,

Not deserving what he got,

Not offered up, no pleasing smell,

Sent instead to Azazel?

Or assuming now a dubious stature,

All that’s bad in human nature,

Our barbarity, which we restrain,

Given now an angel’s name?

Or was Azazel a mountain high,

Sister peak of Har Sinai,

A ridge that Aaron knew back then,

The title now used once again?

Or demonic shade, in darkness bred,

The scapegoat, with its scarlet thread,

Cast down in order to appease,

Its insatiable voracities?

If Kohen Gadol chose today,

Where to banish our worst away,

Perhaps that realm where spectres dwell,

The tormented pits of Aza’s hell.

Tazria-Metzora

 בס״ד

Tazria-Metzora

He spoke, and all his words were heeded,

Of the nature of the one, en-seeded,

Who in bringing forth this soul, succeeded,

How long tameh, and when tahor?

If male, just thirty-three are needed,

All these days must be completed,

If female, these are superseded,

Doubled now to raise the score.

No mention here if someone pleaded,

That the span of tumah, up be speeded,

The cycles press on unimpeded,

Just as they had done before.

At last, the tide of time receded,

And just like challah, freshly kneaded,

Rising now, growth unimpeded,

Leavening, the life she bore.