Vayishlach

 בס״ד

Vayishlach

He sees visions of malachim who

ascend and descend,

serve as earthly emissaries,

and then wrestle him for supremacy.

Is the divine image

which he sees in Esav’s face

that of the angel who

would not be named?

What are we to make of

dreams and apparitions,

shifting, shimmering sands,

within which formless mysteries dwell?

How many phantom ladders to climb,

How many crushing falls to endure,

How many crippling battles to fight,

How many elusive dreams to pursue,

before Yisroel can rest?

Vayeitze

 בס״ד

Vayeitze

No two loves are quite the same,

Does that mean that one’s not true?

Two cloudless days are not alike,

But the sky can be as blue.

Yaakov loved his first wife Leah,

But not the way that she desired,

An entire life felt less than loved,

For doing as Lavan required.

Expectations, we can learn from this,

Are premeditated disappointments,

What appears as less can be no balm,

There must be some healing ointment.

And thus for Leah our mother,

Who bore half of all his sons,

She did not see all that she hoped for,

But she could smile at what was.

Toldos

 בס״ד

Toldos

A mother’s eyes never grow dim,

She always knows the essential nature,

Of each child and grandchild,

Seeing deeper than -

their choices.

A father’s eyes look beyond the child,

He may fail to see the inner kernel of each neshama,

Yet he is vigilant to guide and protect,

His vision focused -

outward.

So, a mother must be chosen carefully,

No small task for a man,

Who, at that singular moment of insight,

Is gifted from Above with

one fleeting flash -

of binah.

Chayei Sarah

 בס״ד

Chayei Sarah

The family descended from Terach,

Only married outsiders b’pherach, *

If they had the same mother,

They’d not marry each other,

But most anything else was a shidduch.

Avraham and his niece said “I do”,

So son Yitzchok is thus his nephew,

Rivka’s brother Lavan,

Whom we’ll meet later on,

Is his first cousin one time removed.

Sarah, the sister of Milcah,

(The alter-bubby of Rivka),

Was the niece of Nahor,

And Rivka’s mother-in-law,

To keep these things straight is a twister.

Though it may have been “al pi halachah”,

And it had the Creator’s hashgacha,

If my daughter wed one,

Of my granddaddy’s sons,

I would wonder about my mishpacha.

* with burdensome difficulty

Vayera

 בס״ד

Vayera

What was this fire Avraham carried,

Was it just a flinty rock?

Or an ember from a living flame,

Preserved in a fire pot? 

Did the fire pot preserve a coal,

From that furnace in Ur Kasdim,

The one where Avraham proved himself,

By entering therein?

Or from the roasting fire,

Upon which lamb was cooked for angels,

And served to those who do not eat,

Kept alight, like Sarah’s candle?

Carried now to Har Moriah,

Son and father to be tested,

Will emunah sh’b’gevurah,

Be as strong as that of chesed?

Suspended from a chain or such,

Was this Ner Tamid ushered south,

To ignite, perhaps, a burning bush,

Or singe young Moshe’s mouth?

Or to rekindle a menorah,

That had been much abused,

This spark, this lasting remnant,

Of the holy Ohr Ganuz? 

Lech Lecha

 בס״ד

Lech Lecha

Avram and Sarai left Haran,

With just God’s word to count upon,

They went on shlichus, one could say,

And knew they’d have to pay their way.

To set up shop somewhere unknown,

A place they felt they would be shown,

To bring the message God is One,

To mothers, fathers, daughters, sons.

To care for them, and feel their pain,

Shelter them from sun and rain,

Teach them niggunim and songs,

Laugh with them and keep them strong.

Far from home and all their kin,

This Rabbi and this Rebbitzin,

With love and joy they served their God,

I think they must have been Chabad.

Noach

 בס״ד

Noach

Emerging from within the cloud

Of black and white and grey

The keshet shed her darkened shroud

A spectrum to display

A refracted arc of every shade

From red to green to violet

Water-colored crystals sprayed

As mist from a prismed palette

 

Moshe Chaim Jaffee, age 5