for Parshat VaYigash
i
God tells Abraham:
Leave your homeland
your birthplace
your father’s house,
go to the Land of Israel,
I will make you a great nation there.
There,
Abraham parts ways with his nephew
parts ways with his son
nearly sacrifices his other son upon the altar
becomes the lone Man of God.
ii
Jacob and his whole family
go down to Egypt
reuniting with Jacob’s beloved son,
Joseph,
who lives there
who had been estranged from the family
for twenty years.
It will be centuries
before the family returns to the Land.
God tells Jacob:
Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt.
I will make you a great nation there.
And Joseph
your beloved son
will lay his hands over your eyes
when you pass.
iii
Abraham begins a great nation
going to the Land.
Jacob begins a great nation
leaving it.
God makes us a great nation
when we are ready to give up
the people we love
the family around us
to follow God to His Land.
God makes us a great nation, too,
when we are ready to give up the Land
following the people we love.
_____
Shabbat Shalom,
Abe
Please pray for Yechiel ben Michal
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