TorahParsha

A Family is the Heart of the World

 

for Parshat VaYechi

Before his death, Jacob commands his sons to take his body from Egypt to the family’s burial plot, in Canaan. When Jacob dies, Pharaoh’s servants and the elders of Egypt escort his sons, carrying Jacob’s body, into Canaan. The Canaanites, looking on, say: here is a great mourning for Egypt.

A family’s loss becomes a nation’s loss becomes a moment on the global stage.

The last lesson Jacob imparts is this: that a family is the heart of the world.

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

 

Inspired by the philosophy of Rav Ezra Bick

Genesis 49:29-33; 50:7-11

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What are years?

 

for Parshat VaYigash

 

i

God tells Noah

to build a great ship

out of gofer wood

three hundred cubits long

fifty cubits wide

thirty cubits high

to carry the creatures through the storm.

*

God tells Moses

to build a Holy Ark

from shittim wood

one and a half cubits long

one and a half cubits wide

one and a half cubits high

to carry God’s Testimony

across the Desert

to the Land.

*

Pharaoh asks Jacob

How many are the days of the years of your life?

Jacob

who has had a difficult life

who is old

answers Pharaoh:

I have lived one hundred thirty years,

few and bad were the days of the years of my life. 

ii

A number is a measure

of material for carrying things:

cubits of wood for voyagers

cubits of wood for holy cargo

years of life for bearing good

or bad.

iii

A number is a question:

With only so much material

so much wood

so many cubits

so many years

—nothing more—

what can we carry

and how much

how will we carry good

and not bad

what is in our power

to justify the measure we have?

 ____

Title taken from the title of a poem by Marianne Moore

 ____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

TorahParsha.com

What living through many lives teaches us

 

For Parshat Mikeitz

 

i

Pharoah dreams

of cows eating cows

and he wakes up

and he goes to sleep

and then he dreams

of corn eating corn.

*
Joseph tells him:

the cows eating cows

and the corn eating corn

all represent

one continuum of years.

Though you woke in between,

your two dreams really are one.

*

Through these dreams

Joseph shows how

to join seven years of plenty

with seven years of famine.

Through these dreams

Joseph’s many brothers

estranged twenty years

come to meet him now,

the leader in Egypt

far from home.

Through these dreams

Joseph’s brothers say finally

we are guilty

for the cruelty they had shown him

when they were young

in that past life.

 

ii

Life is full of lives

that do not seem to connect.

Some are unworkable

and some seem meaningless

and only in a different part of life

can we say at last:

Here is what it means.

 

iii

A people of history,

our lives bear the task

of weaving moments

from past to present

from present to future

of saying It is one dream,

a single story

a single life

that God unfolds.

 

____

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Urim Sameach, 

 Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

 

What if we cannot talk to each other?

 

for Parshat VaYeishev

 

i

There is no record of any words 

between Cain and his brother

whom Cain hates

until Cain said to Abel, his brother—

but what Cain said is not written;

then Cain murders Abel.

*

And Cain’s line of children dies in the Flood.

 

ii

Judah promises his childless,

widowed daughter-in-law—

Tamar—

that she will marry Judah’s surviving son.

But Judah does not make good on his word.

He never tells Tamar why.

*

Tamar dresses as a prostitute.

Judah impregnates her,

not knowing it is her.

*

In exchange for their meeting, Tamar takes

Judah’s ring, cord, and staff.

*

Judah hears that Tamar, unmarried, is pregnant

—a capital crime in that day.

Tamar tells Judah:

the father is the owner 

of this ring, this cord, this staff.

Judah says: 

She is more righteous than I,

let us spare her.

*

The child they birth

is the ancestor of David,

whose kingdom is everlasting.

 

iii

If we cannot communicate we die 

(like Cain and Abel).

If we find something of ourselves in each another

(as Tamar taught Judah)—

then we learn to speak,

we move beyond death 

we last forever.

 

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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[Sent before Shabbat]

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