please pray for the health of Daniel Yehuda ben Arella and Yechiel ben Michal.
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The Torah as a book of failure
i
Man and woman
fail in the Garden.
Then Adam names Eve Eve, Chavah—
for she is the mother of all life.
ii
Moses hits the rock
against God’s words.
For this,
Moses may not enter the Land—
he dies outside of it.
After Moses dies,
the Torah says,
the people weep
and then they follow Joshua
—whom Moses had made leader after him—
as they had followed Moses.
And the Torah says:
there will never be another prophet
like Moses.
iii
So that the Torah
that begins with Creation,
with Adam and Eve,
begins in failure.
And the Torah
that ends with the death of Moses
ends in failure.
It is a book of failure.
iv
But this is also true:
that Adam and Eve find a name
as parents to humankind;
that, as one in a line of leaders,
Moses is the greatest of prophets.
v
Perhaps to say:
Alone,
at our one point in time,
we cannot truly succeed.
Only when we are a part
of the long history of humanity,
of the long line of our people—
then we live,
we thrive.
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Chag sameach and Shabbat Shalom,
Abe