News

In Egypt, we were beautiful

As G-d’s children, recognizable,

Kept our language and names,

As Hebrews, we were clad.

I perch, fatigued, in the eerily illuminated chambers of the Pharaoh’s palace. I am a lowly slave, whom people jeer at as they pass or don’t even grace with the courtesy of a contemptuous sneer. Even the little children smirk disdainfully at me. I rub my eyes dejectedly.

 On the first night of Nisan, we start counting until the moon is full on the 15^th of the month. This is Seder night, our annual birthday party as a nation. Some 3,000 years ago, we were an enslaved people yearning for liberation from a tyrant. With the Haggadah, every year we gather to start our calendar anew by retelling the saga of the birth of the unbreakable soul of our nation. Pesach reminds us that we have a powerful, unique neshamah (soul) as individuals and are also a part of the greater soul of the Jewish People.

Recap: The new house looks like a haunted house. Yehudis and her father meet a nice rebbetzin and her daughter. The daughter is the same age as Yehudis and tells her about the theme of their Bais Yaakov yearbook. Yehudis will need some baby pictures; only, for some reason, whenever she asks her father where her baby pictures are, he is very evasive.

 With Pesach barely a month away, one aspect of the Festival of Freedom is dominating my thoughts in recent days. Dayeinu. It would be enough for us; a popular Seder night responsive song.

The laws of kohanim,

VaYikra,

Is the heart of the Torah.

The word korban means

To come close

By offering Hashem

Our animal souls

To channel lifeforce energies

To holiness

Through G-d’s decrees.

Writing “VaYikra,”

Moshe opposed, 

Thought it showed

Hashem giving him

Too much kavod;

The smaller alef,

The compromise,

For Moshe was small

In his own eyes.

At the burning bush

He first heard

Hashem’s call;

Moshe thought himself unworthy,

Thought himself too small.

But when the need arose

To defend his flock,

He showed chutzpah and daring,

Pulling out all the stops.

David was just a shepherd

In the fields, on his own

He became the sweetest singer

Ever known.

Gave his flock tender care

Like no one else;

When beasts tried to kill his sheep,

He was a lion himself.

Goliath thought young David

A foolhardy knave

For G-d and Israel’s honor;

The boy stood proud and brave.

When crowned king,

Through the crowds

With his retinue,

David confessed to them:

I am as amazed as you!

Like the moon, both

Humble and majestic,

Man’s greatness

In this world, a cyclic dynamic

Broken and diminished;

Light concealed

Amongst the downcast,

G-d’s true greatness

Is revealed.

The alef is silent,

The spirit makes no sound

For, amongst the lowly

HaKadosh Baruch Hu is found.

Written backwards, alef

Spells “peleh” –

Wonder inexplicable,

Within all of existence

Hashem loves the humble.

Moshe Rabbeinu’s

Heart was broken;

He rejoiced in his mission,

But, by the same token,

In Moshe’s great humility

He believed another

Could have done

Better than him.

By Sharon Marcus