Let us begin at the end:
All live happily ever after.
Beauty, peace and harmony
Walk hand in hand, their faces
Glowing in the radiant sun shining
Forth a blaze from heaven’s depths
To the clarity that is man and purity
That is his being and essence; over the
Crystal-tender streams of consciousness…
(Real consciousness, the kind that is not
Only conscious of the fact but also of the
Dream, the kind that is not conscious of ones
Own being but of the Being that is Supreme and
Eternal, the kind that is not only conscious of one’s
Limitations but also of one’s – and another’s – possibilities
It would seem we’ve lost our
Own stream of consciousness
So back to the end)
…Over the crystal-tender streams of consciousness,
Straight through the subtle baby-breath whispers of
Promises fulfilled and destinies realized, and beyond
Anything the greatest artist could ever paint or even
Envision, there floats what the prophets would call
Redemption but what in simple terms is: Divine knowledge,
The realization that the G-dliness we’ve never actually
Seen is now reality and the universe we’ve always touched
Now suddenly seems to slip right through our very fingers.
This is the end; but in reality it is the beginning:
It happened at the end
Of two years to the day
In English, the word “end”
Is final
In the Holy Tongue, it
Is culmination
This end of which the Torah speaks
Is a result, an outcome of the events
Preceding – this “end,” where Yosef
Arises to great heights, to unbelievable
Expansion which would shape the people
And change the course of history – and
Future – forever, is a result, an outcome
Of the challenges he refined and the bars
Behind which he was shackled…
In the realm of a purely physical existence,
Things end, come to an end, go to an end;
But Truth, Holiness, never ends: it merely culminates.
False pretense, store-bought beauty fades with time and space;
True beauty never ends: it is merely the product of all our work
Much gets lost in translation;
The lesson from Mikeitz should not:
There are times when we are imprisoned
Within our own limitations, only left to
Interpret dreams sometimes not even our
Own; however, this is merely a transient
State, not an end; indeed, this can lead one
Straight to the top – from the confines of
Prison to a prince among men, ending, no,
Culminating with the “approach” and embrace
Of brothers, worlds once divided now made
Complete
All’s well that ends
Well
The End
(That is, the time for all of heaven’s and earth’s beauty
To culminate)
Mendel Jacobson is a writer, poet and journalist living in Brooklyn. His weekly poetry can be seen at jakeyology.blogspot.com
The words of this author reflect his/her own opinions and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Orthodox Union.