Parshat Vayechi: A Live Coverage

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Alive
08 Jan 2009
Arts & Media

We are alive!

 

Sometimes it takes

The end of the book,

The end of the journey

To know that we are truly

Alive!

 

But we are always alive

Even when it doesn’t feel

Like it, even when we don’t

Want to feel like it, we are alive

Because we come from and always

Are connected to the true and pure

Source of all Life…

 

But it is at these moments of truth

That we realize we are alive;

And when we realize that we are alive

We see that all moments are moments of truth…

 

Yaakov lived in

The land of Egypt

 

Yaakov, Israel, lived before

Then as well; but sometimes

It takes an Egypt to really high-

Light life; sometimes it takes

The hardest squeeze to produce

The purest oil; sometimes it takes

The rope of bondage itself to

Climb over the walls of exile.

 

We never revel in the pains of

Life merely in the rewards they

Produce; we cannot understand

The suffering but we can use it

To make ourselves grow and rid

The universe forever of all hurt –

We can use the tears we’ve known

To dry all sad eyes and wet cheeks forever…

 

It is now at the end,

At the end of the book of beginnings,

When we first realize what life is all about

And that we are alive; it’s right before the illness

That the cure is realized and revealed, right before

The exile of Egypt that we realize we are alive and

No constraint can ever hold us back from our redemption

Our Torah, our Promised Land –

 

~~

 

It is the journey of the torah

And the journey of our lives:

 

From the beginning of creation,

In the beginning G-d created

The heavens and the earths

Through the establishment of

A universe and a people ready

To bridge the gap that is heaven

And earth, unite the fragments of

Time and space and finally come

To a realization that we are life and

When we do then even death will not

Get in the way of our mission and life

G-d will surely remember you then you

Must bring my bones up out of here

 

Life: the certainty and knowledge

That our bones as well as our essence,

Our bodies along with our souls,

Will rise upward from Egypt to the

Land that is both promised and fulfilled

 

Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened!

 

Chazak Chazak V’nitchazek


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.