VAYYESHEV

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 Genesis 37-40

When did exile begin? When Yakov, lame
From combat, bowed down and called Esav lord?
When he was silent in his grief and shame
While Dinah’s brothers mercilessly warred
And with the guilty slew the innocent?
When the father’s leaning toward the loved wife’s son,
And the boy’s tattling, stirred up such resentment
That the deed of brother-murder was all but done?
Yosef went down to Egypt. Yehudah too
Went down, and through a woman’s trick begot
An ancestor of kings. None of them knew
How they were threaded in G-d’s complex plot:
The Face was hidden, although the hand was felt,
And peace was rarely found where Yakov dwelt.