Parashat Naso

“We will do
And we will hear.”
An agreement,
Comes written,
In trust.
 
And in the center of the book,
The letters,
The words,
We are to live,
Are these:
“You shall love your neighbor
As yourself.”
 
There in the heart
Of the heart,
Of our Judaism,
Is love.
And in that love:
Security, equality, and trust.
 
This type of love
Can be hard.
It doesn’t always
Feel easy.
 
And so,
To give us strength,
Even while being counted,
There comes the blessing
Passed hand to hand to hand
Down through a Priestly People.
 
Tikkun Olam beckons
The ingathering
Of all the lights
Of the Holy Blessed One,
Who is aching to glimmer through
Every neshamah.
 
We know.
 
We must embrace
Our left,
As well as our right,
Not through a political lens
(That is not the structure of this world
That I want to accept.)
What I am referring to
Is Gevurah.
 
On our left,
A fruit inherent to the Tree of Life,
Eitz Hayyim.
Gevurah:
Restraint, Judgment, and Discernment.
 
It is Holy,
This drawing of the line.
This, too, is
“Peace in Action.”

 

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