Va'eira, וָאֵרָא "And I Appeared" Exodus 6:2 - 9:35

Calev and Yehoshua Out of Egypt

Poetic notes on Parashat Vaera*

Calev and Yehoshua

Like no other princes

were redeemed by ten plagues

Calev cleaved to Yehoshua

when Yehoshua

cleaved to the aura of Moshe

Ten princes of Israel

stood at the river of blood

Two were silent

in the face of angry doubt

Like the dogs were silent

in the face of zealous death

The Nile was made to crawl

on its belly

and eat dust

until it ate blood

Will the whole world eat blood?

asked the princes

The righteous and the wicked together?

But two were silent and strong

When the princes stepped back

from the bank of the river

Yehoshua stepped forward

towards where Moshe stood

where Aaron also stood with his staff

And Calev drew a line in the sand

A line all the way out of Egypt

into the Holy Land

Today Pharaoh would not repent

Nor would Amalek tomorrow

And the hunger of the wicked Amorites

would never be filled

When Calev saw their lust for blood

he did not need to say to himself out loud

"There but for the grace of God go I"

For he feared Hashem

to the very silence in his bones

God sent wild beasts on Egypt

but an aura of Moshe on Goshen

Then Calev said, "Come!

Let us bow down and bend the knee

Let us kneel

before HaShem our Maker

For He is our God

And we are the people of His pasture

and the flock of His hand"

*Being a meditation on a Torah class on parashah Vaera, delivered by Rabbi Baitelman of ChaBaD Richmond, B.C., based on the series, Torah Studies, by Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. Neither Rabbi Baitelman nor the JLI have reviewed or approved of the content of this post.