Skip to main content

Parsha Poem: Nitzavim-Vayelech / נִצָּבִים-וַיֵּלֶךְ

Devarim/Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30

image This was the last day of Moshe’s whole life

He’d grown up, he’d left home, he’d taken a wife.

And now he was old; it was time for goodbye,

But instead he was teaching; too busy to cry.

We learn two parshiyot (that’s parshas) this week

Which means lots of lessons we all have to seek.

Nitzavim means standing: we stood and we heard,

But Vayelech means going; it’s kind of absurd.

We’re standing, he’s going – how could we survive,

Without our great teacher who helped us to thrive?

But we don’t need him now, in fact, that’s the point

That’s why a new leader Hashem could anoint.

The Torah was not meant for just holy folks;

It’s written for us, who live lives and tell jokes.

imageSure, Moshe was really a very great man,

But Hashem said, “Don’t worry, there’s someone who can

Take over now and he’ll lead them all well,

As they cross the Yarden and move into Israel.”

But before Moshe finished, he had to act fast,

And teach us to be sure that the Torah would last.

image Hakheil, a mitzvah to gather and hear it

So we’d keep it and love it and always be near it.

But it’s not enough to just listen alone,

Every Jew must make sure that the Torah’s their own.

Its very last mitzvah commands us to write

A Torah of our very own, day and night.

imageIf we can’t do the job, if we’re not qualified,

A Sofer, a scribe, we will need on our side.

To write a whole Torah is no easy task –

It takes years and costs money (better you shouldn’t ask!).

But if we all gather a dollar or two,

We can participate in the mitzvah; it’s true.

We also “write Torahs” when we buy Jewish books,

To read them and learn them, not just for their looks.

The Torah is not in Shamayim, they say…

The Torah is for every Jew, every day!

image

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

Are Jews an "underrepresented community" in children’s publishing?

I applied for a writing award yesterday. I'm not going to get it, but that's not what I wanted to share with you. Here's what I wanted to share. This box:   I stared at this box for a long, long time. And then I decided not to check it. Even though I believe people like me truly are underrepresented, we probably wouldn’t fit the definition in other people's minds. Why? Well, because we're European. Because we are white. Because as everybody knows, Jews control the media. (do we???) If anything, some people say, Jews are over -represented in publishing. And yet. Some definitions are careful not to include people like me. Like this random definition from the State of California which defines underrepresented for some very specific business purposes as: "an individual who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self-identi