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Achrei Mot: A Parable
(based on Pesikta d'Rav Kahana 26:2)
Ilana Kurshan
A long, long time ago, and far away,
There lived a man who married off his son.
The wedding feast was grand, the guests rejoiced,
With ample food and wine for everyone.
The father said, “And now I’ll make a feast
For all the sages and, of course, the groom,
To celebrate the wedding once again –
He made the food, he cleaned, and swept the room.
And just before the guests arrived, he turned,
To his own son, the groom, and said, “The wine!
It’s still upstairs, please bring it down, my son—
So all the sages soon may drink and dine.”
The son went up to fetch the well-aged wine
But didn’t come back down. His father went
Upstairs to check his son and found him dead—
A snakebite in his flesh. His life was spent.
The man came down with heavy steps. By now
The guests had all arrived. They ate their fill.
The man said not a word til it was time
To say the blessings, then he said, “Until
Now you have come to celebrate my son.
My friends, alas, my son the groom is dead
We brought him to the wedding canopy
And now we’ll bring him to the grave instead.”
So Aaron, silent, as if all was fine,
Inaugurated God’s new sacred shrine.
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The Talmud teaches that the Torah was given in black fire on white fire (Y. Shekalim 6:1). The black fire is the letters of the Torah scroll, and the white fire is the parchment background. In this column, consisting of a poem on each parashah, I will try to illuminate the white fire of Torah – the midrashim, stories, and interpretations that carve out the negative space of the letters and give them shape.
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