Torah. The Pentateuch of Moses in weekly chapters, in poetic form

Yitzchak, having become his own with the king and unwilling to allow sacrilege to his wife,
He was slandered and thrown into prison behind a heavy, bolted prison door.

In his imprisonment Yosef meets the cupbearer and the baker, Pharaoh’s officials,
He interprets their dreams and they come true: the latter is hanged, the former is released.
Yosef asks the freed cupbearer to put in a good word with his patron,
But the latter did not, and his sense of gratitude was completely devoid of gratitude.

Meanwhile, Yosef’s brother Yehuda gives birth to three sons,
The eldest son Er marries Tamar, but dies childless and young,
His brother Onan marries Tamar but dies quickly, sin is the cause,
Tamar by Yehudah bears sons Peretz and Zerach, driven by her instinct.

The Book of Being

Weekly chapter: Mikets #10

By interpreting Pharaoh’s own dreams, Yosef not only came out of his imprisonment,
But he became the de facto ruler of Egypt, the second person after Pharaoh.
Yosef married and had sons, but he never strayed from G-d’s teachings,
He kept the commandments, missed his father and brothers, remembered his home.

The sons of Yaakov, because of the famine, went to Egypt to buy food,
They did not recognise their brother in the king, but Yosef recognised them at once.
Declaring the brothers to be spies, he left Shimon as a hostage while the others,
went after his brother Binyamin, with G-d’s help, Yosef calculated everything.

Yehuda convinced Yaakov to release Binyamin on his own recognisance,
Satisfied, Yosef released Shimon and gave the brothers a farewell feast.
Putting Binyamin in the cup and ‘making’ him guilty by detaining him accordingly,
As punishment, making his younger brother his slave, Binyamin fell into a trap.

The Book of Being

Weekly Chapter: Vayigash #11

Yehuda begs Yosef to free his younger brother Binyamin and offers,
To remain in slavery in his place, by his devotion Yosef has defeated him.
Convinced of his brothers’ unity, Yosef reveals himself to them,
‘Is my father Yaakov still alive?’ – ‘Is my father Yaakov still alive?

The brothers are hurt, ashamed and remorseful for what they have done against their brother,
‘G-d sent me to Egypt to save my family,’ Yosef comforted them.
The brothers returned to their father with good news, and Yaakov, rejoicing more than ever,
Goes to Egypt to his son, accompanied by seventy souls of relatives.

On the way, Yaakov is favoured and instructed by G-d:
‘Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your people great,
– I will raise you up from there again,’ which gave Yisrael encouragement,
Pharaoh allotted the land of Goshen to Ya’akov and he and his family lived there safely.

Book of Being

Weekly chapter: Vaechi #12

After seventeen years in Egypt, Yaakov takes an oath from Yosef before his death,
that he will bury him in the Holy Land.
Yaakov blesses Yosef’s sons Menashe and Ephraim as his guardians,
He fails to reveal the End of Days and dies on his deathbed.

Yosef fulfils his promise to his father before his death,
Yaakov is buried in the Holy Land, in Hebron, in the cave of Machpelah.
Yosef himself dies at the age of one hundred and ten, having given his brothers and sons a parting covenant:
To remember G-d’s promise to ‘raise up the Jews in the Land,’ no matter how bitter the portion.

Book: Exodus

Weekly chapter: Shmoth #13

The new Pharaoh was afraid that the Jews had multiplied greatly,
And in case of war might join Egypt’s enemies.
He ordered newborn Hebrew boys to be slaughtered with malice aforethought,
To enslave the Jewish people with exorbitant labour.

Levi’s daughter, wishing to save her son from certain death,
put him in a tarred basket and left him in the reeds.
Pharaoh’s daughter adopted the child, and he was called Moshe,
He grew and lived in Pharaoh’s palace and was honoured and profitable.

But the blood of the Jews in him, it seems, was aroused,
When he saw his fellow man beaten, he killed the Egyptian torturer,
‘And that he might not be punished by Pharaoh for his murder.
Moshe hurried to the neighbouring country of Midyan.

In Midyan Moshe married Tzip?ra, the daughter of the priest of Yitro,
At Mount Sinai, G-d revealed Himself to Moshe in a flame of burning thorns.
And promises to help His Chosen People in the mountain,
Aoron is commanded by G-d to be Moshe’s interpreter.

G-d is merciful to His beloved child,
He didn’t leave Moshe in trouble despite his change of tradition.
He sent Moshe to lead the Jews out of the Egyptian hell…
Did not dissolve to make the people of Israel in a foreign environment.

From the mouth of Moses the statements of the Creator were heard by the Egyptian Pharaoh:
‘Let My son go, that He may serve Me.’
For keeping their names, the Jewish people were forgiven,
The love of liberty for their own and others’ freedom, Israel has kept it ever since.

Book: Exodus