#jacob #esau #myprayer #prayer #wordshavewings #parshatvayishlach #birthright #areyouthere #doesgodhearourprayers
In this poem, the first I will write about Parshat VaYishlach, brings us the edge of a river. It is night, Jacob is alone and is preparing to meet with his brother Esav in the morning. Esav and Jacob did not part ways amicably or honestly. Despite years apart, Jacob still fears his brother's revenge after stealing Esav's birthright. Jacob is now a wealthy man and has wives and children, flocks and servants to protect. Despite promises from God, Jacob still suffers from fear on the eve of his anticipated meeting.
At some point in our lives we have had that experience in the middle of the night, when we are the most vulnerable, when our prayers from the heart are expressed with emotion and sometimes with real fear.
In this poem I try to imagine Jacob's fear while waiting for the morning to come. Jacob's prayers and hopes will be granted, but projecting outward, to all of us who have been frightened at some point in our lives and pray fervently to God, I wonder how our prayers arrive to God. Are they heard among the innumerable prayers directed to God every day over the course of history. How does God hear our prayers?
May your prayers be answered.
A Prayer
God,
Are you there?
It's me
I'm alone at night, it's dark
I'm so afraid
the darkness surrounds me
and fear swells in my chest
fear that disables me
a weight that smothers me
under the burden of uncertainty
Ribono Shel Olam,
there are countless prayers
Voices of the heart
They whisper and cry
plea and demand
the supplications of so many
the old and young
Mothers and fathers
husands and wives
Children
as many as the stars in the sky
Perfect and imperfect
From all corners of the earth
Prayers do not cease
Another and another and they ascend
God, where is my voice among the many?
Is my voice lost among the pleas?
Like a voice lost in the wind?
My God,
here is my prayer
With shivers and shudders
Screams, sighs and cries
Do you hear me, God
my voice,
find my voice!
Ribono shel ha'olam
Do you know how feels to be afraid?
My stomach turns in on itself
I tremble and I quake
My knees are weak
My thoughts muddle
Words disappear
Blind and deaf to all but my fear
God hear me
help me!
I plead
Please hear my prayers
Answer me
Avinu, Eemaynu,
my prayers are not beautiful
they are not poetry
They are not still or quiet or calm
There is no music of angels
Or soaring platitudes
They are a cry
the yowl of an animal in pain
a single chirp, a wordless cry in the night
a wail that escapes from my core
a sound different from all human sounds
rising up
Until it finds You
Please let it find You
Among the millions of other wordless cries
Open Your ears, God
Do you hear me, God?
Hear me, Ribono Shel Olam
Ha' Shomayah Tefillah
Genesis 32:8-12 (From Sefaria)
The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau; he himself is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.”
Jacob was greatly frightened; in his anxiety, he divided the people with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp may yet escape.”
Then Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your native land and I will deal bountifully with you’!
I am unworthy of all the kindness that You have so steadfastly shown Your servant: with my staff alone I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; else, I fear, he may come and strike me down, mothers and children alike.
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