Yosef had every reason to believe
That great would be
His destiny,
His dreams met –
Harsh reality,
When his own brothers
Sold him into slavery.
Sold 20 times
From hand to hand,
He wound up
In a Midian caravan.
Unlike resin and tar,
Their usual shipment,
They carried balsam and lotus –
Their aromas pleasant.
Yosef saw the message
In their fragrant scent;
Hashem’s loving hand
Was evident
A prince, now in bondage,
He saw “mamtik ha’din” –
Judgment sweetened,
Purpose to his suffering.
Revealed miracles
Can be seen
By what you don’t see.
Natural order fades away
Dramatically.
Hidden miracles contain
An objection we derive
Salvation for G-d’s people,
Israel’s right to survive,
Counter to all logic,
And historical trends
Beyond count, the hidden miracles
HaKadosh Baruch Hu sends.
Israel’s War Of Independence,
Like the war of the Maccabees,
Their military victories,
Can be explained, individually.
But the big picture
Defies explanation,
Undeniable,
HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s orchestration.
Hidden miracles, in contrast
To those grand and obvious,
Are HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s
Preferred message to us.
From behind the lattice
He peers longingly,
Awaits us to find Him
Patiently.
The Baal Shem Tov
Walking in the forest,
Found a little boy there
Shivering and distressed.
He said, “My friends and I played
Hide and seek,
But they weren’t able to find me.
They gave up searching,
They’ve all gone home.
Left me here, like this,
All alone.”
He saw it as a metaphor
Between the Jews and Hashem,
Alone in the forest,
He waits for His children
Even when He is forced to “hide”;
He wants us to find Him,
Giving signs, as a guide.
Though this world and its ways
Can be mystifying,
The world tells us to quit,
But we must keep trying.
In our own times,
We can understand,
We see “t’chiyas meisim”
Of our people and land.
As Yosef did,
May we ever perceive
The hidden signs that give us
Reason to believe.
By Sharon Marcus