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FORGIVENESS – Joseph and His Brothers

[additional-authors]
December 3, 2015

I can’t stop dreams coming in the night

Even while awake I gaze towards light

My mother died my father sighed

And wondered about my dreams

Trusting a man along the way

I found my brothers lying in wait

To banish me from family and home

And send me far away

They could not utter even my name

They cast me down and spat me away

They broke my father’s heart

As they claimed I passed away

My name was written already in stars

But I became a slave and scarred

As flesh in a woman’s lustful heart

Who also cast me away

Her master incensed sent me to Sheol

But still a seer I glimpsed a glow

And blessings bubbled into my dreams

As I wondered about my way

Alas I was given a royal reprieve

And brought to a place beside the King

I served him long and faithfully

But continued to dream my dreams

My heart shut down over twenty odd years

My love poured into cold desert tears

I amassed great power and instilled such fear

While serving at the pleasure of the King

My brothers came their faces forlorn

Begging for bread before the throne

Thinking me Viceroy with scepter in hand

Not Joseph of their family clan

As my father re-dug his father’s wells

Seeing my brothers the waters swelled

Into my steeped-up and hardened heart

I opened to love again

I forgave them all and brought them near

Saved them from their desert fears

Settled them safely amongst their peers

As God intended all those years

-Composed by Rabbi John Rosove

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