We’re All in This Together – A poem for Parsha Shelach

One rule applies to the assembly, for yourselves and for the proselyte who resides [with you]…
–Numbers 15:15

We’re all in this together –
Whether you were born here
or sent here on a plane from Florida.

We’re all in this together –
Whether you have a blue book
with stamps in it that says where you’ve been

or your book is a different color
or, for some reason, they refused to
put stamps in your book.

We’re all in this together –
No matter who we love, or if
we forget to use the desired pronouns.

We’re all in this together –
When the water runs out
and the planet won’t stop coughing.

We’re all in this together –
Whether we have all the money or
none of the money, our bellies work the same.

All I can say is, when they build the space ark
to send us to the new place, there better be
seats for everyone.

The native, the invader, the proselyte
The ancestors, the children, the seeds
of those yet to come.

We’re all in this together.
We all offer the same fire –
The one with the pleasing fragrance.

Or at least we should.

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 27 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “The Low Country Shvitz” (Poems written in Georgia and the Carolinas – Ain’t Got No Press, May 2023) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.