Parasha Reflection – Vaera

When I was young, a cousin
Newly discharged, having 
Served, post ’56, as part of
The armistice between Israel and Egypt,
Came to visit the family egg ranch.

My folks hoped that he, coming To seek his fortune, might be interesting In the farming life, and work for Them, caring

For the twenty-five thousand Chickens that inhabited My childhood backyard.

After he left, my mother, a Quick study, commented That he would not be part Of this family endeavor.

She saw he had Wrinkled his nose, as the Stench of chickens and their droppings On that hot San Gabriel Valley day Clobbered, offended him.

I considered her note for Some time, having lived all My short life in that olfactory Environment: I was unaware

Of the stench, the stink, the Wrecking physical ache such Scents can arouse;

Now I sniff out how Antiseptic is my aromatic world, And how rich, how redolent, the Odors of the past.

So what might have been the miasma of Egypt back in Pharoah’s day? Was stench just to be endured? Or was the reek of dying fish akin To the reek of Egypt’s horrors?

Ex: 7:20-21 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded: he lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood and the fish in the Nile died. The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile; and there was blood throughout the land of Egypt. https://www.sefaria.org/