JOINING THE MARINE [PARK] CORE!

Joining the Marine [Park] Core!

The “Redding” of Spring

        Rabbi Hillel L. Yarmove 

I know: We were all taught to believe

That spring—this marvelous season of hope

And awareness—is heralded by green leaves

Dressing up the formerly barren winter trees. Nope:

That’s just not so! For if you’ll look in early March, you’ll see

Something astounding that will surprise you:

Little “florets” adorn the newly wakened trees,

And their color isn’t green—it’s red (let me apprise you)!

But there’s more to add, yes indeedy:

It’s only after these “florets” drop off that the leaves will have developed.

Looking back now, before Pesach, the process seems to have been so very speedy

(Probably because Yom Tov preparations had  us surely enveloped).

Now, from this what lesson might we learn at this time and season?

OK, so in point of fact (with the exception of willows), red precedes green!

But nothing in nature occurs without rhyme or without reason,

And thusly the Basheffer has prepared His wonders to be seen!

No, I certainly don’t want you to go amiss.

After all, what we can learn from this color change might be just this:

The verdancy (that’s greenness, you know!) of the season called spring

Seems first to require a prerequisite called redness to bring. 

To us moderns, “red” connotes some kind of stopper or warner

While “green” alludes to a freedom of movement and a sign of success—

Like an old-fashioned red traffic light at a busy street corner,

Or a green “go-ahead” light without a smidgen of stress.

“Kawl haschalos kashos (all beginnings are hard),” our Sages declare,

And perhaps that’s what we can thoroughly take to our hearts:

Glorious Pesach will arrive and in retrospect it’ll seem fair—

If only we choose now to all do our parts.

Ah, Pesach: by months considered as head of the year— 

We are certainly ready for a new beginning to be seen.

So let’s not get “down”: let our eyes not be red with a tear,

On the Seder nights, please redt nisht red—but speak only green!

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A kosher simchah-filled Pesach, dear readers! {hillyarm@yeshivanet.com}

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