Beresheet: a Eulogy
(Raanana, April 11, 2019)

As it is written,
Beresheet bara Elohim et ha'shamayim v'et ha'aretz,
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,
And on the sixth day, God made mankind in His image,
In His image He created them;
Man and Woman He created them.
On the seventh day, He rested,
As it is written.
On the eighth day
Man's progeny made a robot arrow
And shot it in a wide arc
That flew through the sky,
The day and the night,
And God's heavens,
Through the bottomless chasm of space
Toward a breathless moon,
God's Promised Land,
As it is written.

And in the end of the beginning,
The end of the arrow's arc,
The sons of Adam, like Moses
Whose past was prologue,
Saw the Promised Landing
So close they could almost taste the regolith
Rising up underneath the silent roar of engines
But suddenly were confounded by
God's laughter at their attempt
And fell through the dust,
To crash lifelessly on the rock-hard breast of Serenity,
As it will be written
In the beginning.