The Son of the Great King

 

The Son of the Great King

Baal HaSulam

A king who has

A tower full of all the best,

But with no guests,

Surely sits and awaits their arrival.

For if not,

All his preparations

Will have been in vain.

This is similar to a great king

Who bore a son in his latter years,

A son he loved more than anything.

So from the day the boy was born,

The king thought of good things for him.

He gathered all the books

And the wisest teachers in the country

And built for him a seminary for wisdom.

He assembled the finest builders

To build for him palaces of pleasure.

He summoned the greatest musicians

To build his son music halls.

He also gathered the best cooks and bakers

In the country

And provided him with every delicacy in the world.

 

Alas, the son grew up,

And lo, he was a fool.

He had no wish for education.

He was blind

And could not see or sense

The beauty of the buildings.

And he was deaf,

Unable to enjoy the voices of the singers.

And he was also diabetic,

Forbidden to eat

Anything but coarse-flour bread.

Indeed, an infuriating conclusion.