Perhaps that call may swift arrive
A storm that just appears
To wreak the havoc
In its wake
Leaving only tears
And who, I ask
In dark of night
Is there to calm the storm?
To first respond
To comfort some
Arrange and then inform
To expedite
In dark of night
To bring kavod acharon
To be there when
The strongest men
Can’t do it on their own
The women leave
Their families
And now become arrangers
For chessed done
With no payback
For grieving, total strangers
To run to hospitals and morgues
And nursing homes as well
And news to bear
And calm despair
In words they know to tell
They are Chevrah Kadishah
The few. The proud. The brave.
Who do their work
Relentlessly
From deathbed to the grave
And Zayin Adar
We salute
A tribute to these heroes
Who do their job
And don’t expect
Nothing more than zeros
Perhaps it is befitting
The time we honor them
Is on the day
Of passing
The humblest of men
Embodying
The selflessness
Of chessed with no end
A nation that would gripe and kvetch
He’d constantly defend
He saw a generation
Pass on for forty years
And saw them to their burial
On Tisha B’Av with tears
And he along
With all of them
Would have to stay behind
The care and love for Yisroel
Would never leave his mind
And on the day
The seventh
They hid him straight from birth
120 years hidden again
Somewhere in this earth
We recognize our Chevrah
Their chessed is so true
They strive to emulate
The love
Of Moshe Rabbeinu
