Author: Rabbi David Krishef

Psalm 79

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Pour out Your fury on the nations that do not know You, upon the kingdoms that do not invoke Your name. (79:6)

This verse from Psalm 79 was added to the Passover Seder in the Middle Ages, sometime after the ugly series of persecutions beginning with the crusades in 1096 CE. We recite these words as we open the door for Elijah at the time when the Seder begins to come to a close with Messianic overtones of redemption. An early modern addition (probably from the late 19th century) supplies the inverse of our verse, “Pour out your love upon the nations that know you and on kingdoms who call Your name.”

Some liberal-leaning Jews omit the verse from Psalm 79, disliking its violent nature. They might understand it as a Judeo-centric call for God to eliminate all non-Jews from the world, or perhaps they understand it as a verse to protect Jews and Christians but eliminate all others. Perhaps might include Moslems in the “protected” category, reading the verse as a call to eliminate only non-monotheists. In any case, there is a tendency among some religious liberals to eliminate liturgy that they find offensive, and if you read this verse as a call for the wholesale slaughter of groups of people by God, it is certainly offensive.

I read the verse differently, not as a call for God to engage in slaughter or for Jews to do so in God’s name. When reading the verse, I don’t think of atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, or followers of non-monotheistic religion, all people who either reject God, are indifferent about God, or envision a different kind of Divine than the one in the Hebrew Bible which guides my life. I think of people who commit atrocities in the name of God. Such people disgrace God’s name. Even though I am fully aware that God is not going to strike out at them with a carefully-directed bolt of lightning, I want it known that the God in whom I believe has nothing to do with the false god in whose name those people murder, rape, steal, cheat, and in other ways subjugate and oppress others. To those who desecrate God’s name by such acts, I avow that God has nothing to do with you.

Therefore, I read this line at the Seder in a loud voice – certainly not in a whisper, as if I’m embarrassed by it. The door is wide open at this point so, symbolically, I am shouting out to the world my desire that God wipe out those evil people who, despite their professed faith, don’t really know God. And, of course, I also read the inverse paragraph praising people who do acts of courage and conviction and love in God’s name.

Psalm 78

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We will not withhold from their children down to the last generation, telling of the praises of Adonai, God’s might, and the wonders that God performed. (78:4)

Psalm 78 is a relatively long Psalm, retelling the story of Exodus and trek in the wilderness. Telling the story is a sacred enterprise, relating in prose and poetry to each new generation the tale of what God did for us in Egypt in order to inspire their confidence in God. The telling, however, does not hide the fact that the generation of the wilderness was not inspired. They rebelled and complained and sinned. Why not tell the story a bit more strongly? Why spend so much time on the weakness of the Israelites? Clearly, honesty is important. If our faith in God is based on hiding the truth, it will be think faith indeed. A faith that struggles with God but experiences redemption in the end has been tested and strengthened.

The events that we are relating at the Passover Seder are true, not necessarily in the historical sense, but in the sense that they reflect the truth of the experience of an oppressed people. An oppressed, enslaved people is traumatized. Even after freedom comes to them, they are still largely locked in their slave mentality. It can take generations to overcome the trauma which is transmitted from parent to child through stories. That’s why this Psalm is so important. We’re not telling the story of trauma and victimization. We’re telling the story of faith and redemption.

Psalm 77

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Has God forgotten how to pity? Has God in anger stifled God’s compassion? (77:10)

We commonly speak about God with human characteristics and emotions. We talk about God’s fingers, hands, arms, eyes, ears, and even nose, even though God has none of the above. We also commonly speak of God’s happiness, enjoyment, desire for obedience, sadness, regret, and compassion and other such human emotions. The 12th century philosopher Maimonides believed that we should not use such language for God, because to do so places limits on a God who is by definition infinite. However, Biblical literature is rich with anthropomorphic and anthropopathic language for God because it is the only way we have to to communicate our our sense of the Divine.

The Talmud (Sota 14a) suggests what we might learn from language attributing human behavior to God:

What is the meaning of the verse, “Follow none but Adonai your God” (Deuteronomy 13:15)?  Is it possible for a human being literally to follow God?  Rather, we should imitate the attributes of God.

Just as God clothed the naked, as it is written, “And Adonai God made Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21)–so too should you clothe the naked.

Just as God visited the sick –as it is written, “Adonai appeared to Abraham by the terebinths of Mamre” [following his circumcision] (Genesis 18:1)–so too should you visit the sick.

Just as God comforted the mourners –as it is written, “After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac” (Genesis 25:11)–so too should you comfort the mourners.

Just as God buried the dead –as it is written, “God buried him [Moses] in the valley” (Deuteronomy 34:6)–so too should you bury the dead.

The Psalmist hopes that God’s hen, graciousness or pity, and rahamim, compassion, have not disappeared. Because such traits are the central part of what it means to “Love your fellow as yourself,” it is also a reminder to ourselves not to let our anger overwhelm our compassion.

Psalm 76

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God curbs the spirit of princes, inspires awe in the kings of the earth. (76:13)

Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Powerful leaders need constant reminders that their power does not entitle them to do and take anything they want. This is the basis for a philosophical argument for a monotheistic God. Were there more than one creator/power in the universe; or if there were no power above human power, there would be no basis for asserting universal, non-relative, moral authority.

In a polytheistic system, the gods are in conflict. There is no absolute authority, and therefore no absolute right or wrong. Any position that I might take, appealing to the voice of a specific god, can be contradicted by the voice of an opposing god. The sun god dries up the water god, but the storm god blows clouds to cover up the sun god and produce more water. The sea god has no power inland, where the goddess of crop fertility reigns. And so on.

In a non-theistic system, we have to trust the human system to create systems of morality. The problem, though, is that every human created system can be modified or suspended by a person with sufficient power. The Constitution of the United States provides protection for its citizens, but Congress has passed laws abridging our rights when it feels that it is necessary.

A monotheistic system has a God at the top of the system whose authority (in theory, and usually in practice) cannot be altered by human beings. It’s answer to Lord Acton is that since human power is limited by God, then a human leader who is curbed by a belief in God and held in awe of God will never be corrupted, and certainly never be corrupted absolutely.

John Quincy Adams

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John Quincy Adams grew up with his parents’ expectation that he would serve his country as president. His father, John Adams, took him at the age of 10 to Europe on a diplomatic mission to Paris. He spent his teenage years in France, the Netherlands, Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. After graduating from Harvard, he served under President George Washington as Minister to the Netherlands; he served under his father, President John Adams, as minister to Prussia; and he served under President James Madison as Minister to Russia and later to the United Kingdom. He also served one term as a Senator from Massachusetts, and served under President James Monroe as Secretary of State.

With all his training and all these credentials, how was it that he became the worst, most ineffective, president in history? The short answer is that all his education taught him how to relate to the educated elite of society. He was a great diplomat because he spoke many languages and could connect with European royalty and high society. His education taught him to speak to the intellectual elite – he never bothered campaigning or speaking to the common people of the country. As president, he alienated the American people and most of Congress by appearing to make a deal with Henry Clay to give Clay the position of Secretary of State in exchange for Clay’s delegates’ votes for the presidency, thus stealing it from Andrew Jackson, who had won the popular vote for the presidency.

However, after his one term as president, he was given another national political life as an independent member of congress from Massachusetts for 17 years, where he was a defender of justice, winning freedom for kidnapped Africans on the slave ship Amistad. During his time in Congress he learned to connect with people all across the country, bringing their petitions to the floor of the House of Representatives. He fought against slavery and by doing so alienated his fellow House members, who created a new rule that became known as the Gag Rule in order to keep him from talking about slavery. At the end of his career, he finally got the Gag Rule repealed with the help of Abraham Lincoln.

The most important leadership lesson I gleaned from John Quincy Adams is that a leader needs to speak the language of the people. A leader cannot be disconnected from the people that he serves. John Quincy’s ideology disconnected his from most of his fellow representatives, but he was reelected time and again because he spoke the language of and served the abolitionist cause of the people of the northern United States.

Next up: Andrew Jackson