Author: Rabbi David Krishef

Psalm 41

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Adonai, God of Israel, is the source of Blessing from the eternal universe to the eternal universe. Amen and Amen. (41:14) End of Book One of Psalms.

The book of Psalms is divided into five parts, just like the Torah. Each part ends with a verse of praise (or in the case of the conclusion to Book Five, an entire Psalm of praise). The word ‘amen,’ signifying affirmation or agreement, is found in the statements of praise which end the first four books of Psalms.

The word olam denotes endlessness in both the dimension of space and the dimension of time. It’s hard to capture the sense of the word in English – universe captures only the physical dimension, and eternal captures only the temporal dimension. The opening word of the Hebrew, barukh, is also tricky to translate. I’m never sure what is meant by the phrase, “blessed is God.” Surely it cannot be meant in the sense of “May God by blessed,” for I cannot imagine that human beings can bless God. It must be meant to say that “God is the One from whom blessings flow.” The word barukh is similar in sound to the word b’reikha, which means “pool,” as in a pool of water. Thus, when I think of the phrase barukh ata Adonai (which except for the word ata, “you,” is the same as the opening words of verse 14), I associate it with an image of God being a spring of blessing which gushes fourth in the form of animating energy onto the world.

This article not only represents the conclusion of 1/5 of the books of Psalms, but also the final bulletin article for the first year of Psalm Reflections. If I am able to keep up the pace of one Psalm a week, I will finish all 150 Psalms in a little under three years. I intend to keep writing and posting over the summer. You can follow the reflections either at AhavasIsraelGR.org or directly from the blog site, EmbodiedTorah.WordPress.com.

Are you engaging in daily and/or weekly Jewish devotional learning or practices? If not, I encourage you to find something to connect you to your Judaism on a regular basis, to nurture your Jewish soul. Read Jewish books, learn Jewish texts, help out at a synagogue minyan or come to Shabbat services. Enjoy the summer, and make Ahavas Israel a part of it!

Psalm 40

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Your Torah is in my inmost parts. (40:9)

One approach to Torah teaches that the entire purpose of Torah is to transform us into people who see the unity of God everywhere and in everything. This is the approach of “Embodied Torah.” When we carry Torah within us at both an unconscious and conscious level, then we change the nature of our reflexes. No longer do we respond with anger or impatience. No longer do we manifest negative emotions or character traits. Rather, we respond with love and positivity.

One who embodies Torah instinctively knows the right way to react. Rather than reflecting negativity and anger back at the person who is angry at him, he absorbs it like a supersonic stealth aircraft with a radar absorbing coating. Even better, like a science fiction invisibility cloak, he bends the rays of the emotions so they pass around him without touching him in the slightest.

In case you were wondering, I, like virtually every other human being, am far from perfectly embodying Torah in this way. If fact, I am far from imperfectly embodying Torah. But as attributed to Voltaire, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” I began this blog because I believe that the internalizing Torah is the ultimate goal, a process that will take a lifetime and likely will never be completed. However, I also believe, like Rabbi Tarfon (Pirke Avot 2:16), that “you are not required to finish the work, but you are not free to desist from it either.”

Psalm 39

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My mind was in a rage, my thoughts were all aflame; I spoke out! (39:4)

At a moment of terrible, raging, flaming, emotion, at precisely the time when we are least capable of speaking with wisdom, what do we do? We speak, we write and send an email, we write an angry text, we post a status or comment that we will later regret.

An angry, flaming, mind is pathologically unable to see the path of truth. A raging mind is only concerned with itself. The ego seeks to soothe its own pain, not caring about anyone or anything else. The unsettled mind can justify any action, no matter how much damage it may cause.

The solution seems easy. When the mind is angry, stop acting and be still. Retreat into silence. Calm the mind. Easier said than done, because the angry mind doesn’t know that it is muddled. In fact, the angry mind thinks that it is thinking crystal clear thoughts. It think that it is seeing the truth far more clearly than a quiet mind, because the rage makes it feel powerful, like a supercharged engine.

Giving voice to an angry mind is a reflexive habit, and the only way to break a habit is to practice. We need to practice quieting our mind when our mind is already pretty quiet, because this is easy. Then we need to practice quieting our mind when our mind is a little bit agitated, because this is a small challenge. Then we need to practice calming our mind when we are excited, because this is a greater challenge. Only then will we have cultivated the skill to recognize and put out the flames of a raging fire of emotion.

Psalm 38

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For I am on the verge of collapse; my pain is always with me. (38:18)

The human body, as it ages, hurts. If we eat right, exercise properly, and a blessed with good genes, we might retain our youthful vigor longer, but inevitably, if we survive to an advanced age, we will begin to feel the aches and pains of a body whose joints, bones, and nervous system are wearing down.

The question, then, is how do we want to live our lives as our still functional body hurts us. My role models are people who accept the pain and the limitations, treat it the best they can, and continue to show up at the synagogue week after week or month after month, for services or to volunteer their time. They continue to engage in communal activities with their friends and they don’t complain (Why bother complaining? It serves no purpose! Their friends have their own set of pains to deal with, and it doesn’t stop the pain – it just makes more people miserable!)

Judaism doesn’t celebrate suffering, it doesn’t commend pain as a positive spiritual experience. The Psalmist, in fact, connected suffering with sin – God’s punishment. The Psalmist sought to relieve the suffering by identifying and correcting the sin. While I reject that particular theology, I try to embody relatively heathy habits in my life, thinking that a life connected with God and Torah, a life embodying goodness, is more likely to be a life in which happiness and satisfaction outweigh the inevitable aches and pains.

Psalm 37

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“Be silent for Adonai …” (37:7)

There are many times in our lives when we are called to speak up and let our voices be heard. This verse, however, focuses our attention on the time that we are called to be silent. I am thinking of my favorite part of dovening, the silence of the amidah, the part of the service where we create the opportunity for intense, directed, focused prayer.

The amidah is intended to be a period of time in which we address God directly. This is true prayer, during which we might pour out praise, thankfulness, sadness, hopes, requests, focusing on the quality of the day, focusing on our own needs, and focusing beyond ourself to the needs of the Jewish community and the world as a whole, using both our own words and the words of the Siddur. Externally, the most notable quality of the amidah is that it is prayed in complete silence.

There are different qualities of silence. There is silence of reprobation, there is the silence of shame, there is awkward silence, there is the silence of confusion, there is the silence of anger, and then there is the silence of acceptance. When a community agrees to hold each other in their prayers together in silence, it is a silence that embraces and supports.

The amidah is a time during a service where a roomful of people fall into a warm silence together. Not a word is heard. God, who has no ears, does not listen by means of air pushing through vibrating vocal cords, sound rippling through the room. Ideal Jewish prayer uses the merest whisper, audible only to the speaker. Prayer could be expressed through pure thought, being being human, we pray best if we activate our thoughts. But the mildest whisper of air while our lips enunciate the words, so quiet as not to disturb a neighbor standing only a foot away, is enough to focus our prayers and send them on to the Blessed Holy One.

There is a time to act for God, there is a time to raise one’s voice up to God, there is a time to sing for God, there is a time to shout for God, and there is a time to “Be silent for God.”