Embodied Torah

Psalm 70

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Let those who say, “Aha! Aha!” turn back because of their frustration. (70:4)

There was a time when it was proper to be gracious both in losing and in winning. Little League baseball players line up after the game to walk past the other team and shake hands. Chess opponents congratulate each other with ‘good game’ after completing a game. I hope this is still the case in youth athletics, but is it the exception rather than the rule in professional sports.

Jim Bouton, former major league pitcher and author of the baseball memoir “Ball Four,” said the following during an appearance on NPR’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me:”

I don’t like guys hitting home runs and then raising their arms up like they just discovered a cure for cancer. Hey, look at me. I just hit a home run. In our day, you hit a home run, you put your head down, you ran around the bases, you went into the dugout and you shut up. You know why? Because it’s just a home run. It’s not a religious experience.

‘Aha!’ is a taunt. Taunts are obnoxious, excessive celebrations after scoring are obnoxious. The NFL used to give unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for spiking the ball after a touchdown. Such penalties are still given out for especially egregious conduct, but are increasingly rare. The “touchdown dance” is virtually an expected part of the NFL entertainment experience.

Cultivating the quality of humility does not mean that one may not take credit for one’s professional or personal achievements. Whatever we have achieved, it is likely that we had help. We relied on previous generation’s scientific research. We relied on the support staff. We were helped by our family members.

Humility is a matter of balance and compassion – remembering that we didn’t do it on our own, and having compassion for those who also put in a great effort but fell short.

Psalm 69

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As for me, may my prayer come to You, O LORD, at a favorable moment; O God, in Your abundant faithfulness, answer me with Your sure deliverance. (69:14)

The assumption of the Psalmist is that God is more open to petitionary prayer at some moments than at others. It’s like the image we use on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of gates of repentance opening and closing. If our prayer rises at a favorable moment, it will be answered. If God is not open to prayer at the moment our prayer arises, it will fail.

Another image comes to mind. An average of 280 million sperm cells race toward the uterus. Most will not make it. Only a small percentage of those who do will find the oviduct. Only a fraction of those will make contact with the egg – but the “shell” of the egg repels the initial assault by the sperm cells. Each sperm cell, however, deposits an enzyme that breaks down the barrier. Finally, one cell breaks through a hole in the egg’s outer shell and combines its genetic material with that of the egg. Let’s imagine that this couple has been praying for a child. So many things have to be in alignment: the egg has to be in the right place, ready for fertilization. The sperm have to find their way through a complicated mucus filled maze in sufficient quantity to help one break into the egg. The genetic material in the zygote has to be healthy enough to begin mitosis and the emerging blastocyst needs to attach itself to the uterine wall and absorb nutrition. This couple’s prayer seeks a favorable moment in the same way that the science of reproductive medicine needs a favorable moment to begin the process of creating a child. If the couple’s prayers for a child reach God at the wrong time in the woman’s reproductive cycle, there is little to no chance that God’s answer will be a baby delivery 40 weeks later.

The lesson is that if we are to offer petitionary prayer, we have to ensure that we have done everything in our power to create the conditions under which our prayer might be answered.

Psalm 68

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… the father of orphans, the champion of widows, God restores the lonely to their homes, sets free the imprisoned, safe and sound (68:6-7)

Orphans and widows – in the Biblical paradigm, these categories represent society’s most vulnerable. The Psalmist pictures God as the great protector of those on the fringes of society. This contrasts with Exodus 22:21, in which we are warned against mistreating the vulnerable, “You shall not mistreat any widow or orphan,” and Deuteronomy 27:19, which curses one who does not uphold the rights of the widows and orphans. Three times in Deuteronomy 24 and 26, the Torah commands a special tzedakah obligation to take care of widows and orphans. If God is in charge of protecting the vulnerable, then clearly God has delegated the responsibility to us.

It is our obligation to watch out and protect those who live their lives on the economic or social margins of society. Single mothers are economically vulnerable. Children without fathers in their homes are vulnerable to fall prey to gang and other criminal activity. To expand the pool of the vulnerable – gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender teens; people with mental illnesses; people who have served time in prison, especially those whose crime labels them as a sexual offender; and those who are homeless. God may be in charge of restoring them to their homes, safe and sound, but it is our wallets, tax dollars, willing hearts and helping hands that will make it happen.

Psalm 67

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November 24

May the earth yield its produce; may God, our God, bless us. (67:7)

The American Thanksgiving is a celebration of abundance. The cornucopia, a horn overflowing with produce, is a symbol of Thanksgiving. The Jewish holiday of thanksgiving celebrated earlier in the fall, is Sukkot, the Festival of Booths. Notably, while it is a holiday of celebration and harvest, it also contains significant elements acknowledging that no matter how overflowing our pantries, our existence is nonetheless precarious.

We read the Book of Ecclesiastes on Sukkot to remind ourselves that our material possessions come and go, largely out of our control. We pray for rain to remind ourselves that no matter how abundant the current harvest, next year’s success depends on God’s blessing of rain. We eat our festive meals in the Sukkah, whose fragile structure open to the elements under a roof made from branches reminds us to be grateful for every blessing. Easy times and hard times blend together, just as eating at a Sukkah table full of tasty food leaves us open to heat, cold, insects, and rain.

The one line prayer of the Psalmist is a prayer within two realms. May the earth continue to share its bounty with us, and may God bless us with an open heart, able to see the blessing embedded within our troubles. I’ll conclude with the following prayer (author unknown):

May we have enough trials to keep us strong, enough sorrow to keep us human, enough hope to keep us happy, enough failure to keep us humble, enough success to keep us eager, enough friends to give us comfort, enough enthusiasm to make us look forward, enough wealth to meet our needs, and enough determination to make each day a better day than the last.

Psalm 66

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O peoples, bless our God, celebrate God’s praises; the One who has granted us life, and has not let our feet slip. (66:8-9)

Several years ago I met Rabbi Ronnie Cahana while visiting Camp Ramah in Canada. He serves a congregation in Montreal. Our paths crossed because his daughter was in the same age group as my sons. He was warm and friendly. I enjoyed the few days I spent getting to know him, and remembered the encounter. Just a couple years after that meeting, in 2011, he had a stroke. He was paralyzed from just below his eyes down. His mental faculties were intact – a condition known as “locked-in syndrome.” His daughter Kitra recently gave a very powerful TED talk describing how she and the rest of his family transcribed his communication through blinks, which allowed him to continue to share his Torah and his poetry with his congregation and on his web site, rabbicahana.com.

I watched the video of Kitra’s talk . The next day, I received an email from Pam, a college friend whose mother suffered a major stroke early in October. She wrote that she was away from home with her mother for nearly five weeks, taking care of her throughout her recovery and the search for a facility that will be able to take care of her after Pam returned home to her family. Her mom is mostly cognitively intact and cannot move the right side of body, but because she suffered the stroke about 36 hours before she was found and treatment could begin, she will not recover fully.

“Bless God … who has not let our feet slip.” From the first moment that he could communicate, Rabbi Cahana comforted his family and his congregation, assuring them that his experience was a blessing, that he found God within the silence of his body. He continued to teach Torah, he continued to counsel members of his congregation, while in a condition that most of us would have found intolerable.

“Bless God … who has not let our feet slip.” Pam found spiritual comfort in some of my Psalm reflections and other blog posts, but I find spiritual comfort in hearing about the love and strength she exhibits in the face of tremendous hardship. Away from her husband and children, she was willingly taking on the task of caring for the mother who embraced her and cared for her.

I have long disliked the aphorism, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” Most of us handle whatever we need to handle, but some of us, overwhelmed, do not handle things well at all. For me, a theology that suggests that God “piles it on” for those who can handle it is perverse. Rabbi Cahana is standing firm and my friend Pam is standing firm; both under very trying circumstances. “Thank God … they have kept their footing.”