Text Study – The Embodied Torah of Study

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.”

Psalm 36

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I know what Transgression says to the wicked; he has no sense of the dread of God … (36:2)

Transgression personified is seductive. Transgression is that little voice inside our head whispering to us, that no one will every know that we have taken the unwise action that we are contemplating. Transgression urges us to break down the filter that a wise person places between his thoughts and his actions; between her emotions and her mouth. Transgression urges us towards impulsive behavior – sometimes it is only fear of discovery, fear of shame, fear of God that holds us back.

The meditative mind responds to Transgression: I am not going to act in the moment – I am going to sit on my impulses and live with my strong emotions until they quiet down. Only then will I be able to hear the other voice whispering inside my head, urging me towards equanimity, the calm, measured emotions of the wise, clear seeing person.

This internal dialogue is ongoing. It does no good to try to shut off the transgressive voice – it will not be denied. It does no good to try to shout at it, drown it out with counter arguments, it will just shout louder and longer. The only way to respond to it is by hearing the voice and letting it go. By giving it attention, you give it substance and reality. By embracing the path of equanimity, you choke off the source of its strength. The voice has no power. It is smoke. The slightest puff will dissipate it.

Psalm 35

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All my bones shall say, “Adonai, who is like You?” (35:10)

This verse from Psalms reminds us that our whole body can be engaged in prayer. Prayer need not be merely an intellectual exercise or even just an emotional experience. Prayer can also be a physical experience. We can pray while we move our bodies – “shuckeling” is the Yiddish term for the quintessentially Jewish back and forth swaying motion of traditional prayer. We can pray while we walk. A walking meditation typically invites us to focus on our breath and balance and body movements. A long distance runner might experience a “runner’s high,” that point when the exhausted body releases endorphins. It might feel like God breathed out a healing breathe.

On another level, prayer should never only be petitionary. If prayer is only about asking, then God is reduced to a vending machine. Prayer should also be about cultivating goodness. Prayer should affect my bones, my body. If prayer has not transformed my very being into a different person, then it has not truly been prayer (I should add here parenthetically that I believe most prayer, including my own, is very rarely true prayer). It is only when “all my bones/my essence” are involved in the experience that we achieve a complete connection with the Divine.

Finally, God is unique. That is the essential proclamation of the Shema.. This psalmist asserts that God is entirely Other, that no one and nothing is like God. This particular statement would seem to exclude the Hasidic/panentheistic view that God’s uniqueness is manifested by virtue of God infusing all reality – “There is no place free from God’s presence.” However, the beauty of Biblical theology through a Jewish lens is that it does not present a single monolithic view of God, so we can certainly also find support for the notion that God’s oneness means that nothing is separate from God.

Psalm 34

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Taste and see how good Adonai is; happy the one who takes refuge in God! (34:9)

I was listening to a “How Stuff Works” podcast recently on synesthesia. Synesthesia is the blending of the senses, when, for example, music or language is experienced as color or taste or smell. I am fascinated by people with this ability (my wife and daughter among them). The hosts of the podcast kept referring to synesthesia as a ‘disorder,’ which really bothered me. It is better described as a neurological condition, one which potentially can give the affected person a level of creativity and insight that amazes us neurotypicals. Jimi Hendrix, David Hockney, Billy Joel, Duke Ellington are just a handful of the artists and musicians blessed with synesthesia.

The Psalmist’s suggestion that one might taste God’s goodness, like the suggestion that the Israelites saw the thunder of the Sinai revelation (Exodus 20:18), suggests that at least some of the Biblical writers appreciated the ability to perceive the world in non-standard ways.

All language about God is metaphorical. I understand how to take refuge in a basement against a tornado. I don’t really understand how to take refuge in God – it is certainly not a literal image. But we all use such language all the time, and if I don’t think about it too carefully I know exactly what it means to take refuge in God, just as I instinctually know how to taste goodness.

The Passover Seder bridges the gap between the symbolic and the actual by inviting us to eat ritual foods which transport us back to our time as slaves and experience the bitterness, the tears, and the oppression of bondage. Thus, even those of us who are neurotypical can engage many of our sense, tasting and smelling, hearing and seeing, in the Passover experience.