Psalm Project

Psalm 98

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“Sing to the LORD a new song.” (98:1)

I like some new music, but the music that really draws me in are the lyrics and melodies that I have heard many times before. I don’t understand why giving God a fresh, newly created, song is better than putting one’s heart and soul into a song that we’ve been singing for millennia. Ironic, isn’t it, that the lyrics of the ‘new song’ that the Psalmist is singing is in the neighborhood of 2500 years old, and we are still greeting the Sabbath with it! So God … I hope you are satisfied with some old songs alongside the new ones.

Psalm 97

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“Light is sown for the righteous.” (97:11)

Goodness is its own reward – sometimes yes, sometimes no. We do get recognized, thanked, and sometimes rewarded for good behavior. But the ideal is to behave with pure, altruistic, goodness for its own sake. Because we are human beings with egos, the Psalmist plants a suggestion that a reward is sown for the righteous. We may not get the spotlight today, but someday, perhaps in the World to Come, we will reap the harvest and be rewarded for the things we have done for others.

Psalm 96

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“All the trees of the forest shall shout for joy!” (96:12)

Obviously, this verse is not literally true. Trees do not shout, trees do not experience joy. How, though, might we understand this as metaphorical truth? How do trees experience the presence of God? The Divine Presence, in the form of gentle rain, causes trees to grow and turn green. In the form of hurricanes, tornadoes, and severe thunderstorms, it snaps branches and pulls trees out of the ground. Severe heat and drought, understood as the absence of God’s presence, causes trees to turn brown. Trees depends on the natural world no less than we do to provide a livable ecosystem.

Psalm 95

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“Come, let us bow down and kneel.” (95:6)

Judaism incorporates some bowing into daily liturgy and a little bit of symbolic not-quite-kneeling. A few times a year, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, traditional Jews take kneeling one step further into full prostration. Excessive bowing has the appearance of false, obsequious, groveling, but careful, judicious, but serious, bowing, is useful to one’s character to remind oneself that no matter how powerful we might feel, that our power is limited. We bow to show our humility before God, and we bow to remind ourselves to behave with humility before others

Psalm 94

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“Rise up, judge of the earth.” (94:2)

To call upon God to judge and punish the guilt and exonerate the innocent is not to abrogate our responsibility to support a just society. However, the teaching from Pirke Avot (1:6), “Judge every person with the assumption of merit,” the Rabbinic equivalent of of the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” ought to rein in our zeal to condemn and punish. When you are angry because you think someone perpetrated an injustice against you, imagine yourself in their place before judging them (Pirke Avot 2:4). Ask yourself: might you be misreading their intent or lack thereof? Might they be distracted by a stressful situation unknown to you?