One Thing I Ask

This past week, as part of our celebrating our first Bat Mitzvah of the year (Mazal Tov, Madeleine Wilson!), I shared the following D’var Torah:

 
In a few moments, we’re going to sing a verse of a psalm that anchors us in the season in which we find ourselves, the season of the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe. In order to transport ourselves there as only music can do, I’m going to sing — or attempt to sing — just a couple of bars of it:

אַחַ֤ת ׀ שָׁאַ֣לְתִּי מֵֽאֵת־יְהֹוָה֮ אוֹתָ֢הּ אֲבַ֫קֵּ֥שׁ

Ahat sha’alti me’et-Adonai otah avakesh

“One thing I ask of God, only that do I seek.”

That’s what those words mean. In a moment, I’ll share what the one thing is, in case you don’t already know, but first I want to step back and look at the whole psalm a little more fully, because it’s traditional throughout the Hebrew month of Elul, the month which is an acronym for Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li, the words from the Song of Songs which express our loving relationship to the Divine — it’s traditional throughout the month of Elul to chant this psalm morning and night, internalizing its themes, reflecting on its messages.

L’David, Adonai Ori, Psalm 27, said to be written by King David, one of our of people’s foundational leaders and yet also a figure who lived an incredibly tumultuous life, with daring, courageous victories; and also great moral failures; periods of stability and security, and also periods of deep anxiety and fear. All of this life experience comes through in the psalm, and, whether he was truly the author or not, its words are not meant exclusively for him: the Psalms are a gift to us, written from a personal perspective and yet intended to hold space for all of us to explore our own fears, our own hopes, or own prayers within them. As one songwriter recently said, “if a song is worth anything, it’s about the life of the listener.” So, too with Psalm 27. It begins:

Adonai ori v’yishi mimi irah

יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ אוֹרִ֣י וְ֭יִשְׁעִי מִמִּ֣י אִירָ֑א

“God is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

Its voice starts out bold and strong; projecting an image of faith and self-assurance.

Adonai ma’oz-hayai mimi ef’had

 יְהֹוָ֥ה מָעוֹז־חַ֝יַּ֗י מִמִּ֥י אֶפְחָֽד׃

“God is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

It continues, describing experiences in which this understanding of the universe is put to the test:

“When evildoers assail me to slander me, it is they, my foes and my enemies, who stumble and fall. Should an army besiege me, my heart would have no fear; should war beset me, still would I be confident.”

Then we reach the words with which we began:

Ahat sha’alti me’et-Adonai otah avakesh

אַחַ֤ת ׀ שָׁאַ֣לְתִּי מֵֽאֵת־יְהֹוָה֮ אוֹתָ֢הּ אֲבַ֫קֵּ֥שׁ

“One thing I ask of God, only that do I seek.”

“With all the troubles that pervade me, pervade the world,” the voice seems to be saying, “I’m going to distill the essence of my yearnings down to one thing.” We continue:

Shivti beveit-Adonai kol-yemey hayai

שִׁבְתִּ֣י בְּבֵית־יְ֭הֹוָה כׇּל־יְמֵ֣י חַיַּ֑י

“That I may dwell in the house of Adonai all the days of my life.”

“To cleave to You; to serve You; to experience your protection and grace — that’s what I’m yearning for,” the voice says. In doing so, the Psalmist invokes the imagery of the Temple as the site of that experience:

Lahazot b’no’am-Adonai ul’vaker b’heikhalo

לַחֲז֥וֹת בְּנֹעַם־יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה וּלְבַקֵּ֥ר בְּהֵֽיכָלֽוֹ׃

“[I seek] to behold the graciousness of Adonai and to frequent the temple.”

Now, what continues in sounding like pure, unadulterated confidence over the next couple of verses — “I will be sheltered in God’s pavilion on an evil day, granted the protection of God’s tent, and raised up high upon a rock” — begins to give way to a note of trepidation:

Sh’ma-Adonai koli ek’ra v’haneni va’aneni

שְׁמַע־יְהֹוָ֖ה קוֹלִ֥י אֶקְרָ֗א וְחׇנֵּ֥נִי וַֽעֲנֵֽנִי

“Hear, O ETERNAL One, when I cry aloud; have mercy on me, answer me.”

Cracks in the facade of assurance are giving way, oh so slightly, to a sense of vulnerability and need. The psalm continues:

“In Your behalf my heart says: ‘Seek My face!’ O ETERNAL One, I seek Your face. Do not hide Your face from me; do not thrust aside Your servant in anger; You have ever been my help. Do not forsake me, do not abandon me, O God, my deliverer,”

What began as unquestioning faith, bold proclamations of assurance, has begun to allow for just a sliver of doubt. “Is it possible that that experience of protection might not always be there? Please, God, help me.” 

What began with, “God will always protect me,” has evolved to, “please God, don’t abandon me.”

This is not unlike many of our journeys with reality; we may begin our foundational understandings of life with an impression that nothing will go wrong, but before too long, life reveals to us that yes, things can, and indeed, do go wrong.

What began with an assumption of perpetual divine presence allows for space to wonder and acknowledge the experience of absence, too, or if not absence, then the experience of distance.Still, that doesn’t mean we abandon the foundational underpinnings of our life.

Kaveh el-Adonai hazak v’ya’ametz libekha

קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־יְ֫הֹוָ֥ה חֲ֭זַק וְיַאֲמֵ֣ץ לִבֶּ֑ךָ

“Look to God; be strong and of good courage!”

The psalm concludes.

“O Look to God.”

Just because we sometimes feel a sense of distance from God doesn’t mean that presence is not there. 

The psalm uses some painful metaphors while inviting us to embrace the twin feelings of vulnerability and faith.

Ki-avi v’imi azavuni v’Adonai ya’asfeni

כִּֽי־אָבִ֣י וְאִמִּ֣י עֲזָב֑וּנִי וַֽיהֹוָ֣ה יַאַסְפֵֽנִי

“Though my father and mother have left me, God will take me in.”

The psalm acknowledges the reality that most of us will experience our parents’ passing from this world before we do. It recognizes that, for many of us, our parents created a protective cove, sheltering us from the turbulence the world sometimes doles out, yet which we don’t have access to forever. And yet it also instills within us that we have the spiritual resources to survive and thrive on our own through faith, through hope, through trust.

Now, faith doesn’t mean everything will always work out for the best.

As Rabbi David Teutsch writes, “Throughout history, it has been true that sometimes good people experience pain through no fault of their own. The psalmist, the author of this psalm, is not so naive as to be unaware of this reality.” Rather, he suggests, the faith here really transcends and survives that. The faith in this psalm, he suggests, is “the calm and bliss that come from an awareness of the divine made manifest in the workings of the human heart. Living directed to the divine,” writes Rabbi Teutsch, “gives us the power not to avoid mortal danger, but to transcend our fear of it.”

This is the spiritual resource that this psalm — that our tradition — teaches us.

Madeleine Wilson is celebrating becoming Bat Mitzvah. A Bat Mitzvah is, in part, a recognition, a celebration, of the spiritual resources with which the Bat Mitzvah celebrant has been endowed, the growing capacity of this young person in our community to handle more and more independence from their parents, with the blessings of these spiritual resources.

In fact, there is actually a traditional blessing that a parent says to a child upon their becoming B’nei Mitzvah that recognizes the sacredness of life’s responsibilities shifting from parents to child, and it implicitly recognizes their capacity to take on that responsibility, recognizes the spiritual resources they are developing.  

It also recognizes, as Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin writes, that “there are limits to every parent’s ability to control and influence. Even sincere, competent, highly committed parents are limited in what they can do with their children. The rest is up to faith, hope, and trust.”

Faith, hope, and trust. That’s what Psalm 27 is about. “One thing I ask of God, only that do I seek. That I may dwell in the house of Adonai all the days of my life.”

Madeleine, Julie, Jim, Ellie; all of us; may we all experience that shelter all the days of our lives. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi K.