On this night in Jewish homes worldwide four questions will be asked, and many more. How did we get here, to this holy night, so hurting, so different from all other nights?
What can we do to ease the pain, console our soul, and dedicate ourselves, for real, to liberation?
To heal, we must begin with questions.
Once again, the Jewish calendar meets this @belowthebiblebelt929 marathon reading of the Hebrew Bible, as also does Earth Day — with today’s chapter 10 of the PSLAMS known as a lament against tyranny, the absence of justice, with the perennial question that we’re still struggling with: How can such bad leaders continue to be our pharaohs, leading us with hardened hearts??
This chapter, sometimes used at public Jewish rituals that hold space for national public mourning, begins with a big why, the theological rage that echoes through the generations:
לָמָ֣ה יְ֭הֹוָה תַּֽעֲמֹ֣ד בְּרָח֑וֹק תַּ֝עְלִ֗ים לְעִתּ֥וֹת בַּצָּרָֽה׃
“Why, O ETERNAL One, do You stand aloof,
heedless in times of trouble?”
Ps 10:1
Where is God when we’re suffering is a question that got many people to discard faith and religion, and others to struggle with reconciling a belief in ultimate good with the failings of humanity. How do we mind this gap?
This chapter doesn’t bother with an answer, just a question loud enough to echo in every heart chamber, large enough to hear us all and get us thinking.
But that is just the first big question.
The next question, hidden in this psalm and in each of our sacred stories, asks of us, regardless of what we believe in - what are we going to do about it? How do we become the ones to take on tyranny and resist, maybe Moses style, whatever and whoever we may now think are the bad guys?
Yakov Azriel, an Israeli poet, wrote this in response to the opening question of psalm 9:
“Is God the Answer or the Question or
the Answerer or Questioner? Is God
perhaps the Question Mark itself and we
the scribes who write it down, or are we more
than scribes who sit inside behind a door
that's locked and doesn’t open and whose key
has been misplaced? Is God a "You," a "Thee,"
an Object Pronoun people just ignore?
Perhaps He's not an Object Pronoun but
the Subject of the question which we need
to ask, the Subject of the answer, too.
Although the door is locked, the portal shut,
the gate impassable, all paths still lead
myself and me and I to Thee and You.”
Whatever we believe in, commitment to co-created change for good, along with optimism, can help us with the questions, open doors and hearts to what’s yet to come and calls on us to not lose hope, resist despair, and keep working for the better life for all that we wish for.
This poem ends with faith that the ultimate good will eventually prevail, that the deep desire for justice will be heard by every ear, and tyrants will no longer rule our hearts and nations:
תַּאֲוַ֬ת עֲנָוִ֣ים שָׁמַ֣עְתָּ יְהֹוָ֑ה תָּכִ֥ין לִ֝בָּ֗ם תַּקְשִׁ֥יב אׇזְנֶֽךָ׃ לִשְׁפֹּ֥ט יָת֗וֹם וָ֫דָ֥ךְ בַּל־יוֹסִ֥יף ע֑וֹד לַעֲרֹ֥ץ אֱ֝נ֗וֹשׁ מִן־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
“You will listen to the entreaty of the humblest among us, O ETERNAL One,
You will make their hearts firm;
You will incline Your ear, to champion the orphan and the downtrodden,
May mortals tyrannize no more.”
Ps. 10.17-18
It’s time to ask big questions.
May every question at our Seder open portals into meaningful, inspiring and important conversions, so we figure out how to deal with our taskmasters, and together, let our people, and all people, go free, and our earth heal.
In peace.
Peaceful and Meaningful Passover to all.
Image: Resisting Tyrants Since Pharaoh: T'ruah, The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
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