How Much Longer This Suffering?

Ps. 90:12-13

“How is such suffering possible?”

In synagogues worldwide tonight, congregations will gather with dimmed lights to recite the Scroll of Lamentations, that begins with this haunting timeless howling and pained question - How?  We will chant the words of Jeremiah from Jerusalem’s demise 2,700 years ago — but for many of, the questions will echo the recent violence and ongoing suffering that is the plight of so many Palestinians and Israelis, as well as so many all over the world - right now.

Why?

What do we to better face suffering?

Where is the justice?

How can we stop this violence?

How can we help?

Psalm 90 echoes these perennial painful question, as it straddles two simultaneous realities - the timelessness that is divine reality, beyond the moral coil -- and the terrible time so many who are suffering experience - right here, and right now.  

How many of us bristle, rightly, at well meaning promises like ‘it will be alright’ and ‘just be patient’ —- when we are in the midst of pain?

And yet, what wisdom can be found within these ancient words of consolation and attempts at comfort? 

The tug and tension between time and timelessness is portrayed in this psalm by the choice of the poet’s identity.

Moses, man of God, is the assumed poet of this chapter.

Is there particular significance to his presence here - whether he did indeed write it - or - as most likely, the creative literary choice of the ancient authors who chose to scribe these questions and words as though flowing through his hand? 

There is an interesting link between the life of Moses and this psalm that may give us a hint.

It’s found in these two central and quite famous verses that include a question as haunting as the one that opens Lamentations: 

לִמְנ֣וֹת יָ֭מֵינוּ כֵּ֣ן הוֹדַ֑ע וְ֝נָבִ֗א לְבַ֣ב חׇכְמָֽה׃ שׁוּבָ֣ה יְ֭הֹוָה עַד־מָתָ֑י וְ֝הִנָּחֵ֗ם עַל־עֲבָדֶֽיךָ׃

Teach us how to count our days,

that we may obtain a wise heart.

Turn, O ETERNAL One!

How long?

Show mercy to Your servants.

Ps. 90:12-13

Biblical scholar Andrew Davis reads this verses closelly, and helps to unpack the link between Psalm 90’s focus on time - and the story of Moses: 

“Psalm 90 has a unique superscription; it is a “prayer of Moses, the man of God.” We may ask how the content of Psalm 90 relates to the superscription, and in this case, we find a strong connection between verse 13 and a famous moment in Moses’s career. When Moses interceded on behalf of the Israelites after the Golden Calf debacle, he implored YHWH to “turn (from anger)” (Hebrew sub)” and “relent” (Hebrew hinnahem) (Exodus 32:12). The same verbs occur in Psalm 90:13 and highlight the speaker’s desire for a similar intercession in another instance of divine wrath.

This link between verse 13 and Exodus 32:12 underscores the psalm’s theme of lament. Here we encounter a community in crisis. 

Moreover, this lament and petition serve to frame the poet’s ruminations on the brevity of human life. In contrast to the eternity of God, humans are dust, and their time is fleeting. Probably, the most famous line in the psalm is verse 12 when the speaker asks YHWH to “teach us to count our days rightly, that we may obtain a wise heart.” This line and the overall theme of human transience have led many interpreters to read Psalm 90 as a kind of meditation. 

Without denying the psalm’s invitation to such reflection, we must hold its contemplative language in tension with its raw account of suffering at the hands of God. Psalm 90 is not a leisurely meditation on mortality but a desperate cry for help from a community whose brief existence has contained more than a fair share of hardship.”

Can this ‘meditation on mortality’ help us better endure hardships? Whether it’s Moses or David who wrestled with the Divine to make sense of the senseless - what will help each of us face the fury that on days like these we fear and lament?

Can a sense of the eternal mystery that defies the pain of right now help any of us hold on during times of crisis such as the one we’re in the middle of right now? 

Today’s psalm reminds us to try and appreciate each moment and day of life, the present of being present. Perhaps to even appreciate the present hidden inside pains that are inevitable.

And perhaps it reminds us not to stop asking the hard questions that may help us be more alive in our bodies and minds, feelings and aspirations.

Perhaps it is through this audacity to challenge reality - as Moses demonstrated -- we take on authority, become co-authors in our destinies and reclaim agency to alleviate suffering and prevent pain from ourselves and others - as best as we can? 

As we gather to lament during these upcoming hours of fasting and focus on traumas past and present - I hope that we not count the hours till we eat but count each moment as a precious opportunity to look deeper at life’s biggest questions.

The answers will have to wait. Tonight and tomorrow we wail with the questions.

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