Like a Lone Bird on a Roof

Prayers come in many forms and sometimes they surprise us.. Standing at the airport yesterday, waiting for my luggage to arrive I got a little anxious, and then a lot. It’s taken lots of time. What if they lost my luggage? I really need what’s in there.. Oh please help make sure it’s all alright. A silent prayer found my lips without much planning or precise address. That, along with positive thinking and imagining that best outcome did the trick and soon I was on my way to Jerusalem, crisis averted. Thank God. baruch Hashem. But do we mean it? 

Sometimes I forget that these psalms that we are reading here faithfully, day in day out, are daily prayers for a lot of people, people who pray often, with faith on whatever level of devotion, who often carry a little psalter with them and chant them with fervor, whether they know what every word or big idea means and if they really believe that God listens- or not. 

Just yesterday on a very early morning flight to Tel Aviv a man sitting in the row next to me, right after takeoff, took out his prayer shawl and wrapped himself in it, and then took out a thick book of psalms and started reading them to himself, his lips moving with each word. I asked him later - he reads about seven psalms each morning according to a grid set up by some mystics many centuries ago, a kabbalistic custom. 

Of course many of the psalms are already embedded in the prayer book liturgy - the ones we’ve read that welcome us into Shabbat and the many that are embedded in the other daily prayers and the ones for special days as well. 

One opening line from one of the psalms we read today resonates for me today as I sit here, back in Jerusalem, business so called as usual but nothing as usual in a country torn by terror and war -- 

This morning, wrapped in my prayer shawl I read again and resonate with the opening words of Psalm 102:

תְּ֭פִלָּה לְעָנִ֣י כִֽי־יַעֲטֹ֑ף וְלִפְנֵ֥י יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה יִשְׁפֹּ֥ךְ שִׂיחֽוֹ׃

A prayer of one who is lowly and faint, pouring forth a plea before GOD.

Ps. 102:1

I prefer a different translation - riffing my own:

This is the prayer for when I feel impoverished, when I feel low

I wrap myself with this intention

And in the presence of the Presence I speak, I plea, I spill my guts and words and ask for help from within, from beyond. 

The Talmud says that there are three times in the Psalms that a chapter starts with these words - a prayer of.. Once its Moses, the second it’s David, and the third is this one -- Anyone, everyone, when feeling low, when feeling like a poor pauper, alone and in need of help. This third one is the most important of them all. 

Another line later in the psalm uses the image of a  lonely bird on a rooftop, up all night with misery. 

This is when we turn for help - from our inner sources, from each other, from above, from below. 

So on this Shabbat, we’ve crossed the 100 psalms mark and making our way onwards, I hope that we each find our way to lean into this liturgy, process this poetry, discover what are the most helpful ways for us to use these ancient words and the new needs that our souls know how to provide, whether through words or sounds or movements - and wrap ourselves in intention and reach out with requesting what we need - luggage, love, safe return, sanity and healthy good news, consolation and courage, a hug, a better day, knowing that we are not alone if even, like a bird, perched on a roof somewhere. We have agency to probe the pains and be part of our solutions, asking for help is a great way to start. 

From this rooftop in Jerusalem, thank you for joining me below the bible belt. 

Shabbat Shalom.