“Longing like the Weary Land”
Ps. 143:6
Words can sometimes, barely, contain the depth of our emotions, and yet the poets among us keep trying, and sometimes come close enough.
Today, as the Jewish world marks the final days of the holiday of Sukkot, and Simchat Torah is upon us, there is a palpable dread. A year ago this holiday became a horror. Today, so many slain and so much sorrow later -- what words can help us celebrate our ancient story? What ancient or new words can help us cope with rage and war and ongoing trauma?
Like the previous psalm, composed by a man on the run, hidden in a cave, this poem also comes from the depths of despair.
There is nothing left for the frightened fighter, alone in the dark, but to surrender.
The image chosen by the poet is the final gesture of fatigue, and it depicts what happens when no words are left at all:
פֵּרַ֣שְׂתִּי יָדַ֣י אֵלֶ֑יךָ נַפְשִׁ֓י ׀ כְּאֶרֶץ־עֲיֵפָ֖ה לְךָ֣ סֶֽלָה׃
I stretched out my hands to You,
longing for You like thirsty earth. Selah.
Ps. 143:6
Another translation renders it a bit differently:
“I spread forth my hands unto You; My soul thirsts after You, as a weary land.”
What is a soul as thirsty as a weary land?
When is the land, the earth, as weary as a lonely soul?
Rashi, the 11th Century interpreter of scripture adds just one word in his commentary of this verse:
“like a weary land in exile.”
The image of a hand stretched out, no words, as thirsty as a parched land yearning for rain, as a land that feels like exile -- is perhaps beyond our verbal limits.
And yet poets try, and try again, to plant these images inside our minds, to give us psalms and paradigms that depict the depth and also point towards the possible. Maybe that’s why this heartbreaking verse ends with the word that stands for rockbottom resilience, for all there is to say to one another when no words suffice: Selah.
Another poet comes to mind today, whose thirst leaves us not with despair but with continued growth and learning:
Thirst by Mary Oliver
Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.
Selah.
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