Pray for Perpetual Peace

Ps. 128:6

What are the blessings with which we wish to begin this year? 

Today’s Psalm of Ascent contains a few suggestions. 

Psalm 128 is beloved in my mother’s family. The German Jewish custom is to sing this psalm at weddings, and the particular tune  goes back generations, with many memories of hopeful weddings and a long line of ancestors singing along. 

It was probably chosen because it depicts the perfect patriarchal pastoral scene of a well ordered home, with a wife, like a grapevine, as the heart of the home, and offsprings, like olive branches, around one’s table. 

The last verse promises progeny that extends beyond one’s life and generation:

 וּרְאֵֽה־בָנִ֥ים לְבָנֶ֑יךָ שָׁ֝ל֗וֹם עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

“Live to see your children’s children.

May there be peace upon Israel.”

Ps. 128:6

Why was that verse chosen as the closing and ultimate promise of a life well lived in this chapter?

Perhaps for a people who went through so many wars, exiled and struggling to survive, this promise of continuity was the highest reward for a life lived with faith and integrity? Just knowing that no matter what - the future will contain remains of what you were and how you carried on the tradition?

The final verse links the existence of future generations with the actual survival of the nation itself. It isn’t just about personal DNA carried on forward, but also the collective project and the help we need to keep surviving - and to do it in peace. 

While the wish in this poem refers to the ability to have children - which was not and is not everybody’s possibility, the framing of the future as a communal journey opens up the opportunity for many ways of raising children or continuing the communal story. The poet invites us to imagine the future, whether our own children’s children will roam its better streets - or the ones we made sure have a safer world in which to raise the next generations. 

In most synagogues worldwide, on this first day of the new year we chant the Torah stories of Abraham and Sarah, the original Hebraic ancestors who lived most of their lives childless - praying for a miracle, hoping for progeny, and for a child of their own. Their creative solution included surrogacy and became more complex and messy. Hagar and Yishmael, Sarah and Isaac - the story of two families that are struggling to repair their relationship is at the root of today’s Torah story -- and the political tragedy that we are living through. 

But can there be a better outcome? Can future generations heal where our hurt is harming and destroying so many of Abraham’s children? 

This poem by Yakov Azriel  imagines such a future. The poet imagines Abraham looking at his grandchildren -- the future seeds of hope:

"And see the children of your children …" (Psalm 128:6)

My grandsons sleep. And as they stir, the years
When my wife and I could not conceive a child,
When my son as well seemed cursed, bewitched, beguiled,
When our lives were ruled by sterile, barren tears,
Are pushed aside. My grandsons sleep. My hairs
Are gray and few; my voice, now soft and mild,
Has lost its former force, when words were piled
Like stones on walls erecting forts of prayers.

My grandsons sleep; I look at them and cry,
Then bow before my God who’s shown me grace,
Who let me know today that all the pain,
The sacrifices made, the scoffers’ “why,”
The stubborn faith that God will show His face —
It hasn’t been in vain, no, not in vain.”

So what are the blessings for the future we all need to focus on today? Perhaps longevity, a loving home? 

The psalm ends with a prayer for peace for Israel. 

On this day here’s a prayer for all the people living on the sacred soil of Israel and Palestine, and all people everywhere who wish to live to see the next generations grow and live in peace. 

As Norman Fischer translates this last verse: 

“May there be peace one day for all who question and struggle.”

Shana Tova, of peace, to all.

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