Today, Simchat Torah, we hear the ancient words of our tradition sung and chanted, as we end one annual cycle of the Torah and begin again, from the beginning.
I’m also hearing these three words today — from Psalm 143 that we just read yesterday.
תּוֹצִ֖יא מִצָּרָ֣ה נַפְשִֽׁי׃
Release my Soul from Trouble - from the Narrowness.
The Hebrew word TZARA means Trouble and also NARROWNESS. The inability to breath, the sense of cornered, isolated, deprived of spaciousness, the sense of deep despair.
What does it mean to hear these three words of prayer today?
A year ago they echoed through the world as Israeli families and individuals were brutally attacked by Hamas. The Holiday of Simchat Torah will never be the same again.
A year later we hear these prayers, these three words of plea for help come from Gaza, from Lebanon, from the West Bank, from Israeli hostages and from the mouth of every person in deep despair.
How do we expand our sense of empathy to avoid being stuck in the narrow places?
What can we each do to help each other and so many others rise and be released from this unbearable reality?
Perhaps we start by paying attention to the prayers, to the hopes, to the pleas, and recognize our own voice in them. Perhaps we find some way to respond to someone else’s plea for help in whatever way we can.
We read through the Hebrew Bible not to be better at history but to give ourselves the tools and words with which to rise above the rupture and to find a path to peace, to healing and to repair.
Today, three words, a poet’s way of praying to whatever is in charge, to echo in each other’s hearts the plea for wider context, for nuance, for going above and beyond the business as usual and the binaries of old to exhale and to create a better system.
We’ll continue with the Psalms for just another week before we move on to the rest of the Hebrew Bible.
Today - may there be some sense of consolation and compassion, joy for justice, healing and hope.
Thank you for joining me below the bible belt.
Simchat Torah of meaning and purpose.
Shabbat Shalom.
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