The land is polluted with bloodguilt
Ps. 106:37-38
The land is polluted with bloodguilt.
Has our history taught us to make better choices than those made by our ancestors - Or are we recycling intergenerational traumas and repeating the same sorry stuff again and again? It’s both/and — and yet — How can we each be better at being reflective, attuned to the repair of past patterns, and begin, again, and better?
Are we able to change our inherited ways of being in the world? How can we clear this land of the bloodguilt, ancient and so fresh with all the sorrow?
These big questions meet us on this first day of last month of the Jewish year, as we take our first steps on the annual path of Elul, our personal and public pilgrimage of repentance.
And today, our biblical journey below the belt once again meets the Jewish calendar with chilling accuracy.
Psalm 106, wrapping the fourth of the five sections of the Book of Psalms, asks big questions of the history we tell ourselves - challenging us to become better ancestors.
Today’s chapter follows the previous one as another fast-paced tour of Jewish history — but with a peculiar twist. Psalm 105 is all praise and mostly positive memories of exodus and revelation. But today’s psalm is one long list of dirty laundry - with skeletons from the collective closet of Jewish history on full display of shame and atonement for many ancestral transgressions:
חָטָ֥אנוּ עִם־אֲבוֹתֵ֗ינוּ הֶעֱוִ֥ינוּ הִרְשָֽׁעְנוּ׃
We have sinned like our ancestors;
we have gone astray, done evil.
Ps. 106:6
The list of ancestral sins, named in the plural, is quite explicit and includes the worship of idols, demons — and the spilling of innocent blood:
וַיִּזְבְּח֣וּ אֶת־בְּ֭נֵיהֶם וְאֶת־בְּנוֹתֵיהֶ֗ם לַשֵּׁדִֽים׃
וַיִּ֥שְׁפְּכ֨וּ דָ֪ם נָקִ֡י דַּם־בְּנֵ֘יהֶ֤ם וּֽבְנוֹתֵיהֶ֗ם אֲשֶׁ֣ר זִ֭בְּחוּ לַעֲצַבֵּ֣י כְנָ֑עַן וַתֶּחֱנַ֥ף הָ֝אָ֗רֶץ בַּדָּמִֽים׃
“Their own sons and daughters
they sacrificed to demons.
They shed innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
so the land was polluted with bloodguilt.”
Ps. 106:37-38
The ‘bloodguilt’ referred to here is that of children and other victims of piety who were offered up as sacrifices to the local deities per pagan norms. Common in all ancient cultures - offering up one’s children was a popular way to pay a high price in order to ensure continued fertility, abundance and security.
We still do so today but the demons are different.
Reading this today is painful. Bloodguilt is not just about sacrificing our children to some ancient gods or demons. It is about spilling innocent blood of our own children -- and the children of others, of civilians and soldiers in the name of ideologies that replaced the idols and replaced faith with fear and responsibility with rage.
The land is polluted with bloodguilt.
Whether it’s this ongoing war between Hamas and Israel, the growing violence in the West Bank, all the ways this rupture ripples out all over the world — it’s on us to do what this Psalm does — and wonder:
What of our ancestral anguish are we still carrying when it’s time to let it go — and figure out another, kinder, wiser, safer and more human way to be alive? What are the alternative truths we must lift up so that the blood stops, so that we ensure our continuity and safety - and all people’s dignity and safety?
Today we ask big questions and these ancient words may have some helpful ways to help us deal and maybe even start the healing process. It is about these psalms not as separate units but as cohesive narratives that just like us - intertwine.
If we read Psalm 105 & 106 together - they represent one unit with two approaches to life’s challenges and possibilities. Do we respond by telling a story full of glorified rose tinted glasses ignoring the tough stuff— or do we face tough truths including our shadow sides and forget to celebrate what’s worthy of pride?
We do both. And by focusing on both, the psalmist is painting a full picture of the true relationship between our sacred source and daily choices, our inherited patterns with all their complexities, and the new paths we must pioneer and pave - today.
The old paths are bloody, and the pains are ancient and brand new. The new moon rising tonight shines above us with an invitation to ask big questions, commit to the process of repair and renewal, welcome back to the month of atonement, step by step towards healing and truth. How do we begin, today, to heal?
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