The Poet's Pillow Talk

Ps. 31:6

It’s sometimes hard to close your eyes and surrender to sleep, with our busy mind going on with lists and questions, the soul agitated, the body too tired to let go. When we are children there are lullabies and hopefully some patient parents or people to coax us into sleep.

But when we become those grown-up people we too require tools to help seduce us into sleep. One of the lines from today’s poem became part of the Jewish bedtime prayers, evoking an image of trust meant to help us relax into tranquility:

בְּיָדְךָ֮ אַפְקיד ר֫וּחִ֥י פָּדִ֖יתָ אוֹתִ֥י יְהֹוָ֗ה אֵ֣ל אֱמֶֽת׃

Into Your hand I entrust my spirit;

You redeem me, O ETERNAL One, faithful God.

Ps. 31:6

The verb ‘entrust’ translated a curious Hebrew expression which brings to mind the notion of a loan, or perhaps a pawn. The soul in this case, is not ours to keep, but merely on loan from our creator, and when we go to sleep, we give up its control, just for the hours of the night. 

Is that a helpful or a terrifying prospect? Translators and interpreters have tried to render this notion in different ways. Norman Fischer’s choice is “In you I put my trust” and Robert Alter wrote “In your hand I commend my spirit.” 

This verse did not only make it into the prayer book’s bedtime prayers, but also into the New Testament, and later, to be used by Shakespeare.  The Babylonian Talmud preserves an opinion that the bedtime prayers are not a must for scholars and sages who are likely able to close their eyes with ease - but are nevertheless expected to recite at least this one verse. 

Perhaps that’s how a famous rabbi knew this psalm by heart and recited it as he struggled to let go of life - not just for one night but forever. In the Gospel of Luke, he depicts Jesus quoting Psalm 31 as his last words on the cross. After Jesus says, “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” Luke concludes, “And having said this, he breathed his last.”

Shakespeare’s Richard the Third, adapts and expands on this psalm even further, likely inspired by Luke: “To Thee I do commend my watchful soul / Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes / Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!”.

Among the many others for whom these words resonate and offer solace at moments of peril, not just on the pillow, was the beloved Jerualem poet Zelda, who struggled with sickness and penned this short poem during one of her hospital visits. I took the liberty of translating it here: 

“My soul peeked from the cracks, 

Within the chaos and confusion

Of my illness

From its captivity it called 

To the one who was, and is, and will be

And the darkness she whispered 

In your hand I place my spirit, my pain, my honor, my life, and my death.”

"נפשי הֵציצה מן הַחֲרַכִּים

אשר בתוך הבּוּקָה והמְבֻלָקָה

של חָלְיִי.

מִשִׁבְיָה קראה

לְ- היה הווה ויהיה,

בַּחושך לחשה:

בְּיָדְךָ אַפְקִיד את רוחי, את כאבי,

את כבודי, את חיי ואת מותי".

Most of us lack such lofty words when we struggle to sleep, and as we struggle with sickness and suffering. Most of us don’t have a patient parent who holds our hands with bedtime stories, songs and soothing chants. But we do have these words, and others,  to help imagine being held inside a big embrace, and calm our spirit down. 

However, wherever we find ourselves unable to let go and let the being calm into much needed sleep, perhaps these psalms and poems can offer a less toxic option than a sleeping pill, exhaling, breath by breath, into the gift, on loan, of trust.  

Go gentle into the night.

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