"This is marvelous in our sight"
Like a treasure chest of family heirlooms, today’s psalm contains a few shining and beloved jewels that continue to offer meaning and purpose, hope and resilience - for many of us, for many generations. Among those glimmering marvels are some that are reserved for special days in our private and public lives - major milestones that are indeed marvelous, extraordinary realities - like a day that sees the end to war, a much awaited pause for peace.
This last chapter of the Praise/Hallel Collection includes a few phrases that have been composed as popular tunes, and many that have become touchstone liturgies, including the way we Jews everywhere end each Sabbath, and also pray during the High Holy Days.
How do we open the gates of justice?
what is the stone forgotten by the builders which becomes our cornerstone?
How do we sing with courage, as the spiral contracts from narrow to wider?
These are all from today’s poem, which also includes a surprising political moment that totally blurs the lines between religious and national celebration in ways that may seem jarring - or welcome - to many of us right now.
It has to do with divine intervention - or fate — in our private and public lives - when big stuff happens and we pause to say the longer version of WOW:
מֵאֵ֣ת יְ֭הֹוָה הָ֣יְתָה זֹּ֑את הִ֖יא נִפְלָ֣את בְּעֵינֵֽינוּ׃
This is GOD’s doing;
it is marvelous in our sight.
Ps.118:23
The word ‘marvelous’ is a translation of the Hebrew ’niflaat’ which may also be translated as ‘wonderful’, ‘extraordinary’, or even ‘magical’.
What do such special moments mean? How do we make meaning when they occur in our lives?
Salvador Litvak AKA the Accidental Talmudist has written a fascinating post about this verse and its role in American history:
“On April 9, 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. The next night, Washington D.C. was ablaze with light. Every home and public building had a candle or gaslight burning in every window, and a 160-foot wide cloth transparency was draped over the west portico of the Capitol. The enormous banner was illuminated with gas-jet lights, allowing citizens to read its joyous proclamation from many blocks away:
“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (118:23).
Just a few weeks earlier, Abraham Lincoln had told the nation in his Second Inaugural Address:
"If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said, 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’"
Lincoln had thus told the nation that the Civil War was a punishment to both North and South for the collective sin of slavery, a sin which had enriched both halves of the country. Victory over the South soon followed, thus eradicating slavery, but at a steep price measured in soldiers’ lives. With the war over, many joined their president in accepting that God had willed both its beginning and end.
Few events bear such a far-reaching impact as war. Religious conviction prospers during war (and plague?); perhaps the real challenge is to recognize that “This is the Lord’s doing” amidst more mundane events. Tougher still is to cultivate a sense that not only the highs of our humble strivings, but also the lows, are “marvelous in our eyes” because they are the Lord’s doing, and thus a test given unto us for a reason.
Perhaps this is why our Sages established Psalm 118 as the climax of the Hallel we recite on Festivals and New Months. Of course it’s good and right to recite the next verse, “This is the day the LORD made— let us exult and rejoice on it!” (Psalm 118:24), on a day of celebration.
But can we recite it with equal conviction every day?
Saying so will go a long way to making it so.”
God is invoked often in our public and political arenas - beyond the civic comfort zone - and it’s still astounding to imagine that a banner such as the one hung up from the Capitol building in 1865 may once again by illuminated for the entire nation to uphold.
But the sentiment within might still resonate even for the most godless among us and even the most cynical: There are times in which life looms larger than our daily doings and historical realities seem to be writing chapters that we know will be the cornerstones of future destinies. We pause with awe.
Through pain and joy, sometimes together - this seems like one of those eras, with days that are full of dread and marvel, shock and awe.
Maybe the least we an do is stick to the motto - ‘seize the day’ - living up to each day with as much presence and appreciation as possible, purpose-driven and bent towards justice - work for peace, and wait for the marvelous - come what may?
While the current war still rages, as we make our way through the month of Elul towards the new year — every day can bring us closer to the one on which we say - this day, today, is it. Perhaps it even it - today. May it be.
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