Where do you find sanctuary from the nonstop onslaught of the world? For some people on the planet right now, displaced and on the run, seeking the right of shelter and safety - there is no simple response.
Some of us, right now, are more privileged to ponder this question. You can probably just put on headphones in the middle of the subway with your favorite music, turn off the TV, go for a walk among the trees, get into bed and close your eyes, enter a museum.
Some enter sacred spaces such as houses of worship or close their eyes to meditate. the need to find some sort of mental and spiritual refuge has always been there and for the author of today’s pslam poem, instructed to be sung along with sort of musical cadence we can’t quite decipher these days, the seeking of a sanctuary begins as soon as one opens one’s eyes in the morning.
Psalm 4 was about bedtime, and today is about our morning routine. A famous verse decorates many marble mantles in the lobbies of synagogues and is found in the opening of the morning liturgy of prayer books:
וַאֲנִ֗י בְּרֹ֣ב חַ֭סְדְּךָ אָב֣וֹא בֵיתֶ֑ךָ אֶשְׁתַּחֲוֶ֥ה אֶל־הֵֽיכַל־קׇ֝דְשְׁךָ֗ בְּיִרְאָתֶֽךָ׃
Through Your abundant love, I enter Your house;
I bow down in awe at Your holy temple.
Ps 5:8
It’s one thing to have a safe space or morning practice with which one enters a deeper sense of safety, an awareness of the sacred and a way with which to focus on the good.
But how do you avoid the fact that there are some people who are out to get you, not just enemies of your nation or violent people who may rob you of your wallet or freedom, but those who deceive you with words?
There’s the image of entering a sanctuary, with relief, bowing with awe, relaxing into being held in spirit. And then there is the contrasting image -- not a door opening into the serene but an open grave opening in front of you, a mouth full of malice and lies - sucking you in, the opposite direction from kindness and truth.
This human pull between the openings that call us to calm and the ones that drag us down is part of who we are and this poem is a reminder to start the day right but to also be cautious.
How to still hold on to the sense of sacred one has in one’s inner sanctuary when one is out in the real world, with all its hucksters and threats? Awareness of the better path and avoidance of the pits that lead us down the drain is a good start, perhaps each morning.
To make sure we are more conscious of the careful way to live this poet depicts just how dangerous the lies that other people say and how sales pitches and abusive language can literally kill our spirit, dreams and sometimes deaden us inside.
Beware, the poet warns us, of the watchful enemies, out there to get me. Beware of those who drag you down -
כִּ֤י אֵ֪ין בְּפִ֡יהוּ נְכוֹנָה֮ קִרְבָּ֢ם הַ֫וּ֥וֹת קֶֽבֶר־פָּת֥וּחַ גְּרֹנָ֑ם לְ֝שׁוֹנָ֗ם יַחֲלִיקֽוּן׃
“For there is no sincerity on their lips;
their heart is filled with malice;
their throat is an open grave;
their tongue is slippery.”
Ps. 5:10
Robert Alter unpacks this powerful, disturbing image of some mouths like open graves that kill us with smooth tongues that seduce us:
“This startling image suggests how lethal are the intent and the effect of the smooth-talking deceivers. The smoothness (the Hebrew idiom is literally “they smooth with their tongue”) intimates a kind of slippery slope of language into the open grave of the throat.”
Fake news and clever marketing, outright lies and trickery has always been here. What’s on us is not to be those people who use word to lie and hurt, and to watch out, aware and present, of those who may not always use their words for good.
The seeking of a sanctuary space within, a safe spot to just be, less fearful and more present, will persist throughout this book of prayers.
How to enter, every morning, this state of mind, this gate of trust and gratitude, continues to be our quest to lead and love an honest life. Words can kill and words can heal, the poet sings - choose wisely. Lets us offer each other the serenity of sanctuary, in space and time, everywhere and always.
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I say the morning prayer- my brief version. Walk in the majesty of the blooming new trees. Check in on the lonely old peach tree. Listen to the birds. Drink coffee brewed locally. THEN pray for mothers in Ukraine- whose young sons will be going to war. How do you hold both?