Blog

In times of adversity, the Hebrew psalms have offered a vehicle for voicing and calming our fears, and restoring wonder and joy to our hearts. In that spirit, I offer to you this original translation of Psalm 18. It's a long one. I echo here the psalmists recommendation that you look/listen for a single word or phrase that resonates with you today. Perhaps write it on a post-it note and place it on the fridge or somewhere you'll spot it several times a day -- a make a practice of reciting it aloud again and again.
For the sake of perseverance and love.
Blessings.
Rabbi Jamie

PSALM 18 – for perseverance, for love’s sake.

The words of this poem, this very song, as spoken on a day I was saved from the cupped-hand of misfortune, from the pointed-fingers of judgment, from Sha’ul.

“Compassion,” You said, “is my power.”

“You,” I said, “are my rock and refuge,
sheltering stone, safe shield, and guiding light.”
With praises through poem and song, I acclaim compassion
and from ropes of despair I am saved.

Faced with a viral threat to life itself,
riverbeds without water sucking me under,
besieged by vain-fears and doubt, threats of death
closing in – from such distress,

I call forth breath to witness what is, and listen.
You hear the outcry from your palace of peace.
Listening. Balancing the scales, leveling
the battlefield, passing to crown to one most fit to reign.

The earth, like earthing, may quake and rage,
shake the foundations of the highest hills,
coughing smoke through nostrils
and spit fire from the lips, cheeks glowing red like coals.
The fuse is lit. Now what?
A hint? A hand?

Tilt the heavens and watch the sky descend,
a toxic cloud falls to the floor beneath your feet.
Then mount and ride the feeling, the cherub
guarding the arc of your worst and your best.
Soar on wings designed to harness such gusts of spirit.
Make mystery your sukkah, your secret sanctum.

Clouds of unknowing, dark waters of the deep,
from these, spring everything.

Cloudy cover and beaming light. Polarity.
Flaming coals and hailstones. Polarity. Disease and health. Love and fear.
There’s no ‘either-or’ nor ‘never more’ beneath the booming skies.
Yah-and-Elyon as one gives voice to fire and ice alike.

Bolts of lightning, from one bow, many arrows above
and below, water-channels split-and-spread,
an expanding arterial web etched in the bedrock
underground, and in the twin-nostrils too
many breaths branch out from nishmat-ruach,
exposing unseen layers of soul-and-spirit embodied.
Waters from above converge in me, a messenger,
like Moshe, drawn from many waters,
saved from drowning in the weighty woes of
a hostility stronger than me.

When my darkest day drew near, you helped me master the moment,
step out of reactive habit into an expanse,
allowing desire for mine to realign with desire-divine –
generosity and justice, restoring gratefulness to my open, empty hands,
safe-guarding loving-kind service against the skewed judgments of small self.

How? Regular recitation of well-chosen phrases.
Ritual practices training the mind to stay focused.
Lo asir memeni, “With musar-discipline, I’ll not be distracted from what is.”
This is purity to me, consciousness clean and compassionate,
non-judgmental. Righteousness restored, clean hands mirrored by your eyes.

Be a devotee of devotion.
Become blameless by not casting blame.
With concentration comes clarity, with diversion, perversion.
You, with focused determination, will save this people.
Haughty eyes humbled light my lantern to shine in the dark
lending strength that my steps may stride fences, leap fortified walls.
This is the way to wholeheartedness, speech refined,
guarded with discretion in a garden where honesty blooms,
where who I am is, is nothing but a witness of wonder.
There stands an immutable pillar of sacred community.

Will you lend me the courage of a hero?
Will the journey make me whole?
Steady my legs, like a gazelle on high rocky crags.
Teach my hands to fight fairly that my arms reach-
and-bend like a bow made of brass.

You are right. Let this admission shield me, save me,
sustain and grow your humility in me.

This will lengthen the stride beneath me that my footing not fail,
that I be the one pursuing and overcoming this adversity,
that I not fallback until I can return,
like the contents of the ark of the covenant, broken-and-whole.

A house divided cannot stand,’ it will be trampled underfoot.

And a hero’s courage in this combat?
A haughty me that bends at the knee sees worry and sorrow fly away.
Senseless hatred is vanquished when its clamor is ignored.
Shouting at love-in-hiding is no answer.
See the dust at play, making faces in the wind
sweeping empty streets outside the city,
free from the indefatigable infighting of people over power and fame.

If I am to lead, appoint for me a nation that knows me not.
Let this be my service. With balanced ears, let me hear.
Let the silenced and estranged bring their whispers to me,
allowing alienation and confusion to escape the enclosures of their captivity.

Breath of Life, bold-rock of blessing, I exalt in your support.
Better than vengeance against oppressors is the word,
the speech of diverse peoples standing in my stead,
freed from oppression, transcending even the violence of man.
And so, Yes! I acclaim you, through nations and changes
in so many languages, humming and hymning for your many-named sake:

“Magdil yeshu’ot malco / Extending these freedoms to one-and-all,
Oseh chesed limshicho / anointed heads bent on acting in good faith with kindness
L’david ulizaro ad olam / to foster forever the offshoots of love.

…

Oseh shalom bimromav, hu yaaseh shalom / Be peacemakers, making healthy and whole
Aleynu v’al col yisrael, / each family, community, nation,
va’col yoshvei teivel / and all creatures on earth.
V’imeru, AMEN. / In word-and-deed, we say, Amen.