Practicing Prayer, Voicing Fears

היום  אחד עשר יום שהם שבוע אחד וארבעה ימים בעמר
Today is eleven days--that is one week and four days--of the omer
נצח שבגבורה
A day of perseverance in a week of strength

The practice of prayer is often hard to connect with, especially when the words are in a language you can neither read nor understand. That is the challenge of Jewish prayer, which has been an integral part of my spiritual practice for more than 15 years. It is a process that involves work, continual work, navigating through the different layers at different moments. That is what makes it a lifetime practice, for it's a ever changing relationship.

Part of the liturgy of the Jewish morning prayer service is the psalm of the day--one more way we, as Jews, measure time. Each psalm can give an intention for each day as we move through the week. What that intention is, like many of our rituals, open to interpretation.

The psalms for Tuesday and Wednesday have spoken to me these past years, giving a voice to my fears for the world:

"How long will you judge unjustly, giving face to the wicked!"Psalm 82:2  

"How long, Adonai, will the wicked - the wicked exhalt!"Psalm 94:3

This year, those fears are intensified for this country, and remaining silent is not an option--we must all raise our voices with these words, or those of our own, to truly live the words that I grew up hearing, that I saw on the wall at Yad Vashem:

Shabbat Shalom

היום תשעה ושלשים יום שהם חמשה שבועות וארבעה ימים לעמר
Today is thirty-nine days, which is five weeks and four days, of the omer
נצח שביסוד
A day of perseverance in a week of foundation

On this Shabbat of foundation I share with you Psalm 92 - the psalm of Shabbat - as interpreted by one of my teachers, Norman Fischer, from Opening to You:

It is good to thank you, good to pronounce your unsayable name
With morning's light to remember your kindness
With night's sky to think of your faithful heart
To sing of it with music of the ten-stringed instrument
With the psaltery, with the harp 

Because you are at work in what is I rejoice
And the physical world your hands have made
Animates in my body your preciousness 

Everything you have made firm is very great
Everything you have coaxed into thought profound
And only someone humane know this, a fool cannot see it 

When the crooked spring up like weeds
When he heedless like grass seem to flourish
It is only so that they may be mowed down 

But you
Who do not rise up
And cannot be mowed down
Uplift
What opposed you
And it falls and withers
Scatters and is cast away 

Knowing this
My resolve is strengthened
Like ram's horn freshly anointed it glistens
So that my eyes see clearly the greed of those who envy
And my ears hear patiently the confused cacophony of the world 

Those who go in accord with you grow fresh as palm trees
Grow tall as the cedars of Lebanon
For they are planted in your house, their leaves rustle in your courtyards
Even in old age they'll flourish, vigorous and covered with foliage
Emblems of your uprightness, your rocklike steadfastness
Sealed and without a crack

שבת שלום

Shabbat Shalom