Note: Today’s Thought for the Day comes to us from Bronfman Center Director of Jewish Education Rabbi Samantha Frank.
Why Psalms? Why Now? Why Robert Alter’s translation?
Over the past few weeks, New Yorkers and people all over the world have made drastic lifestyle changes in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and help save lives. We’re staying home, working from home, figuring out care for our children and our parents, supporting local businesses, and generally trying to rise to the challenges at hand. We have been forced to adapt, and have reckoned with headlines about a disease that grow scarier by the day. How does Jewish wisdom help us understand this difficult moment?
The book of Pslams, or T’hilim (praises, in Hebrew) is part of the Hebrew Bible, and has been used by Jews individually and by the Jewish community in moments of crisis. Most psalms are written in the first person, making them the perfect thing to read when we have a direct address to God or would like to personally process an emotion or experience. The psalms also cover a wide range of emotions, from gratitude and joy to fear, frustration, anger, and hope. Robert Alter’s translation makes this Hebrew wisdom accessible to English speakers—allowing us to experience the comfort that the Psalms provide at a time when we badly need it.
In Psalm 147:3-4, the psalmist (author) writes: “Healer of the broken hearted, he binds their painful wounds. He counts the number of the stars, to all of them gives names.” What more fitting balm could we read in these trying times? Even as we are physically distanced from one another, we are never truly alone. God takes account of each of us, and knows us all by name.
Each day, we do our best to follow the rules to keep ourselves and others safe. We worry about those who cannot safely distance, and those working in health centers and hospitals. We physically distance ourselves, but we don’t know when this period of isolation will end. It’s impossible to avoid moments of anger and frustration. For moments of anger and frustration heightened by our inability to hold close those whom we love, Psalm 88 reflects these feelings of fear and frustration: “You distanced my friends from me…Why, Lord, do you abandon my life, do you hide your face from me?” (V. 9, 15).
And while all of the moments of sadness and anger are real, they are not the entirety of our experience. We are still able to enjoy sun streaming through our windows, and our gratitude for our health makes us want to jump and dance for joy. For the moments of gratitude for all that we do have and are able to do, Psalm 150: “Praise Him with timbrel and dance, praise Him with strings and flute. Praise Him with sounding cymbals, praise Him with crashing cymbals. Let all that has breath praise Yah. Hallelujah!” (Vv. 4-6).
In particular, Alter’s translation of the Psalms from Biblical Hebrew to English enables us to experience the rhythm and sound as closely as we can to the way that the Psalmist imagined it. Psalms, after all, are not meant for personal and communal use alone, they are meant to be read and even sung aloud: reading the psalms ought to be a full aural experience. In this moment of communal trauma and challenge, reading psalms can ground us in the physicality of music, which reminds us that while we may be stuck inside, the world is not stagnant. Our lives are filled with harmony and dissonance, crescendoes of exuberant joy and moments of slowing down. Whenever possible, Alter’s translation captures the rhythm, rhyme, meter, and structure—the musical dimension—of the original Hebrew.
We are blessed to have the book of Psalms, and Alter’s translation, right now. Within them is the entirety of human emotion. Like all great literature, though they were written long before our time, they can help us experience and process this moment. Reading psalms reminds us that though we may be socially distanced and living through a unique moment in human history, our ancestors experienced many of the same challenges and joys. For thousands of years, the human spirit has endured through isolation and challenge. Let us allow the wisdom of our tradition to guide us and act as connective tissue in the days ahead. Continue in good health, continue to be strong and courageous.