“In this do I trust,” says the author of Psalm 27.
“For David,” the psalm begins. Is this the statement of authorship as tradition would have it, or could it be a dedication? This one is for you, David, you who nurtured your trust even when you were being hunted, even when you didn’t even have clothes to wear, even when your son betrayed you and your baby died.
I’ve recited this psalm annually for many years, but it was only in the past few that I managed to memorize it (sort of). This has given me the internal space to reflect on its transitions as well as on the verses which have captivated us through melody. “One thing I ask from God, this do I request: to dwell in God’s house all my life and to have visions of God’s beauty while visiting God’s sanctuary.”
The psalmist says that he is not afraid if a host encamp against him, for there is one thing he trusts, namely that all he has ever wanted is to dwell in God’s house. This relieves fear, I’m guessing, because there is no place which is not God’s house and so as long as he is conscious of that, there is no harm that can dislodge his trust and ultimate joy in being alive, nor make him afraid of death.
This coming year may be one in which humanity makes another of those momentous decisions, the kind only we seem to be capable of on this planet. We will decide what the next stages of our evolution will look like when political leaders gather in Paris in 2015. Will we agree to work together as a species and begin to reverse the effects of climate change or will we continue to place the needs of our own tribes and nations ahead of humanity as a whole. Will we continue to waste resources, both material and human, in pointless wars over tiny pieces of land, risking our survival, or will we decide to share those resources more equitably, thus reducing the need for conflict? Will we allow increased levels of education and prosperity to encourage smaller families and even reverse population growth or will we require war and disease to accomplish this?
Most important: can we renew a spiritual, respectful, and ethical approach to life’s decisions so that we can echo the psalmist in saying that we approach our struggles from a place of trust and the knowledge that we are struggling in and for God’s home in this world?
I’m including some sound files of melodies for different parts of Psalm 27. Most especially, I’m attaching one of Reb Zalman z”l which also appears on his “Into My Garden” cd. This recording is less polished and, in some ways, I like it better. It is one of the four niggunim he told me are the ones he would like us all to know (though I don’t understand why there weren’t at least five, since I would certainly have included Bati L’gani) and each of them was the focus of one day of my last Kallah course. The others are Hanna Tiferet’s. All of them are embedded in the pdf files which are Machzor Kol Koreh.
May this year be one of personal renewal and a positive tipping point for humanity.