Next Thursday, we join with people of all backgrounds in our national day of Thanksgiving. This year has indeed been a difficult one for so many of us and one wonders if one can truly feel a sense of gratitude for the blessings in our lives when we feel so much is wrong or lacking, when people are suffering in many parts of the world from the effects of warfare, starvation, and hatred. We ourselves feel a sense of unease and discomfort in our own society. Yet we know that our tradition has urged us to acknowledge blessing for both the good and the bad in our lives, for all of creation.
The word “Jew,” in Hebrew “Yehudi,” comes from the name of Jacob and Leah’s fourth son, Judah, Yehudah. When Leah named this child, she chose a name that reflects the concept of thanksgiving. “This time I will thank the Lord,” she said, “and she called his name Yehudah.” A Jew is one who acknowledges God and gives thanks.
One of our most familiar Psalms is Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Often this Psalm is associated with death and funerals because of the translation of the fourth verse: “Gam ki elech b’gei tzalmavet lo ira ra ki ata imadi.’ “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for Thou are with me.” The Psalm continues, “Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”
But this Psalm need not be linked with death. In some circles, it is customarily sung at the table on Shabbat afternoon. Some scholars claim that we have mistranslated the word “tzalmavet” or that it is misvocalized and simply means a deep shadow rather than having anything to do with the rather scary term, “the shadow of death.” The Psalm should be seen as a prayer of thanksgiving. Calling God my shepherd, means that He is my provider. Just as a shepherd cares for his flock, leading them in and out, finding pastures for them to graze, and pools of water from which to drink, guarding them from predators, and caring for their every need, so too God is our ultimate provider and caretaker, a reliable keeper of His flock.
Psalm 100, which is titled a “Psalm of thanksgiving,” makes the connection explicit. “Raise a shout for the Lord, all the earth; worship the Lord in gladness; come into His presence with shouts of joy. Acknowledge that the Lord is God; He made us and we are His, His people, the flock He tends. Enter His gates with praise, His courts with acclamation. Praise Him! Bless His name! For the Lord is good; His steadfast love is eternal; His faithfulness is for all generations.”
Returning to Psalm 23, we read, “Adonai roi, lo echsar, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” or “I lack nothing” in a different translation. The verb “echsar” comes from the root “chas-er” which means absent, lacking. Lo echsar means I shall not be lacking or missing anything. One may wonder how one can honestly say this at a funeral when the most obvious emotion is that of loss. At such a time we are lacking something most precious, the presence of our loved one and yet we dare to say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” We don’t deny the loss, but we feel comforted by God’s presence.
In the Grace after Meals, Birkat HaMazon, we affirm “through God’s great goodness we have never lacked anything, “tamid lo chasar lanu,” and we go on to pray, may we never lack food forever and ever, “v’al yechsar lanu mazon l’olam vaed.” Traditionally one is to recite these blessings following each meal throughout the week, yet one wonders is it really true? Have we never lacked anything? And even if, thank God, it is true for you and me, is it true for everyone who might offer this prayer? Does God provide food for all as the opening passage concludes? Hazan et hakol?
Toward the end of this lengthy series of prayers there is a quotation from Psalm 37 that some people are so uncomfortable saying that they whisper it or omit it altogether from the grace after meals. It says, “I have been young and am now old, but I have never seen a righteous man abandoned, or his children seeking bread.” How can the Psalmist make such a claim? Was he oblivious to what was going on around him? Does he claim that only the wicked go hungry in the world, that righteous people will not be subject to deprivation?
Some commentators suggest that we emend the verse slightly and say, “I have never seen a righteous man abandoned and his children seeking only bread,” implying that righteous people, even if they are hungry, have higher pursuits than just bread, more important things to worry about. Personally, I don’t find that idea much more appealing. It is very hard to focus on spirituality, when you go to bed hungry. The rabbis themselves teach that “ein kemach, ein Torah,” without food there is no Torah. A better interpretation I believe then is that such verses appear in our prayers as a challenge to us; they are aspirational. Since it is our duty to imitate the divine attributes we claim and to “walk in God’s ways,” acknowledging that God provides food for all, requires us to see to it that that food is equitably distributed so that we might feel confident that we lack nothing and that we live in a world where the righteous never have to go begging for food. Where there is sufficient food for all.
Returning to Psalm 23, we might read its opening line as “When the Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing.” The Psalm can be understood as emphasizing a particular attitude rather than focusing on the physical reality before us. The Psalmist may be saying to us, that when one has a relationship with God and recognizes Him as the ultimate provider, as “my shepherd,” the one who has created a world capable of sustaining its creatures, then I will lack nothing. As we are told in the Ethics of the Fathers, Pirkei Avot, ‘Who is truly rich, he who is satisfied with his portion.”
Perhaps this is why this Psalm of thanksgiving, Psalm 23, has found its way into our funeral service not only in Jewish tradition, but in Christian liturgy as well. Perhaps, only from the perspective of death, when we view a life in its entirety, can we fully appreciate all the blessings that God has given us. Only then do we see that, overall, we really lack nothing. Only then do we recognize how all the many things we work so hard to accumulate are, at the end, unimportant and are all left behind for others. The only accumulation that remains is the merit we accumulate for our actions in this world, the mitzvot, the deeds that we do for others. When God is our shepherd, He becomes our exemplar to follow. We too, then, must become providers for those less fortunate than we. We are called upon to follow the divine attributes and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the widow and orphan, heal the sick, and reach out to those in need.
We realize that sometimes the world can be a dark valley for people to traverse; one can feel that one is in the valley of the shadow of death. One may feel that one may never reach the other end and see the light once more. It is God’s presence that helps us through these difficult times and gives us strength to face life’s challenges. It is God who encourages us to be there for others when they are in the valley of the shadow. True, we believe that God is there for them too, but if God is there, we too need to be there as well. We need to offer support to those passing through the valley and respond with love and care.
The Lord is our shepherd and we lack nothing, for when we open our eyes and see the world, we must then acknowledge the table of blessings that the Lord has set before us through His gracious bounty. Our heads are anointed with oil, our cups overflow. At that point, indeed, we know that “Goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives and we shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.”
May this day of national thanksgiving, inspire us all, to acknowledge the blessings that are ours in this world, to offer thanks for all that God has done for us. May we come to understand the obligations that are ours as partners of the Almighty to become a blessing ourselves, to share our blessings with others and work toward making this world a better, more blessed place.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Edward Friedman
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