Hope to God

Parashat Shoftim 5769

God’s vision for us is to create a world governed by justice and love. The only things that stand in our way are a lack of vision and a lack of hope.

If you had only one wish, what would you wish for? I know. In the stories it's usually three wishes… but these are tough times. You only get one wish. So, if you had only one wish, what would it be? If you could ask for just one thing, what would you ask for? Personally, I wouldn’t know where to start. I’m a human being – Freud was right to point out that our desires are insatiable. There is no limit to what we desire and it is one of the perennial dilemmas of the human condition. Whatever we have, we want more! Of course, that’s always the problem in all those three wishes stories. The theme is always “be careful for what you wish for.” Those stories are about the problems of giving full license to our desires.

Now, what if you could ask just one thing of God. Alladin’s genie does some cool magic, but God? - God is the Master of the Universe, the Creator of Heaven and Earth! If you could ask God for just one thing, what would it be?

During this month of Elul preceding the Yamim Noraim (High Holy Days) it is customary to say Psalm 27 twice a day as part of our prayers. In the Psalm King David praises God’s power and all that God has done for him. I imagine David toward the end of his life - a powerful king who has vanquished all his enemies, who has riches and every material thing he desires. And in this Psalm the weary warrior turned poet-philosopher says, “Ehad sha’alti me-et Adonai…” “Just one thing do I ask of the Lord, it is but this that I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the Lord’s goodness, and to behold His Sanctuary” “Shivti b’veit Adonai kol yemei hay’yai…” Despite all that David has and all that David has done in his life, all he desires now is to dwell with God.

The reason we read Psalm 27 during Elul is so that we might make David’s one wish our one wish. During Elul we are on a journey. It is a journey that the late Rabbi Alan Lew (z"l) described as a journey home. It starts with a feeling of homelessness on Tisha B’av (when we remember the destruction of our Temple), the longing for home intensifies during Elul, it reaches its crescendo during the Yamim Noraim, and it concludes when we dwell in the sukkah – the home that represents the human condition – a home we make with whatever we have, a simple impermanent shelter. Elul, Rabbi Lew teaches, is about returning home. It is a return to our fundamental values. It is a return to our essential selves – unburdened of the stuff our eyes desire and our hands have conquered. Teshuvah expresses a longing for where we desire to be. In King David’s words, it is a return to God’s abode – our true home.

I think that in some very deep place inside of us we all yearn for that return home. And like David, sometimes we imagine that home is somewhere far away… that we long to dwell in beit Adonai, in God’s home. But the truth of the matter is that our job as religious people is to make our home God’s home - to make this Earth, God’s abode.

I think by the end of the Ps. 27, King David also understand this. King David concludes his poem: “Lulei he’emanti li’rot b’tuv Adonai b’eretz hay’yim.” It’s a difficult verse to translate. It doesn’t even appear to be a full thought. The traditional way of reading it is that David is congratulating himself while praising God: “Had I not trusted to see the goodness of God in the land of the living… [I would have been doomed].” In other words, “Because I believed in God, God protected me.”

But I don’t think it really fits. Or, at least, I think another reading is just as plausible. That first word, “lulei” is ambiguous and it doesn’t necessarily express the certainty of the traditional translation. Lu or Lulei can also mean, “if, if only, would that.” It can express regret, “if only I had…” or it can express longing, “If only I could…” That tone of yearning seems to better fit the theme of the poem. It fits with David’s one request. And unlike the traditional translation, it seems like a complete thought – a bittersweet lament: “If only I had trusted enough see God’s goodness in the land of the living.” “Lulei he’emanti li’rot b’tuv Adonai b’eretz hay’yim”

Earlier in the Psalm David is saying, “I want to dwell in God’s home. All I want is to behold God’s goodness; the beauty of His Palace.” But here at the end of the poem – with the wisdom of age – I think David is hinting at something very profound. God’s goodness can be witnessed in the land of the living. God’s abode is here – in this world! We don’t have to pine to dwell with God in His palace… God already dwells with us! The problem, however, is that, like David, we too often fail to see it; and what get’s in the way is our lack of hope, our lack of trust in the ideals that God sets before us, our lack of vision.

Psalm 27 ends with an exhortation… a plea to us. “Kaveh el-Adonai!” “Hope for Adonai! Let your heart be firm and bold, and hope for the Lord.”

That’s the closing thought; David’s charge to us. After a life of conquest, competition, and accumulation, David begs us to have hope! To believe in God’s goodness… to believe that if only we could see, if only we could believe, we could uncover Godliness in this world.

It is so fitting, then, that Parashat Shoftim is always the first Torah portion of Elul. Just as we begin reading Ps. 27, we reach this climactic moment in the Book of Deuteronomy. Sefer Devarim is also about a journey. It is the journey ahead of us as a people. It is about the journey we will soon take to possess the land God promised us. And like King David in Psalm 27, Deuteronomy expresses some remorse, but more than anything it is about the hope that God and Moses have in us. The message could not be more loud and clear in this week’s Torah portion. “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof…” “Justice! Justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you!” If God could have only one wish for us, I think this might be it. This is God telling us, our mission is justice. It is possible to see God’s goodness in this world, but it is in our hands to make this world God’s abode. It is in our hands to pursue Justice – to uncover the Godliness that is possible in this world. We find God in this world by acting in accord with God’s vision for us. We find God in human acts of justice and holiness, in caring for the most vulnerable among us, in upholding social order and peace, in regulating our desires and our will to power.

What is true for us as individuals is also true for us as a nation. We are faced with many difficult questions and lot of things that need fixing. And like David, we must not waver from the vision of making our world a more Godly place. We can not allow fear and cynicism to make us complacent with a broken world.

The only thing that holds us back, the only thing in our way is our lack of faith. “Lulei he’emanti…” “If only I could truly believe,” David says, “… if only I could seen it… if only I could imagine the possibilities of a world governed by justice and goodness…”

So I have just one wish. My one wish for us all as we enter the month of Elul is David’s plea to us: “Kave el Adonai; hazak v’ya’ametz libecha; v’kave el Anodai.” Seek out God in this world – and have Hope! “Hope for Adonai, be strong and resolute in your heart, and hope for Adonai.”

Shabbat shalom.