March 2025

My Uncle Arthur passed away when he was 64.  It was his fifth heart attack and he was a smoker and overweight.  But while his loss left a huge hole in my life, 64 did seem like the beginning of old age.  Now, not so much. 

Rabbi Simon Greenberg of blessed memory, one of the great rabbi scholars of the 20th century, used to give a sermon on the occasion of his birthday related to the psalm that matched his birthday.  Since he almost made it to 150, I thought this is a good idea.  What wisdom does psalm 64 have in store for us and me on the occasion of my 64th birthday?

At first glance, it seems a dour psalm.  It is a lament. It begins Psa. 64:1 ¶ For the leader. A psalm of David. Psa. 64:2 ¶ Hear my voice, O God, when I plead; guard my life from the enemy’s terror.

Well, fortunately I am not on the run from an enemy.  But the rest of the psalm actually does speak to the horrors of our current world.

Psa. 64:3-6 Hide me from a band of evil men, from a crowd of evildoers, who whet their tongues like swords; they aim their arrows—cruel words—to shoot from hiding at the blameless man; they shoot him suddenly and without fear. They encourage themselves with an evil word; when they speak, it is to conceal traps; they think, “Who will see them?”

According To Rabbi Benjamin Segal, the poem is laid out in pairs after the opening superscription.  The Hebrew includes a number of words that have multiple meanings.  Many of the terms are connected to speech – Voice, plead, tongue, word, say, proclaim because the speaker is comparing that the truly damaging weapon of the wicked is speech.  It is not clear what kind of speech is weaponized – it could be gossip, slander, false accusation, mockery, temptations or even incantations.  Whatever type of lashon hara, wicked speech, they use it damages the speaker as gravely as a physical wound, but perhaps even longer since a physical wound may heal and be forgotten but the damage caused by gossip or slander may last forever. 

What makes the evil speech described in the psalm so apt for our day is the way the slanderers operate: Psa. 64:7 Let them search out foul deeds! We have hidden them from the utmost search, in a man’s inward self, and deep in his heart.  The language here is difficult and I am using Robert Alter’s translation for this verse.  According to Alter’s translation, what do the evil doer’s say and what is their confidence in spreading wicked speech?  It lies in the fact that it is anonymous, yet the hurt affects the intended victim’s psyche and emotional well-being.  This is the benefit of social media to these people. They can spread the most malicious lies, with no evidence and it becomes fodder for every newspaper, water cooler conversation, twitter and TikTok post.  Witness the recent rumors of Barak Obama and Jennifer Aniston.  Nothing to it, but every rag sheet at the grocery store is discussing it.   And we see this is the new way news is made from our government.  Elon Musk justifies digging into our personal and private details by lying that the government wastes money on ridiculous expenditures, like the US spent 50 million dollars on condoms for Gaza.  Not true, not even an exaggeration.  Just a bold-faced lie, which the press accepted, and encouraged people who listened to this deception agree, “Good for Trump on getting rid of all that waste”.  But there is no waste like this. 

The psalmist presciently understood how dangerous social media would be and the arrogance of the liar - Let them search out foul deeds! – Put the onus on the victims to try to prove the emptiness of the gaslighting and deception.

However, the psalmist realizes that such villainy falls back on the perpetrators. Psa. 64:8-9 God shall shoot them with arrows; they shall be struck down suddenly And Their tongue shall be their downfall; all who see them will nod in derision.  As Benjy Siegel states, “Most repetitions in this psalm indicate the at the wicked receive precisely the punishment they deserve.  Four such terms appear in verses 8 and 9.  God shot an arrow, just as they shot an arrow their evil word.  God responds in a flash, just as they, in verse 5 attacked suddenly – Pitom is the Hebrew word.  And their tongues which they had whetted like swords will be their downfall.  The point is not only justice, but also that the very hurtful actions of the wicked rebound upon them.  Well, we can only hope that this is true for the wicked in our day.

The psalmist ends on a positive note: Psa. 64:10-11 All shall stand in awe; they shall proclaim the work of God and the deed which they perceived. The righteous shall rejoice in the LORD, and take refuge in God; all the upright shall exult.

The speaker believes that when God takes vengeance on these wicked folk everyone will acknowledge true justice and that the righteous, those who seek justice, will rejoice in that what we have been assured is the proper way of the world will win out, the arc of the universe bends toward justice. 

For me this is the verse that stands out most strongly – “The righteous shall rejoice in the LORD, and take refuge in God.”

When I think over my 64 years of life, I think it is this belief in and joy that God exists.  That there is a transcendent Divine source with a Will that brought about this creation we call life on Earth.  I know that this world is filled with injustice and sorrow, but I also deeply believe that we humans, and most especially we Jews, have a mandate to act in ways to counter as much injustice and sorrow as possible.  And as I reach 64 I am a little surprised by how much more I look forward to in that pursuit.  They say youth is wasted on the young.  But I think we also minimalize how much opportunity is wasted when reaching elderhood.  Now, thank God, at this moment I appear to be in good health (true, one never knows the future), I still have energy for my rabbinate as evidenced that I am busier this year than I have been in years past, I am wiser and more knowledgeable than I was when I began serving as a rabbi and thought I knew everything, and I have more time to do what is important because my kids are out of the house.  And so, I look forward to the next decade or two, if God is good, about what I can still accomplish. And I think this is a good lesson for all of us as we get closer or pass our retirement stage – in the words of Rabbi Bill Lebeau, one of my mentors, who grew up in an ohio city where a big tire manufacturer had its plant: we should think of retirement not as a time of withdrawing or removing oneself from active service, but re-tire – in the tire business they would take used tires and rehab them to be useful once again, they would re-tire the tire. So as I conclude my 64th year on the planet and begin the 65th year, I am grateful to God for all that God has provided for me and look forward to rejoicing for the rest of the time alotted me, Shecheyanu v’kiyamanu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.