{"id":80729,"date":"2020-09-30T18:25:04","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T15:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=80729"},"modified":"2020-09-30T18:25:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T15:25:04","slug":"reading-psalm-13-after-the-holocaust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/reading-psalm-13-after-the-holocaust\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Psalm 13 After the Holocaust"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"80729","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":72765,"related_cahpter":"580","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Is God merciful? Perhaps. Perhaps not.","content":"

Three of my grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust. (The fourth one had the good sense to die before the War).<\/span><\/p>\n

I never met any of my grandparents but I have it on personal testimony that they were extremely pious (despite being German-Jewish).<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder if those grandparents who were murdered went to their deaths with the last verse of this chapter on their lips:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut as for me, in Your mercy do I trust;<\/span>
\n<\/span> My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.<\/span>
\n<\/span> I will sing unto God,<\/span>
\n<\/span> Because He has dealt kindly with me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This seems to me the key verse in David\u2019s life, indeed in all of Psalms. David, despite all his tribulations, led a charmed life. Whatever happened to him, he always came up singing. He knew that in the end God was on his side and would save him. Perhaps that is even why he had the audacity to sin with Bathsheba. This too would work out well, eventually. God could not resist David\u2019s charisma, had too much invested in a happy outcome for David to let him fail.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet for how many Jews throughout the generations has this verse been a delusion and a false hope? God did not prove merciful; God did not provide salvation in which to rejoice; God did not deal kindly. Those unfortunate Jews who \u201ctrusted in God\u2019s mercy\u201d were left with the questions with which our chapter began:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow long, O Lord, will You forget me forever?<\/span>
\n<\/span> How long will You hide Your face from me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As if to anticipate our objections, David\u2014or some genius of a redactor\u2014begins the very next chapter, (after the superscription), with the words:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe <\/span>Naval<\/em> <\/span>has said in his heart: There is no God!\u201d (14:1)<\/span><\/p>\n

Naval<\/em> <\/span>is usually translated as \u201cfool.\u201d But it is more likely related to the Hebrew word for \u201cwither.\u201d David is saying that only the withered leaf, only the individual who is <\/span>already<\/span><\/em> cut off from life, can imagine that there is no God. (And if the <\/span>naval<\/em> <\/span>made this statement not in his heart but out loud, in public, would he be any less of a <\/span>naval<\/span><\/em>?)<\/span><\/p>\n

There is something obfuscatory and disingenuous about this juxtaposition between faith at the end of Chapter 13 and doubt at the beginning of Chapter 14. David wants to force us into a binary proposition: either one believes in a merciful God or one doesn\u2019t believe in God at all and is a <\/span>naval<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t there another possibility: that God exists but is not, or is no longer, merciful? Or that He exists but is merciful to some and not to others?<\/span><\/p>\n

How does all this factor into the decisions that each individual must make in the course of his or her life?<\/span><\/p>\n

Is God merciful? Perhaps. Perhaps not.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it is probably not a good idea to rely on His mercy in any particular instance. Too many have suffered and died who made that mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

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