Tags
27th Psalm, Achat Sha'alti, congregation, High Holidays, prayer, psalmist, questions, rabbi, singing, unresolved issues
Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time preparing to lead High Holiday services. My role is primarily to lead congregational singing, while my partner, a rabbi, will do most of the opining.
This means that my preparations are mostly mechanical. Do I know the proper melody for each prayer? Have I chosen tunes that my congregation will recognize and be able to sing with me? Which sections should I skip and which are essential? And so on.
The result is that I’ve been feeling a kind of disconnect; whenever I actually pay attention to the prayers themselves, I realize that I’m not doing the kind of preparations that these “holidays” call for.
It’s no surprise, then, that I was taken aback yesterday when I was practicing the 27th Psalm, which has the line “one thing I ask of the Lord…” The first words of that verse, “achat sha’alti” can also be translated as “I have one question.”
And I laughed out loud. One question?! Are you kidding? I have a million questions. I’m a little jealous of the Psalmist, if he had only one question.
Which brings me back to the topic of unresolved issues, which is what started this whole blogging thing in the first place. Back in June, Ellie and I were at the library; when she swiped her card in the self-check-out machine, the screen said: “You have unresolved issues with your card. Please see a librarian.”
And I thought, hell yes I have unresolved issues! So I started blogging to try to sort them out. Which turns out to have been a colossal failure, because if anything, I have even more than when I started.
If you’re a regular reader here, thanks for taking the journey with me thus far. If I come up with any answers, I’ll keep you posted. But don’t hold your breath.
SRQ Jew 
Jennifer,
What makes us think we are not supposed to have unresolved issues. I think that is what frustrates me most. I always want to have an answer…maybe I just need to accept that I will always have issues and the true “resolution” is to learn to accept that fact and go on living anyway!!! (When you figure out how to do that out let me know 😉
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Shannah tovah, Jennifer! We Jews have been asking questions for 3200 years! ( I didn’t say we got answers!) In fact when you ask a Jew something, they always answer with a question! Maybe that’s the whole idea. We are supposed to be seeking answers and that is how we grow and learn.
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I for one will look forward to your opining as well as your musical leadership. …Another way of looking at the verse “achat shaalit” is “one question” AT A TIME. But at any given moment in one’s life there are unanswered questions but we probably cannot really focus on more than one at a time. Multi-tasking is only for people much younger than we, and only for those who can chew gum, walk, listen to their I-pod, and look at facebook all at the same time.
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.
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