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Monday, March 16, 2009

Healing Psalms, Day Ten - part 1

I am going to make this 10th healing Psalm last. Mostly because I have had a huge, long day and am cooking a little sniffle and want to take myself to bed and get a good sleep so that I don't get sick.

So I will post the Psalm tonight and then commentary tomorrow.

I'm posting the Psalm twice here, with the traditionally used pronoun in the first version and the other pronoun in the second. If G*d has no gender, then let's use all genders or none.

Psalm 150

Halleluyah/Praise God!
***Praise God in His Sanctuary;
***Praise Him
******in the vast expanse of Heaven!

Praise Him for mighty deeds;
***Praise Him
******according to His abundant greatness!

Praise Him
***with the blowing of the shofar;
******Praise Him
*********with the lyre and the harp!

Praise Him
***with drum and dance;
******Praise Him
*********with string instruments and flute!

Praise Him
***with resounding cymbals!
******Praise Him
*********with clanging cymbals!

Let every breath of life praise God,
******Halleluyah/Praise God!


Psalm 150

Halleluyah/Praise God!
***Praise God in Her Sanctuary;
***Praise God
******in the vast expanse of Heaven!

Praise Her for mighty deeds;
***Praise Her
******according to Her abundant greatness!

Praise Her
***with the blowing of the shofar;
******Praise Her
*********with the lyre and the harp!

Praise Her
***with drum and dance;
******Praise Her
*********with string instruments and flute!

Praise Her
***with resounding cymbals!
******Praise Her*********

with clanging cymbals!

Let every breath of life praise God,
******Halleluyah/Praise God!

Scroll down to posts below for previous Psalms and explanation of the origins of this custom of praying ten specific Psalms for healing of body and soul. Thank you, Reb Nachman. Blessings, all.

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8 comments:

  1. Richard BurtonMarch 17, 2009 at 6:18 AM

    I would like it better if the genders were all mixed up in the same psalm. As you have presented them each one is still exclusive.

    ReplyDelete
  2. FranMarch 17, 2009 at 7:00 AM

    Praise indeed, without gender, which is hard given the language.

    Praise to Him and Her always, Praise be to God.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Richard BurtonMarch 17, 2009 at 7:23 AM

    We are human and finite. God is infinite. Anything we say about God will reduce God to something that is less than God. - We must do this but we must realize that our understanding of God is only a minuscule part of who God is.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMarch 17, 2009 at 11:07 PM

    Well, Richard, if you'll get out your Hebrew bible you'll see that in just the first verse there's Ya (female) AND El (male) So, you see, it IS all mixed up. God is all the genders.

    Thanks, Jane. I liked reading it both ways.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jane RMarch 18, 2009 at 11:27 AM

    Richard, I did that on purpose - so that we would realize that neither is satisfactory and both are, and that our language is very limited. At the very least we should question the use of exclusively or predominantly male language for G*d. It's idolatry.

    It is interesting to me (has been since the 1970s when we first raised these issues) that people tend to get upset about language being exclusive only when one reverses the masculine-dominant pronouns to feminine-dominant pronouns. The reversal does wake us up.

    Awakened, we need to move forward from there into a richer way of speaking of the holy, knowing all the time that our words are limited in relation to the Unspeakable Mystery.

    Lindy, yes. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Richard BurtonMarch 21, 2009 at 7:52 PM

    Are you assuming that because I am a man I am uncomfortable with the feminine pronoun for God? I was simply observing that either gender alone diminishes god and that both genders together also diminishes god.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jane RMarch 21, 2009 at 8:07 PM

    Dear Richard, no such assumption: many people I know who are uncomfortable with gender-inclusive language are women. And I agree with you that all language limits God. We just have to be as inclusive and poetic as we can, knowing that in the end it all reverts to deep silence.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Richard BurtonMarch 22, 2009 at 4:37 AM

    You and I do not disagree at any point, The discussion is closed from here. I do indeed appreciate your blog very much and will continue following it with great interest.

    ReplyDelete

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