CHRISTIANS AWARE COURSE ON THE PSALMS: 8

At Christchurch, Clarendon Park, this evening for the eighth session in the Christians Aware course on the Psalms (offered as part of their Faith Awareness programme).

This evening, Beate Dehnen facilitates a session where we are eoncourged to respond to the Psalms through painting, drawing and calligraphy.

That's my painting, above. I was inspired (if that's not too grand a word) by something Rabbi Jonathon Magonet said in our second week: that if the Five Books of Moses are the self-revelation of God to man, then the Psalms are man's self-revelation to God. Shall I explain more? Probably best not to (although the colours in the alternative rainbow and the little stick figures are part of a deliberate code) 

THE PSALMS 5: JEWISH PSALM SINGING

At Christchurch, Clarendon Park, this evening for the fifth session in the Christians Aware course on the Psalms (offered as part of their Faith Awareness programme).

This course really has had the highest numbers of any which I've attended here. There are 50 attendees this evening, and once again we're in the larger Vaughan Powell Room.

Our speaker this evening is Rabbi Mark Solomon and his topic is "Jewish Psalm Singing". The central and distinctive feature of this session is the Rabbi's singing and chanting, which he does frequently.

Rabbi Solomon is Interfaith Consultant for Liberal Judaism. He is Rabbi to the Liberal and Reform congregations in Edinburgh and Manchester, each of which he visits once a month. He is also Cantor at the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Australia (where he was born and grew up - though I couldn't detect any trace of that in his accent). This is his third visit to Christians Aware in Leicester.

He distributes two handouts: one entitled "Psalms in Jewish Worship", the other, "Transliteration of Selected Hebrew Psalms". Here's some of the content of the former (keen as I am to provide records as full as possible in these blog entries, even I draw the line at transcribing two sides of transliterated Hebrew!)

• Psalms are known in Hebrew as Tehillim, "praises".
• Jewish liturgy does not include the practice of public reading of the whole book of Psalms in a liturgical cycle. Instead, set groups of Psalms, and individual Psalms, are used at fixed times in the liturgy.
• The Masoretic accents for the Psalms in printed Hebrew Bibles may originally have indicated a method of chanting (as does the different system of accents used for other books of the Bible), possibly going back to the Levites in the Temple, but if so, this method of chanting Psalms was lost long ago.
• Reading of the whole book of Psalms, either in one sitting, or over the cycle of the week or month, is a popular devotional practice among pious Jews. In certain periods, societies for the recitation of Psalms existed in Jewish communities.
• The recitation of Psalms was believed to protect from sickness and harm, and Psalms were traditionally recited by a sickbed and beside a body awaiting burial.
• Particularly popular is Psalm 119 with its eightfold alphabetical structure, and often the verse sets spelling out out the letters of a person's name are read, followed by verses spelling the words kera saten, "tear the adversary", as a prayer for recovery from illness.
• One of the oldest Psalm groupings is the list of Psalms for the days of the week., chanted by the Levites in the Temple: Sunday, Psalm 24;  Monday, Psalm 48; Tuesdaay Psalm 82; Wednesday, Psalm 94; Thursday, Psalm 81; Friday, Psalm 93; Shabbat, Psalm 92. Nowadays these are recited traditionally at the end of the morning service.
• Another ancient grouping is Hallel ("Praise"), consisting of Psalms 113-118. chanted before the reading of the Torah in the Morning Service on the Three Pilgrim Festivals (Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles), the New Moon snd Hannukah and at the Passover seder (festive meal, when the "Great Hallel", Psalm 135, is also read). The general theme is thanksgiving for God's acts of salvation. Different chants are used for each festival, and Tabernacles the palm branch is waved in time with the words of certain verses of Psalm 118.
• On New Moon and the latter days of Passover a slightly abridged version of Hallel is read, the reason given (regarding Passover) that our rejoicing is diminished by the suffering of the Egyptians in the Red Sea.
• Rabbis in the Talmud assert that one who recites Psalm 145 three times every day is assured of a place in the World to Come, because it combines alphabetical structure with the verse, "You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living creature." (Berakhol 4b). Since ancient times, this Psalm has been framed by Psalms 84:5 and 144:15 a the beginning and 115:18 at the end, and this composition, known from the first word as Ashrey ("Happy") is said twice in the morning service and at the opening of the Afternoon Service.

Rabbi Solomon explains that chanting is repetitive, each verse of the Psalm chanted exactly the same way as every other. This is not the case with composed melodies. He demonstrates different styles of chanting (taking Psalm 95 as his example). First he performs it as a traditional Ashkenazi chant in "Friday night" mode, which would be sung to welcome Shabbat; then as a chant written by Louis Lewandowski (1821-94), one which would be used by pre-war German congregations and in Liberal and Reform communities. The same chant is used for Psalm 113, one of the Hallel Psalms. He also sings Psalm 114 (another Hallel Psalm) sung to a folk melody, probably Central European. By this point, some of the Jewish friends in the audience are joining in, starting shyly, then becoming bolder and louder.

In a synagogue with a strong musical tradition, the Hallel Psalms are each chanted to a different melody at the different festivals. This way they stay fresh throughout the year, unique to each of the festival days on which they are sung.

Psalm 91, known as the Psalm of Protection, is chanted at funerals, while walking the coffin to the grave.

At weddings, Psalms are not chanted, but sung to composed melodies. The Rabbi demonstrates three different ways of singing Psalm 150, each varying in formality, which the couple can choose between. Psalm 100 is another that is often sung at weddings, as the bride walks down the aisle.

The Rabbi ends his presentation with two different settings of Psalm 23: one ancient, mone modern (which would be sung by the family, seated together at table for the Sabbath meal).

Then, for a big finish, he leads (virtually) the whole audience in singing Psalm 133, verse 1 as a round. This is often sung by pilgrims to Jerusalem - though, hopefully, better than we do it here tonight!

Rabbi Solomon was kind enough to give me his card at the end of the evening and asked that I send him the link to this blog entry. Gladly!

In the photo above: Rabbi Mark Solomon (right) speaks with Gerry Gardiner, a regular attendee at the Christians Aware sessions. In the background, Beate Dehnen stacks chairs.

CHRISTIANS AWARE COURSE ON THE PSALMS: 2

Barbara Butler & Rabbi Jonathan Magonet.

At Christchurch, Clarendon Park, this evening for the second session in the Christians Aware course on the Psalms (offered as part of their Faith Awareness programme).

Our speaker is Rabbi Jonathan Magonet, author of A Rabbi Reads the Psalms (among other books).

There are around 50 people here, the largest turnout I’ve seen for one of these Monday evening sessions. For the first time, we’re using the larger Vaughan Powell Room.

The Rabbi tells us that although the Psalms are more often thought of en bloc, they repay individual attention and close study, reflection and discussion as individual poems. Many of them are troubling, baffling, even violent in their language. Yet when considered in depth and detail, paradoxically, they can be seen to speak of great love and tenderness.

The speaker expresses disappointment and frustration at the translation into (differing forms of) English, at how they each fail (in different ways) to convey the essential truths in the original Hebrew. As a poet and a theologian, he doesn't consider that they do justice to the qualities of the Hebrew. Never mind our modern difficulties with the archaic style of the English itself, the real casualties are the complexity and subtlety of the Hebrew, which are lost in translation.

Psalm 90

1. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
3. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
6. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
7. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
9. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
13. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. 
16. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
17. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

The Rabbi leads us through the Psalm, verse by verse, discussing it as we go. I feel very much at home with this sort of approach to reading, discussing, appreciating and understanding the text. It has a lot in common with teaching an adult education class on poetry. I've picked out only a few things from the fascinating discussion led by the Rabbi.

Verses 1, 2: God as character in a story. When that character is called by different names, it is for a reason, it tells us something significant. “Lord" (Adonai) representing nearness and intimacy; "God" (El) representing majesty and grandeur.

Verse 3: Ambiguous – can be read to mean either "return to inorganic matter" (literally "crushed stone") or to return to God.

Verse 4: Two distinct ways of measuring time: human-centred perspective of generations (verse 1), and the divine perspective, longer than the life of the earth.

Verses 5, 6: Trying to see our lives from God's point of view.

Verse 7: Idea persists even into the modern day of the Old Testament God driven by anger - and it's not a view confined to any particular form of Judaism. This is the kind of idea of God that gives the Old Testament a bad name!

Verses 8, 9: Extending this theme.

Verse 12: Alternate translation: "Teach us how to measure our days, so that we may acquire a heart of wisdom"

Verse 13: Asking God to come back to us (focuses meaning of verse 3).

Verse 15: “Let us have a deal, measure for measure, of things positive for all the negative things already endured.”

Verse 16: Extending relationship with God into the future, measured in human terms.

Verse 17: “May the pleasantness of God be upon us”. This may sound banal, homely, quotidian - but after we've been considering such wrath ...

The second half of Psalm 90 is a protest at what's been stated in the first half. In the Psalms, God is taken to task, is challenged. The petitioner asks: where was God in times of need and distress; where is God now when aid is required; where will God be in the future?

If the Books of Moses may be said to be God's self-revelation to man, then the Psalms may be said to be man's self-revelation to God.

The questions you ask determine the answers you find. If you were a donkey reading the Hebrew Bible, then you'd probably be most interested in stories involving donkeys.

This enjoyable and intriguing session, by such a highly accomplished, distinguished, experienced and knowledgeable speaker sets a very high standard for next week ... *gulp*

CHRISTIANS AWARE COURSE ON THE PSALMS: 1

At Christchurch, Clarendon Park Road, this evening for the first session in a new course on the Psalms. The course is offered as part of Faith Awareness, the Inter Faith programme of Christians Aware.

There are 32 people in attendance, the largest number I've seen here. The room is packed - so much so that it's decided we'll be meeting in a bigger space next week.

Our speaker is Father Fabian, of Leicester's Dominican Priory. Barbara Butler intoruces him as a theologian who works with young people in the church, with a special interest in international students.

Father Fabian started by reading the 23rd Psalm, arguably the best known and most popular of all the Psalms (in the translation from the Book of Common Prayer):

The Lord is my shepherd;
 therefore can I lack nothing.
He shall feed me in a green pasture,
 and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.
He shall convert my soul,
 and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for his
  Name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
 for thou art with me;
 thy rod and thy staff comfort me.
Thou shalt prepare a table before me in the presence of them
  that trouble me;
 thou hast anointed my head with oil,
 and my cup shall be full.
Surely thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the
  days of my life;
 and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Father Fabian asks us to hold in our minds two basic truths about the Psalms: that they are poems and that they are Jewish.

As poems, they speak in images, they don't use everyday terminology or style (but use rhythmic, heightened language, not everyday terminology or style). As a reader or listener, you're not standing on the outside looking in. In the case of a poem, you're drawn into the lived experience. Poems have an unbounded sort of quality, in that they are open to meaning beyond that immediately intended by the author.

As Jewish texts, their origins and meanings have to be understood and appreciated in the context of Jewish culture and history. While he does not intend to mean that we can't do anything with the Psalms without being an expert on Judaism, Father Fabian does ask us to consider in what ways a Christian (or anyone of religious affiliation other than Jewish) can relate to the Psalms. This is clearly a topic of special interest to me (all the more so in that I'm giving a talk on the Psalms from a Bahá'í perspective in a fortnight's time). I'm rather sorry that we're not going to be listening to anyone offering Buddhist, Hindu, Jain or Sikh appreciations of the Psalms as part of this course.

Father Fabian gives us a historical tout of the place of the Psalms in Christian worship and how this has changed down the ages - with particular reference to the changes he has seen in his own lifetime.

In her closing remarks, Suzanne Jones thanks Father Fabian for his talk, which she describes as having set out a "groundplan" for the rest of the course.

Future sessions will include perspectives on the Psalms from Bahá'í, Jewish and Muslim perspectives; evenings devoted to Christian and Jewish singing of the Psalms; hands on experience of Creative Writing and Letterpress Printing based on the Psalms.

In the photo above: Father Fabian with Beate Dehnen.