Under Siege :: the Experience of Scorn
A Study of Psalm 35
“G-d is close … here, everywhere, but feels far away. [David Melekh] says, stir, wake up, G-d my master, to my fight … get up and get up to my case, get up and defend me. It's very beautiful, it’s one of the things that's beautiful about the Tehillim—that he's so real with G-d. He's not afraid to say, please, and how long are you going to watch this? Please get up.”
Monday in Seeing Yourself in the Psalms we studied Psalm 35. We use this text: Psalms That Speak to You by Yitzchok Leib Bell, however any translation on Sefaria will suffice. Below I have provided a short clip so you can sample the teaching style. You can watch the lesson in full on YouTube, I just checked, Lee is up-to-date with his uploads as of Monday night. Note, when I quote a translated line here, I sometimes combine a few translations because I consult several translations when I study the Tanakh and I want to provide the most accurate meaning based on my understanding of the primary source Hebrew.
Strive, O LORD, with them that strive with me; Fight against them that fight against me.
Psalm 35 describes the experience of suffering under siege or attack, either from within or from external enemies. King David expresses a raw and vulnerable honesty at G-d, he reproaches G-d, he asks G-d where is She is … why won’t She help? Get up and help me, G-d … where are you? David has no hesitation in getting real with G-d, like a young child expresses exasperation and anger at her parent for one thing or another in the course of growing pains. In fact, in line 5 David imagines his enemies scattered or driven like chaff into the wind by an angel of the Divine. This Psalm expresses the experience of scorn from the lowest point of persecution. Let’s look at the chiastic structure for its instructive value.
A0 :: Persecution without Cause
B0 :: Deliverance Anticipated
A1 :: False Witnesses Rise Up
B1 :: Deliverance Anticipated
A3 :: Persecution without Cause
B3 :: Deliverance Anticipated
How do we handle scorn and tribulation in life according to Psalm 35? Based on the chiastic structure alone I have the preliminary answer. We believe. We really lean into faith, to the very dregs of our being. Note I do not speak of fluffy Pollyanna empty headed fantasy stuff. No, I speak of the real human condition — the human version of the seed splitting open to germinate, to use a botanical metaphor. This means vulnerability. It means honesty. It often means fierce lamentations to G-d. Like a rant, where we simply want to unload the emotional vomit that obstructs our spiritual digestion of existence. It means get mad at G-d, yell and scream at the Creator. Look, if She is closer to you than your jugular, etc etc, than She already knows your heart. So, when you pretend nice and you are a bitter angry pill you are lying. Lies subvert love they put ourselves before our loved one.
Now let’s try to derive more meaning from some of the most provocative imagery. The best way to understand the Tanakh is through the Tanakh itself. This means searching for parallel meanings or worm holes in the texts that connect passages which seem unconnected.
✦Line 5 commentary :: Let them be as stubble in the wind, The angel of the LORD casting them out✦
Stubble refers to straw (stems of plant left in the ground) and chaff (seeds and husks) residue left behind after the harvest of grains. Known as residue or trash, in Biblical literature stubble refers to worthless easily ignited material and it symbolises the futility, waste, unproductiveness of wickedness. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bamidbar 4:1 states “…YOUR BELLY IS A HEAP OF WHEAT. The stubble and the straw, however, are not numbered. Instead they are measured. Thus the peoples of the world are compared with stubble and straw…”
A search on Sefaria for Torah passages referencing stubble/chaff/straw leads me to Exodus 5:12— with the Israelites enslaved in Egypt— where the Pharaoh scatters the Israelites across the landscape to gather stubble to make the clay needed for bricklaying. Note the mirroring of the language when we compare the passages. In Exodus the wicked scatter the Israelites to gather stubble, versus Psalm 35, G-d scatters the wicked like stubble, and not merely scatters, rather drives or thrusts them, into the wind. The deeds of the good build the future and a life in the world to come—like a deposit into the cosmic bank account. The deeds of the wicked mean nothing before Divine judgement—like a withdrawal on the cosmic bank account. Put another way, if you think of life as a marathon the wicked make their journey with a stationary bike and the good make their journey on a Harley—the wicked get nowhere despite expending lots of energy and the good cross the finish line and receive their completion award.
An ocean of commentary exists on the Psalms, both Judaic and Christian. Note I limit my Biblical commentary to avoid the Trinitarian Canon1 however from time to time I consult Christian theological sources to round out the analysis. Ellen Charry describes Psalm 35 as a psalm perhaps of spiritual instability. [The Psalmist] is thrown off and is not afraid to let God know that something is wrong … Something is radically wrong with the world and … [faces] a spiritual pathology … spiritual instability. Walter Brueggemann refers to Psalm 35 as a Psalm of Disorientation, the reaction of the faithful to God when the world they knew was broken …[a] lament that move[s] and deepen[s] the faith of the worshiper. Brueggemann classified the psalms into a tripartite that resembles the arc of life: oriented, disoriented, reoriented.
The Psalms provide each of us with an allegorical study of the journey of life, in a Joseph Campbell or Tolkien manner. Disorientation psalms provide us with an important and uncomfortable instruction on how to endure and respond to scorn and tribulation and what in modernity we could call social pain. Charry makes an astute observation about imprecatory psalms2—they provide a therapeutic means for the humiliated and scorned and abused to engage their emotional strife in safety and modesty. Connecting with the vulnerable honesty and raw lamentation of the poetry can help those in distress achieve emotional regulation. Like The Blues have served as an expression of and coming to terms with suffering for descendants of slaves in the Jim Crow era of America. .
The poet is not interested in the care and nurture of interpersonal relationships in the short term, but in inculcating social reciprocity in the body politic, because he appreciates the ruinous social consequences of angry contempt, the question the poet poses to us is how to deal constructively with scorn. — Ellen Charry
“there are times when people do things to us for nothing, for nothing…we didn't do anything to them…we didn't do any harm to them…but they may seek to harm us…and he says, these people, they hid a pit below, they tried to capture me to it, and they dug it…and they dug this pit in order to capture me for nothing” — lee weissman
✦Line 10 commentary :: All of my bones will speak and say G-d who is like you✦
Midrash Tanchuma writes about the eighteen benedictions corresponding to the vertebrae of the spine. However counting the vertebrae from the thoracic and lumbar regions we get 17. Perhaps they counted vertebrae differently in that era. Interestingly, the adult spinal cord is 18 inches long. At any rate, the spine gives the human body structure and it serves as a hub and it facilitates mobility. The spinal column supports the head, which has the cranial vault that houses the brain, one of two the power centre of the body that work in tandem. With his whole being David speaks to G-d.
In Duties of the Heart the Sage likens worship of the Divine to the intake and processing and digestion of food — a straight path from mouth through esophagus and then liver-pancreas-stomach and the gut. The great Rambam writes, for the true glorification of the Lord consists in the comprehension of His greatness, and all who comprehend His greatness and perfection, glorify Him according to their capacity, with this difference, that man alone magnifies God in words, expressive of what he has received in his mind, and what he desires to communicate to others.
Rav Kook Torah dot org writes, there are inner powers of the soul that are ordinarily not felt. They are only awakened at special times, in times of need. These powers may be compared to our bones. Unlike the flesh, which is more sensitive, our bones do not seem to be so ‘alive’. Nonetheless, bones are a basic part of our bodies. They break when we are injured, and they mend when we are healed. This fascinates and excites me the most because the bones do indeed possess special hidden powers that indirectly connect them to the heart. Long bones and bones of the pelvic girdle, also ribs, vertebrae, and sternum contain marrow, the factory that makes blood cells and plasma, the components of blood, the life force of the human body, which bathes and perfuses and feeds the heart, which pumps nutrients through the body in a constant cycle. So worshipping G-d with all of my bones means even and especially my long and pelvic bones, it means my bone marrow too, it means my blood cells. How do I guard my heart? By worshipping G-d with all of my bones, by speaking to G-d with all of my bones, including my bone marrow.
✦Line 15 + 16 commentary :: But when I reeled from defeat they rejoiced, and they gathered; even the lame gather against me, and even though I don’t know why; They tore me with their words without drawing blood; with flattery and mockery just to get a meal from my enemy, they grind their teeth at me✦
The primary source text uses the word וְנֶאֶסְפ֤וּ gather. Sefaria tells me a that this same word appears in Genesis 34:30. In this passage Simeon and Levi have avenged the rape of their sister Dinah by slaughtering the residents of Shechem. Says Jacob in reproach to his sons: inhabitants of the land…will gather themselves together against me and smite me.
An interesting parallel emerges.
David describing false witnesses rising up against him versus Jacob describing the residents of Shechem, the prince of whom raped his daughter. David faced betrayal from those he befriended and trusted while Jacob faced a kind of betrayal from his sons, when they pillaged and destroyed Shechem.
What happens to our heroic object of scorn in each case? In Psalm 35 David beseeches G-d to rise to his aide and provide deliverance. In Genesis G-d rises to Jacob’s aide and provides deliverance, telling him to go to Beit-El.
What connects these two men, though? You can read an interesting piece about that here. Jacob laid the foundation stones for the future temple, David acquired Jerusalem and paved the foundation for the building of the temple at that same site where Jacob laid the foundation stones.
✦Line 20 commentary :: For they do not speak of peace, but against the oppressed on the world they plan their treachery✦
In his commentary Adin Steinsaltz writes, they devise deceitful plans against those living serenely in the land, who harbour no malice toward anyone. In Akeidat Yitzak 28:1, ben Moses Arama writes, Our sages point out that the reason the mountain on which the Torah was given was called Sinai3, was because the word is reminiscent of hatred, i.e. events on that mountain accounted for the hatred of the Jewish people and Judaism by the gentile nations. In the Midrash Shocher Tov the Sage writes, However, the tongue does not sit or stand but is idle and silent, yet it can harm both great and small, near and far … Lashon Hara (evil tongue) is called the third, and it kills three: the one who speaks it, the one who accepts it, and the one it is spoken about. This sounds familiar to modern minds and hearts, doesn’t it?
What damage does one do with their tongue (reader, indulge me and let’s assume that the keyboard is a proxy for the tongue because we are speaking of social media discourse here). A lie travels around the world several times before the truth has a chance to rise from slumber and tie its shoes. Words carry weight, with them we speak things into existence. We cannot unspeak. We cannot uncreate. Even when we destroy we create, because we can only shift energy into different matter states.
And so think of present day political discourse in Canada, America, UK, Israel. Tongues wag. Tongues slither and slander. Tongues also wound and eviscerate, like scalpels or knives. Tongues vilify peace activists like Vivian Silver and the organisation she served as board member and they glorify chaos makers like [insert name of Kahanist agitprop influencer here]. Tongues vilify feminists like Amy Hamm and the organisation she founded and they glorify chaos makers like [insert name of Gender Extremist agitprop influencer here]. Tongues vilify parents fighting for moral influence and control over their childrens’ upbringing and education and glorify treacherous radicals like Jack Turban and Kike Ojo-Thompson.
You can think of your own examples I’m sure.
Look at the Israel-Palestine discourse for more examples. Tongues of Kahanists slandered Vivian Silver as traitorous or had it coming. Tongues of Kahanists went to great lengths to concoct a story about Vivian and Arafat, in one instance an agitprop account on Twitter used an old photograph of an Israeli journalist with Arafat and said it was Vivian, and the journalist recognised herself and threatened legal action if the agitprop account holder didn’t remove the post. Tongues of North American radicals glorify Hamas and the terrorist resistance, and this by definition means they speak out against Palestinians and Israelis both. Hamasnicks pay no cost for their demented beliefs so they use words recklessly and gratuitously to projectile vomit them onto the world.
It is my theological opinion that the Christian canon exploited the Jewish canon when it emerged from the sectarianism of the second temple era, therefore in keeping with adhering to an approach to G-d and the Bible that does not exploit or target Jews or enable hatred against them, I avoid any discussion or discourse of the what we call The New Testament. My foundation here is primarily the Torah, Tanakh, Talmud in as non-identitarian approach as possible. G-d does not belong to your tribe, you belong to G-d’s universe.
This is a Christian term from a Christian analysis of the Psalms however it fits for my purpose. From Wikipedia :: Imprecatory Psalms, contained within the Book of Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (Hebrew: תנ"ך), are those that imprecate – invoke judgment, calamity or curses upon one's enemies or those perceived as the enemies of God. Major imprecatory Psalms include Psalm 69 and Psalm 109, while Psalms 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 79, 83, 94, 137, 139 and 143 are also considered imprecatory.