Daily Lesson for October 4, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 126 verses 4 through 6:
4 Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like streams in the Negeb!
5 Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
6 He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.

On this coming Sunday I will be talking about exile. Exile is the Biblical language for a place of deep loss, for social and personal displacement, for no longer being at home.

Today's Lesson is a promise to the exiled. It is a promise for all of those who have lost their whole world and had to start it anew. Though we go out weeping, we bear with us the seed for sowing, and shall come home with shouts of joy.

And what is this seed we take with us?  It is anything really. A story from our grandmother. The Twenty-third Psalm.  A line from Amazing Grace.  The memory of where to find help.

Elie Weisel told an old Hasidic story I have always liked. A wisened rabbi and his assistant were exiled to an island of isolation. The assistant implored the rabbi to begin drawing upon his spiritual strength to help them. But the rabbi was in personal exile also. He could remember no prayers, and no stories. In fact, could remember nothing but the Alef-bet -- the Hebrew alphabet. His assistant then told him to begin reciting it. And in reciting from memory the alphabet the stories and parables and even songs began to come back also, and with them the fullness of his spiritual strength.  And this was enough to see the rabbi and his assistant through.

We hold on to what we can -- anything we can, any seed we might take with us.

And inside the seed is the thing we call hope.