Ekev: Singing our Own Individual Songs

When I am not working as the Rabbi of Fauquier Jewish Congregation (FJC),  I spend the majority of my time as a Chaplain who specializes in pastoral care with the elderly and their families.  I am privileged to spend my time around our elders who graciously share with me their life stories – their sorrows and joys;  their hopes, dreams, fears and regrets; their wisdom and yes, even their pettiness. From each encounter I come away enriched, having learned something about how to live, or not live, a life. All valuable lessons freely shared. These are their life stories. These are their legacies.

In this week’s parsha, Eikev, we find the verse, “man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that God decrees.” (8:3) This verse speaks out strongly to me, loudly affirming that we all have souls as well as bodies.  And if we neglect these souls, our spiritual sides, these sparks of life and uniqueness within each of us, then we do so at our own peril. For it is not only bread – food and other material things that nourish and keep us alive – it is our inner selves that sustain us even when we get to the point when the outer world and all its trappings no longer seem as important. We cannot control where our bodies will take us. As individuals, we cannot control the economic condition of the world or the ecological state of the planet. We can, however, control our inner lives, our faith and our spirituality.

I’d like to share a beautiful piece of poetry by Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

            “I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument 
             while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”

Most of us spend our lives rushing and doing and planning – stringing and unstringing our instruments. It is only when we take the time and listen to the words of Torah, when we remember that there is a power greater than ourselves out there, when we admit that we cannot control everything, that we will remember to take time to sing our own individual songs and truly live our lives. Then we will reach the Promised Land.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbah Arlene