The Spiritual Diet
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, . . Psalm 42:1-3a [E]
Food/Water brooks – The bread of the righteous. That’s the diet of those who pant for Elohim. That’s the food of those who hunger and thirst for His presence. And what is this bread? Tears! The Hebrew text reads (literally), “have come to be tears my bread.” dimati lehem—the bread of tears.
It’s wonderful to feel the joy of the Lord, to bathe in His goodness. But it seems that most of the time we are drawn closest to Him in those moments of agony, of heartache and distress. It seems as though the mountain tops of jubilance are few and far between while life in the valley of the shadow is our usual experience. And why not? If God is only present when we reach the heights, what good is He? We need a God who wraps His comforting arms around us when our beds are in She’ol. We need a God who can spoon-feed us the bread of tears, just a little at a time so we don’t drown in the process.
“Count your blessings, name them one by one” wrote Johnson Oatman, Jr. But I don’t think he has the blessing of tears in mind. Johnson Oatman had heavenly rewards in his sights, but God seems to prefer our willingness to walk in the wilderness. Perhaps it isn’t great mansions and streets of gold that bring real joy. Perhaps it’s just living from eyes open to eyes shut. Perhaps today is enough.
Why are our deepest moments of intimacy with YHVH saturated with nearly unquenchable desperation? Why do we find the sweetest peace and the most soothing calm after times at the edge of existing? Kushner’s insight is brilliantly helpful:
In the Hebrew psalm, the word afikei comes before the word for water, modifying it. In the church version, that little extra word has been eliminated. And yet it’s not the water the deer longs for, but the edge of the water. The word afikei is an ancient Hebrew word, related to the Ugaritic afk and the Syraic afka. Translators into English have struggled with it, and with the phrase afikei mayin—the word mayim means “water”—trying everything from “the water brooks” in the 1945 Soncino edition to Robert Alter’s “stream of water” in 2007 to the rather startling “fountains” in the 1750 Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims. But “water” alone doesn’t catch the meaning here. Throughout the psalm, language is modified; it is in the language of “almost,” in the tongue of simile: you can almost have it, almost taste it. It is not a deer, but “like a deer,” a slight distance conveyed by the single letter k’ in Hebrew, which sometimes disappears in translation. And it matters that what is described is not simply the water but the riverbank, the edge of the water, the border between water and land. It matters that what happens later in the psalm is almost an expression of complete doubt, and almost an expression of complete faith. The language of this psalm is about borders, and at every turn it mirrors the distance between the Psalmist and what he most wants.[1]
Life at the edge. That’s where tears are our bread. That’s where we almost give up—and where we almost touch the divine. When all that is left of your faith is tears, then you are ready to seek the edge of living and find the God of the empty places.
Topical Index: Aviya Kushner, food, bread, lehem, tears, dim’a, afikei, edge, Psalm 42:1-3
[1] Aviya Kushner, The Grammar of God, p. 158.
Having just lost all our earthly goods in a fire , we have been pushed to the edge. It’s a good place, a place of exhilaration and despair, a place of desperation and gratitude….A place where at one moment I marvel and the next I want to scream.
It is here I have been brought to learn “give us this day”….
A powerful place to be, Craig.
Hello Skip and others, I hope this gets someone’s attention to aid clarification.
-Sharing your reflection with a main-line clergy person elicited this response.
there’s only One who can and does go beyond the edge – Jesus – and he does so for us. Relying on that is truly a matter of trust – never certainty.
Does this view fit with the “religious world view of the present time” as opposed to first century belief since the only text was the Tanakh?
On a separate note I found some writings in your topical index that are aiding my thinking from a more recent post, I believe December 1.
The liberation theology of today is quite subliminal or perhaps subtle in what it espouses and chooses to emphasize. Your depiction of Ancient Israel vs today is quite clear to a believer like myself. Reply appreciated when convenient!
I don’t mean to pre-empt any response Skip may make, but perhaps this will help a bit. One of the hardest things to do, when starting this walk, is to recognize that there is no translation between the Greco-Roman thinking perpetuated by the church and Hebraic first century thought. If you try to make sense of what Skip is saying in light of what you currently understand, you will be in a perpetual mode of defense. You cannot take what you read here and fit it into your current understanding of “Scripture.” The nature of the change in your paradigm is cognitive dissonance – it will not be comfortable, it will not make “sense” to other Christians, and it will turn your thinking upside down as you deal with contradictory ideas that challenge everything you think you now know. The first step is a willingness to recognize that the thinking of the church colors everything that you read. Then put yourself in the shoes of one who had no cultural understanding of Christianity and try reading again.
Without further elaboration of his comment, I suspect that if pressed he would say that the reason Jesus goes beyond the edge is that Jesus is God incarnate. Of course, this is a problem, both theologically and practically (I have elaborated on this at length). Trust is, correctly, never certainty, but that does not mean there is no evidence at all. We are not Kiekegaardian. If we pursue the “Jesus does beyond the edge because he is god” line, then it is not in alignment with the first century biblical material, but it is, of course, what the Church teaches.
As for your second response, thanks. I am glad it helped.
Skip, thanks so much for your reply. Suzanne is right on with her comment about reading teachings like yours and having the experience of “the church” play in the background like soft music but than sounds like a dissonant symphony. I feel in my being the Hebraic perspective is correct but still very much a learner. I’m going to sign up to get your reflections by email over the next couple weeks, e.g. pending professional circumstances. I will keep reading and interacting with others here too.
David R
Welcome! to whatever happens next. 🙂
Her book is highly recommended. Thank you meod 😉 Skip, for sharing her wonderful knowledge gained through heaps of research and her many years of digging into translations. Amazing personalities both you and Aviya. We are so blessed!
Truly those who hunger and thirst like the deer will find the edge of the waters to drink from.
Give us the Bread of life, tears, to hunger and thirst for Your presence, YHWH, “from eyes open to eyes shut…. today is enough.” Enough of the tyranny, betrayal, deception, lies, corruption, the upside down world and its reasoning. Please, ABBA! Amein!