Recently I got interested again in the blues, and added a blues channel to my Pandora account.
I’ve thought in the past the blues is the right genre of music for Yom Kippur, for Tisha B’Av, and other sad ansd reflective moments in the Jewish calendar.
We continue to sing the blues with our people in Israel, and we’re aware Iran’s proxies are taking advantage of the war against Hamas to attack us and our allies. And we’re also aware Hamas’ leadership lives comfortably away from Gaza under protection of Qat’r. This week Vladimir Putin continued to spout lies and revisionism to justify his war against Ukraine.
The blues do not cure the problems the songwriters deal with in their lyrics and in the way the guitar cries. Instead, they remind us all we’ve experienced the same sadness and frustration in some form. This is helpful, and healing.
But more than this reassurance we’d like to have control over what happens, to reduce uncertainty, and see the words of the prophets be fulfilled. To see the spears reformed into ploughs.
The great blues singer Robert Johnson wanted to be a better guitar player, so the legend goes he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads and received guitar skills in exchange for his life, that ended mysteriously.
The wisdom in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, reminds us there are no shortcuts like this toward justice, toward creating a world of respect, harmony, thoughtfulness and fairness. Among the many other teachings in our portion that expand out from the Ten commandments, God teaches, “Do not take bribes, since bribes blind the clear sighted and upset the pleas of those who are in the right.”
Rabbi Isaiah Ha’Levi Horovitz teaches on this, there are people who regularly send gifts to doctors so that in the event they one day need medical attention, the doctor will think well of them and respond immediately. And then others will send gifts to a judge so that the judge will think well of them if they ever come to a trial.
Horovitz explains God knows people are prone to behaviors like this, prone to doing things to reduce unpredictability, to reduce uncertainty and control their world. And so God says here, fear God, that should be the motivation in your heart. In other words, fear God, and do not try to BE God.
When we’re feeling lost, when the world is against us, and we’re stuck at the bottom of the valley – we can read the laments in the Bible, Lamentations, the sad Psalms asking for God’s help and why does it feel sometimes God has left us alone? We can read Kohelet who explains all is vanity, eat drink and be merry while we can…and we can sing the blues, write our own song, sing it and give over our blue-ness, our sadness, into God’s waiting hands…here’s a starter from Little Milton:
Our car may be old, our two rooms cold
But were gonna make it, I know we will
We may not can spare a roach a crumb
But were gonna make it, I know we will
And if I have to carry round a sign
Sayin Help the deaf, the dumb, and the blind
I got your love and you know you got mine
So were gonna make it, I know we will
