My cup overflows
This week we read from three Sifrei Torah. What a fortunate people we are to have so many occasions to commemorate on one Shabbat.
This Shabbat every synagogue is a heichal has’machot (a Temple of Joy) and every Jew is thrice blessed. With all our personal and national problems, we have so much to thank God for. As Psalm 23 says, kosi r’vayah – “my cup overflows”.
We are an old people that has outlived its persecutors. We have a rich way of life studded with ceremony and symbolism. We have a system of ethics that gives meaning to every human being, situation and experience. We have a land called by Edmond Fleg “the land in which God dwells”.
Above all, we have a faith that gives us daily inspiration and meaning.
I was going to say we have a God who leads us by the quiet waters (another phrase from Psalm 23) and even when the waters rage. Why don’t I say we have a God like that?
Because He is not “a” God, which would imply one God among many. He is not “a” God but “the one and only God”; the deities that others have tried have all collapsed and turned to ashes.
