Dear Emmanuel friends - I regret my inability to be with you in person for today’s  worship and discussion. I have that most dreaded of maladies among all clergy- the loss of my voice! On the other hand, there are many members of churches and synagogues that would welcome their priest or rabbi’s inability to speak for any length of time!

By way of introduction to our discussion of this morning, I feel that it is important to bring attention to one specific issue. I would hope that it is self-evident that the Gloria Patri, the Doxology that is appended to the Hebrew Psalms in Christian worship, as it is in the Latin version by Josquin from this morning’s Service, is in fact most certainly not included in the original text. I have marveled at the number of people who have asked me why Jews do not accept the Trinity when it is constantly repeated right there in our own Book of Psalms!

Psalm 130 is part of a series of related texts – Psalms 120-134 – which are the only section of the 150 poems of the Book of Psalms that are a distinctive collection. They share literary similarities –  all are rather brief; all share a Hebrew cadence that suggests a “processional” chant; they have thematic parallels – personal penitential petitions counterpointed with words of praise and thanksgiving. Because they are all prefaced with the description “A Song of Ascents”, they have been linked, and dated, to the return of the Jewish People to Israel from the 50 year Exile in Babylonia following the first destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE. A journey to Jerusalem is, to this day, referred to in Hebrew by the word “aliyah”, literally, “ to ascend - going up”. In addition, there are a number of allusions in these Psalms to the memory of those years of suffering and to the challenges of rebuilding the Holy City and the Temple. However, other Jewish interpretations reflect the very personal, individual focus in these particular Psalms, on the trials, sufferings and sorrows that we all experience in our lives as human beings – with “ascent” pointing rather to our own individual spiritual aspirations as we seek God’s love, support and healing.
Psalm 130 reflects this characteristic weaving of a personal petition of repentance and redemption with a broader spiritual message.  In vivid poetic imagery, the writer (traditionally, but not historically, King David) offers his ( or her) plea from “out of the depths”… the Hebrew term that suggests, in various contexts, the depths of the sea or the “netherworld”, but also the depths of despair and longing. The Psalmist pleads for God’s mercy and forgiveness for transgressions, with a very characteristic Jewish perspective- appealing not only to Divine love and mercy, but also offering a logical argument: if sinners are not forgiven, who would survive…where would Creation be then? Unless God forgives and pardons, there would be no one left on earth to serve God “on account of Your Law” - upholding the teachings of the Torah.

The wonderful image of an intense longing and “waiting” for a clear sense of God’s presence is heightened by the urgency of the Hebrew- which is not conveyed in the translation used for today’s Service and program. Waiting and hoping for the Lord “from the morning watch even until night” does not express the drama of the actual text, which in the contemporary standard Jewish translation reads:

I look to the Lord…My soul looks to God…I await God’s Word...
I eagerly wait for the Lord more than Watchmen wait for the morning, more than Watchmen wait for the morning!

This repetition of the phrase adds powerful emphasis to the intensity of the desire – and the original hearers of these words would have understood the reference perfectly – the long wait through the dark night by the sentries on the walls and ramparts of Jerusalem, keeping watch for enemies following their return to their beloved city, still threatened by other invaders. And yet, again, there is the more personal dimension of this symbolism – our personal hope for light and hope following the dark night of despair – echoed in Psalm 30:5: “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning”!

The Psalm ends with the shift from its intensely personal, individual tone to the broader context, that offers a spiritual challenge to the entire community of Israel- and to all people of faith – to wait, hope and trust in God, in a spirit of true repentance for all our transgressions and failings… with the assurance that God offers abundant redemption and forgives both the community and the individual for our iniquities.

This Psalm has come to hold a special place in both Jewish and Christian liturgy. It is part of the Service on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, as well as the Lenten Penitential prayers of Christian tradition. In both Jewish and Christian practice, it is also part of the Funeral Service, recited at the burial in Jewish observance, as a final proclamation of faith and hope.

It is natural that Arnold Schoenberg would have been drawn to this particular Psalm.  His own personal life was one of struggle and frequent depression, and his spiritual journey was a complex road from doubt and alienation toward an evolving clarity of his personal faith. Born in 1874 to an assimilated Jewish family in Vienna, he joined the Lutheran Church as a young man, as some German Jews did in that period in a sad and futile attempt to escape prejudice and discrimination - but he never felt personally or spiritually at home in the face of constant encounters with anti-Semitism. After a particularly humiliating experience in 1921, when, at the age of 47, he and his family were forced to leave a summer resort when it was learned that he was of Jewish birth, Schoenberg began his journey back to his ancestral faith. His 1926 play, The Biblical Way, which in 1932 became his great Opera, Moses and Aaron, are milestones in his artistic expression of his return to Judaism. When he was forced to leave Austria by the Nazis in 1933, he formally renounced his conversion and rejoined the Jewish community.  Later works continued to reflect his affirmation of his faith, such as his choral setting of the Yom Kippur liturgy, Kol Nidre (1938) and the Genesis Suite (1945). His searing tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, A Survivor from Warsaw, was composed in 1945 as one of the first major musical commemorations of the destruction of the Jews of Europe. And finally, his Hebrew setting of Psalm 130, composed a year before his death in 1951, seems to be something of a last will and testament. His use of the Latin name for the Psalm, De Profundis, is a pointed reflection of his own complex journey. One can appreciate the special and deeply personal meaning that this sacred text of repentence and forgiveness, healing and hope must have had for Arnold Schoenberg.