The Echo of Your Promise

The Echo of Your Promise

 

Based on Psalm 77

Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis

 

When I cry my voice trembles with fear

When I call out it cracks with anger.

 

How can I greet the dawn with song

when darkness eclipses the rising sun

 

To whom shall I turn

when the clouds of the present eclipse the rays of

tomorrow

 

Turn me around to yesterday

that I may be consoled by its memories.

 

Were not the seas split asunder

did we not once walk together through the waters

to the dry side

 

Did we not bless the

bread that came forth from the heavens

 

Did not voice not reach my ears

and direct my wanderings

 

The waters, the lightning, the thunder

remind me of yesterday's triumphs

 

Let the past offer proof of tomorrow

let it be my comforter and guarantor.

 

I have been here before

known the fright and found your companionship.

 

I enter the sanctuary again

to await the echo of your promise.

 

From Healing of Body, Healing of Soul, ed. Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub