Speaking to the Architect (Shabbat Shoftim) – 7 September 2024
Once Elul rolls around, the mere mention of honey or apples is enough to catch my ear, so it’s no surprise that I’ve found myself listening recently to a song called ‘The Architect,’ by Kacey Musgraves. It begins with a meditation on natural beauty, through the perfection of an apple, but it’s the second verse that confirmed this as part of my High Holy Day soundtrack:
“Even something as small as an apple It's simple and somehow complex Sweet and divine, the perfect design Can I speak to the architect?
Sometimes I look in the mirror And wish I could make a request Could I pray it away? Am I shapeable clay Or is this as good as it gets?”
In that second verse, in just four short lines, Kacey Musgraves sets out something very close to our task as we approach the Yamim Noraim, the High Holy Days: to take an honest look at ourselves and ask if we can do any better than we have in the past year – whether we “pray it away” or have to do some more practical work on doing teshuvah.
The end of the verse, asking “am I shapeable clay?”, sent my brain spinning towards a prayer that is perhaps now echoing in your mind… FRS sings Ki Hinei Kachomer in a particularly beautiful version, yet I struggle with this prayer, which describes us as ‘clay in the hand of the potter, to be drawn out or squashed at his will – so are we in Your hands, O God.’ Later verses use imagery of silver in the hands of the smith and stone in the hands of the mason: even though I love the richness of the imagery, and the humility of its approach, I struggle with the suggestion that who I am is entirely in God’s hands. In this season of teshuvah, of turning, when we aim to turn away from our imperfections, it doesn’t make sense to me to believe that I am shaped only by a Divine craftsman, however expert: if teshuvah is a real possibility, then I too must be able to shape myself, at least to some extent.
Perhaps that’s why I appreciate Kacey Musgraves’s repeated references to ‘the architect’: architects create plans and blueprints, which then need to be brought into being. As FRS has learned over the past couple of years, turning paper plans into a physical building involves many people and almost invariably requires adaptation of plans, however large or small. Making the architect’s vision into reality also needs builders, who have to deal with the reality of impediments and problems along the way. So to imagine God as an architect and ourselves as the builders: that, for me, is a potentially helpful way to approach the Yamim Noraim, thinking about teshuvah in connection with us as builders finding ways to overcome blips and get closer to Divine designs for us.
As we work on shaping our own lives, however, one of the biggest obstacles is fear: we read in Parashat Shoftim today about times when fear paralyses us and prevents us being able to do what is needed. When the people wage war against their enemies, who outnumber them, they are told:
לֹ֥א תִירָ֖א מֵהֶ֑ם
have no fear of them, because God is with you”
– and then two verses later, the priest repeats the message and tells the people
אַל־יֵרַ֣ךְ לְבַבְכֶ֗ם אַל־תִּֽירְא֧וּ וְאַֽל־תַּחְפְּז֛וּ וְאַל־תַּֽעַרְצ֖וּ מִפְּנֵיהֶֽם
Let not your courage falter. Do not be in fear, or in panic, or in dread of them” (Deuteronomy 20:1, 3).
The medieval commentator Ibn Ezra explains that this repetition cautions against either feeling fear internally, in your heart, or showing it externally by your actions. Rashi explains the repetition as instructions corresponding to the four ways that enemies try to intimidate, with noise made with their shields, by their horses, by shouting, and by blowing instruments: for each of these, the people need to be reassured that they should not fear.
Abarbanel is less generous: he picks up on the mention of God being with the people and suggests that fear is actually a failure of faith; if they trusted God enough, they would have no fear. With all due respect to Abarbanel, I would suggest that the need to make the command reflects fear being a natural response to circumstances and deeply human, however faithful we may be: why else would Torah have to repeat the instruction ‘not to fear’ in twenty different places, and another sixty-nine in the rest of Tanakh?
We feel afraid for many reasons: some huge, or international; some small but personally real, like being a new rabbi in a lovely community that you don’t want to let down. It definitely isn’t crazy to feel fear, but it becomes a problem when – as it frequently does – it causes us to freeze or become brittle; to become stone easily shattered by a mason, rather than “shapeable clay”. If we are to embark on this High Holy Day project of teshuvah, of returning from where we have strayed from the best blueprints of our lives, then we need to believe that we are malleable: that we can be reshaped without breaking. Yet to achieve this, we need to let our guard down enough to look at ourselves honestly: to see past our shields to the soft and vulnerable self within.
This is an intimidating prospect at the best of times; this year, when we have often needed to put up all our defences just to get through reading the day’s news, or to scroll on social media, it’s an even bigger challenge. Some of our worst fears came true last weekend, bringing the pain of the loss of yet more hostages’ lives; all the more devastating for dashing the slender hopes that we had dared to cherish. It’s easy to feel that if we lower our defences to attempt the inward work of teshuvah then we might become overwhelmed by all the very real causes of fear out there in the world. So how do we find the courage to open ourselves for the work of teshuvah when the world is genuinely scary?
Jewish tradition suggests taking it little by little, offering us a practice of reading Psalm 27 each day throughout the month of Elul. The Psalm’s opening verse is a double reminder of God’s presence in our life, leading to two versions of the question ‘whom shall I fear?’; perhaps an echo of Ibn Ezra’s noticing that fear can be felt internally or shown externally, but here suggesting precisely that fear is not needed. The Psalm’s closing verse is also repetitive:
קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־יְ֫הֹוָ֥ה חֲ֭זַק וְיַאֲמֵ֣ץ לִבֶּ֑ךָ וְ֝קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־יְהֹוָֽה
– which sandwiches an exhortation to “be strong and let your heart take courage” between the same phrase twice,
קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־יְ֫הֹוָ֥ה
Rashi explains the repetition: even if you don’t see immediate results to your prayer, persist in hoping; keep going, even if you might sing along with Kacey Musgraves that you “don’t understand – are there blueprints or plans?”
The phrase
קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־יְ֫הֹוָ֥ה
literally means something like ‘look to God’; or in Kacey Musgraves terms, perhaps it means something like ‘try to speak to the architect.’ Her song’s title comes from the refrain at the end of each verse: “Can I speak to the architect?” The Jewish answer might be yes, you can speak to the architect, especially (but not only) at this time of year, and you can do it with the confidence of a builder responsible for turning vision into reality. The architect may have drawn up a blueprint of perfection, but she understands that you will face many challenges along the way to creating it, and many reasons to be afraid and feel unable to continue: we can keep trying to speak to the architect, to admit to where things have gone wrong and to refresh our vision of what we’re aiming for, with confidence that the response will be encouragement to keep working on the building of our lives.
I hope that as we all seek the courage to open our hearts and our minds as we approach the Yamim Noraim, the words of Psalm 27 will encourage us each day to keep trying even when the world gives us reason to close up in fear. Whatever the noises around us that threaten to make us afraid, may we all find encouragement, as many times as we need to hear it, to be strong and let our hearts find courage – the courage to be open and loving and kind, even in a world that is not yet as good as it gets. Perhaps the next time you look at an apple, you’ll pause to think about the architect, and ask a question or two of your own when you next speak…
