March 29, 2025
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parshat Pekudei
Listen, Listen, Listen
March 29, 2025 – 29 Adar 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
This week, I was speaking with a member who has been struggling with an intense family situation and was heading into a tense and painful meeting. She was riding in a Lyft. The driver was playing Christian radio quietly in the front. A few minutes before they arrived at their destination, she heard something on the radio that piqued her interest. “Can you turn that up?” she asked. The hosts of the Christian radio show were discussing a verse from the book of Joshua where God says to Joshua, “I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you and I will not forsake you.” Just then, the car stopped at her destination.
She shared that as she was riding in the Lyft, she was feeling deeply afraid and alone. Hearing that verse gave her strength. As she put it, “how freaking amazing to get that message from Christian radio of all places in the exact moment I needed it….[and] of all the verses they could possibly be discussing, they are not only discussing verses from my part of the Bible as a Jew, but they are also discussing the exact verses that I need to put my faith in right now.” When she got out of the Lyft, she stood taller and stronger, fortified by the wisdom of Torah echoing through Christian radio.
Now, let’s just pause for a moment. Think about this: What if our member had just been in that car, stressing about her meeting, messing around on her phone, tuning out the world? That would have been a totally reasonable response. In a stressful situation, it is so tempting to disconnect. It is so tempting to lose oneself in music, social media, reading and entertainment, or in chemical substances. But she was sitting in that car with her phone put away, looking out the window, listening to a random radio broadcast in her Lyft. Because her eyes and ears were open to possibility, that’s how she received the wisdom she needed for that moment.
When our member reached out this week, she didn’t just want to share the story, she wanted my help finding the verse so that she could go study it from a Jewish lens. As I went searching for that verse, I found myself humming a melody from my childhood.
[Sung: Listen, listen, listen to my heart song. I will never forget you; I will never forsake you.]
I did a quick google search and found several videos which attributed the chant to Paramhansa Yogananda, a Hindu monk, yogi, and guru who introduced Americans to meditation and yoga in the early 20th century. Weird. I called my Mom. As soon as I asked her about the song, she started to sing it. She shared that it was a song that she and other women in her community used to sing when someone was giving birth. Apparently it was sung at my baby naming. I asked her where the song came from, and she shared that she learned it when she was living in the Ashram. I told her about my google search and asked her if she understood why or how a Hindu guru would write a chant about a verse from Torah. My Mom said, “maybe if you keep searching you’ll find a rabbi that wrote it first? Don’t tell your congregation it was by Yogananda…”
I still needed to text our member the verse. Still humming the song, I went to find it. Turns out it’s from the beginning of the book of Joshua. And the context might be better even than the verse.
Remember that Joshua was with our ancestors in the Desert. He was Moses’ lookout during the incident of the golden calf and was one of only two spies who returned with a favorable report of the land of Canaan. When Moses was about to die, Joshua was deputized as his successor and instructed to take the people over the river and into the Promised Land.
Now, given that the people have already endured slavery and forty years of wandering in the desert, you might imagine that now that they’re being allowed to cross into the Promised Land, their lives will radically improve. You might imagine that Joshua simply has to lead the people across to the Promised Land where they dwell happily ever after. But in reality, that journey is anything but straightforward. The land is not a waiting Eden of possibility, it is inhabited by enemies. Joshua isn’t just leading a bunch of refugees to a new home; he is directing a military conquest and will have to battle for every bit of the Promised Land they will inhabit.
This is the context in which God says to Joshua, כַּאֲשֶׁ֨ר הָיִ֤יתִי עִם־מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶהְיֶ֣ה עִמָּ֔ךְ לֹ֥א אַרְפְּךָ֖ וְלֹ֥א אֶעֶזְבֶֽךָּ “just as I was with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you and I will not forsake you.” God isn’t saying everything is going to be easy. God is not promising signs or wonders, nor is God saying that God will erase all obstacles and challenges. No, God knows the people are headed into an existential battle for survival. And so, God says, I will be with you. I will not forsake you.”
[Sung: Listen, listen, listen to my heart song. I will never forget you; I will never forsake you.]
We’re heading into our Passover Seder, into a time when we are instructed to tell the story of our people. In the midst of our fraught political climate here in the United States, with all the pain and brokenness in Israel and hostages still held in Gaza, in a world which feels farther from healing than ever before in recent memory, the story of Exodus feels distant. Who can imagine a world in which God just swoops in an punishes our enemies? Who can imagine a world in which we emerge victorious and walk through magically parted seas towards the Promised Land.
But all of us can imagine the world we inhabit–a world that requires us to fight for our freedom, to fight for our safety. A world in which we can move forward with strength if only we know that God is by our side. Maybe this year, we should add the story of Joshua to our Seder tables. Maybe this year, we should remember that the journey to freedom is never straightforward, but that whatever our journey is, God is with us and will fuel our hearts with the strength to keep moving.
[Sung: Listen, listen, listen to my heart song. I will never forget you; I will never forsake you.]