I began today’s newsletter by introducing Sarah Rindner’s article on life in Israel while the country is under siege, which contains a moving description of the recitation of Psalms. I’ll end too with the Psalms, and with what’s likely one of the best-known verses of the best-known psalm (23:4): “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” This stich was a clue in an episode of Jeopardy! last summer, and not a single contestant could identify which biblical book it came from. Meir Soloveichik comments:
The tragic irony is that the entire story of Western culture is, in a sense, indebted to the Psalms; even if one does not believe in the theology expressed in the biblical book, one cannot understand the history of literature without it. The greatest of English writing—from Shakespeare to the modern novel—provides a window into the interiority of the human psyche. But this was not learned from the works of Homer, or Ovid, or Sophocles. Only in the Bible, and especially in the Psalms, could ancient literature provide such a window on man’s ability and need to look within. It is difficult to believe that the humanist literature of the West would have been possible without David’s inspiration and example. . . .
[T]here are still many millions of Americans who find daily inspiration in the Bible. Students such as my own at Yeshiva University study the sacred scriptures as well as the great Western texts, and a silver lining of societal scriptural ignorance may be that the men and women I teach have an intellectual advantage as contestants on game shows. But still, as I watched that clip, I felt nothing but foreboding; for I realized what that moment on that game show meant, warning us that civilization itself is in jeopardy.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentary.org/articles/meir-soloveichik/bible-no-longer-american-cultural-touchstone/