Trump is Making Me Exhausted, Depressed and Feeling Helpless. Where Can I Find Hope?
In my first book, “The Lord is My Shepherd, Why Do I Still want?” I tell the story of the early days of my separation and then divorce. I was an emotional wreck, full of anxiety, uncertainty, and fearful of the future. At my lowest point I woke up and began my day as I have every day since I turned 13 with putting on my Talis, (prayer shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries) and began my morning prayers. I had said Psalm 30 thousands of times, but it had no appeal or message to me until that one morning, when I was drowning in sadness. A line jumped out at me.
“In the evening I go to bed crying, in the morning I awake with joy”.
That line never spoke to me until that day when it was shouting in my ear and became the foundation for my recovery. Sometimes it is not the substance of wisdom but the occasion or timing when we are open for that wisdom to enter and soothe us.
Many people in my world have commented about how exhausted they are the with the current political situation in our Country. Like me they have an antipathy for Donald Trump, not only for his policies but for his rude and combative personality, his constant lying, his lack of empathy and his pathological inability to ever accept responsibility for anything negative that he causes.
His moral vacuum is especially depressing for many of us who use to have respect for the president or at least for the presidency. As a citizen of Canada and the US, his taunting of Canada as the 51st state only adds an additional irritant to my relationship with him.
Many of my friends have stopped watching the news because it so depresses them. They feel the toll he is taking on their soul and it exhausts them. They either “hide in place” or escape into a bubble of isolation, engaging in trivial pursuits to numb the reality of the country they use to hold in such high esteem or hopeful optimism.
I too have cut back from absorbing as much news media as I once did, but I cannot entirely disengage. I feel like doing so is to hand victory over to Trump who I despise, so I am depressed and angry every morning as I share my morning coffee with his latest absurd and vile actions and words, but I seek an escape. I want something to get me through this on an emotional level if not on a practical one, and that is where Psalms has come to my rescue.
At the end of the morning prayers, we chant a Psalm of the day. Specifically, it is a Psalm that was chanted by the Levites in the Temple in Jerusalem. These psalms I have also chanted thousands of times in my life, yet it was only in the last month that for some reason a section of Wednesday’s Psalm jumped out at me and offered me a voice that I could relate to. The author was a fellow sojourner who had the same frustration, the same anger as me, but who was able to capture his emotions and translate it to a poem that we call a Psalm.
(Psalm 82)
“O Lord God, shine forth and exact punishment;
O Judge of the earth, arise to punish the arrogant.
How long, O Lord, how long will they exult?
How long will the wicked continue to boast?
They ceaselessly spout forth brazen arrogance.
They crush your people and afflict your heritage.
They slay the widow, the stranger, the fatherless.
They say: The God of Jacob sees not; He pays no heed.
Understand, stupid people. Fools, when will you learn?
Surely He, who implants hearing in us, can hear;
Surely He, who created the human eye, can see.
Surely He, who instructs nations, will reprove them. Surely He, who gives men knowledge,will punish them. The Lord knows man’s schemes, how futile they are…
Who will rise up for me against the doers of evil?
Who will stand up for me against the godless?
Were it not for God’s help I would be in my grave;
When my foot slips, graciously the Lord upholds me; When worry crowds upon me, He comforts my soul.
Shall they who sit on thrones of wickedness, and administer injustice by perverting the law,
Who organize attacks against the upright,
and condemn to death those who are innocent,
Shall such rulers count you as a confederate?
The Lord is my protector; God is my sure Refuge.
He will repay them for their wickedness;
He will destroy them with their own evil;
The Lord our God will surely destroy them.
I don’t know the way of the Almighty in this world, and I have great disagreements with those who think they do or who have the “magical” skill of being able to see the Hand Of God in the world that we live in, but it sure helps to hear someone else show me how to vent. Sometimes the way to combat exhaustion, depression, and helplessness is to vent, to release all the negative energy.
Whether I will see those, “who sit on thrones of wickedness” receive their comeuppance or not, I feel better both realizing that someone 2 to 3000 years ago experienced what I am feeling today and felt the certainty of their demise to be inevitable. I will identify with the certainty of their belief and will be sustained by that during these difficult days. As the psalm itself concludes,
“He will destroy them with their own evil;
The Lord our God will surely destroy them.”
It has been quite a while since I sent out my last blog. Happily, I have been very busy travelling the country speaking about my book, “Wisdom Grows in My Garden” and being a Scholar in Residence in different cities. I am now on a 4 month break and hope to finish the first draft of a book on Kabblah, and I hope to have the chance to blog some more. If you found this blog of interest please share it with friends and family and anyone who wishes to the receive the blog please email me at ravpp1@gmail.com with your full name and email and I will add you to the list. I am currently accepting invitations for the fall and winter for Scholar in Residence at synagogues.