The God Squad: More Psalms of comfort

By Rabbi Marc Gellman, Tribune Content Agency on May 28, 2020

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

King James Version (KJV)

More on the Trail of Tears…

LB from Holtsville, Long Island wrote,

Dear Rabbi Gellman,

I was blown away to read the touching gift the Choctaw's managed to send the Irish citizens just a few years later as they suffered from the potato famine. Thanks so much for sharing this true story and including the heartfelt recent updates from the Irish people!!!

Thank you so much LB for your kind words. Many readers also appreciated this amazing story of compassion of the Choctaw Native American tribes and the reciprocal generosity of the Irish people in sending much needed support to the Choctaws and Hopi and Navajo peoples during this pandemic. The ancient rabbis taught that “a good deed produces a good deed” (in Hebrew: mitzvah goreret mitzvah) however I don’t think they ever imagined that it would take almost two hundred years for that spiritual calculus to be completed.

Unfortunately, there was a typo that several careful readers picked up on. The “Trail of Tears” that caused the suffering and death from exposure and disease for thousands of Native Americans and that began with the Indian Removal Act of 1830 took tribes from the southeast to new lands in southeast Oklahoma and not, as my column stated from the southwest to Oklahoma. The Choctaws lived in northern Mississippi and in fact many Choctaws never made the move to Oklahoma and live in northern Mississippi to this day. The point is that even our own worst suffering should not blind us from the suffering of others.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman.)