“It’s all up to the Man Upstairs!”  How many times do we hear this from people who are experiencing ill health or some other type of crisis? Usually this is followed by the request, “Please pray for me,” as if the person himself or herself is totally helpless to participate in his or her recovery or resolution of the crisis. Thanks to an especially insightful commentary by Rabbi Abraham Mordecai of Ger, son of the Gerer Rebbe (Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Ger aka the Sefat Emet), on his father’s interpretation of a commentary by Rashi on a verse from this week’s Torah portion, Bo, we can view our relationship with “the Man Upstairs” in a completely new light.

As the parashah begins, Moses and Aaron are instructed by God to go before the Pharaoh yet another time to demand that he let the Israelites go. In the third of these first three verses (Exodus 10:3) we read, “Thus says HaShem, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?  Let My people go so that they may serve Me.’” Rabbi Abraham Mordecai notes that Rashi’s commentary quotes the Aramaic translation of the Torah known as the Targum (“Translation”) and translates the word for “humble” with an Aramaic word that means “to surrender oneself.”  He then recalls a teaching of his father’s that prescribed the recitation from Psalms of “Ana HaShem [‘Please God’] . . .”  By so doing, one could accomplish anything.  There are a couple of Psalms which contain these words, and apparently the Gerer’s congregation thought he was referring to Psalm 118:25, which pleads, “Please God save us now.” However, in reality the Gerer was referring to Psalm 116:16, which declares, “Please God for I am your servant.”

Rabbi Abraham Mordecai provides us with this insight based loosely on the Torah portion.  How do we accomplish anything?  If we refer to Psalm 118, then we are helpless creatures hopelessly estranged and distanced from God. Only “the Man Upstairs” can help us, this theology says, if God deigns to do so at all, to descend downstairs, as it were.  However, if we refer to Psalm 116, we surrender ourselves as servants of God, the eyes, ears, mouth, feet and hands of God, ready and willing to accomplish whatever it is that needs to be done. In Psalm 116 the relationship between God and humanity is not that of a distant “Man Upstairs,” nor do we view ourselves as powerless as it seems to be in Psalm 118, where we need saving. On the contrary, being servants of God supposes a reciprocal relationship between God and humanity, a relationship of partners, of a God that is very close, perhaps even dwelling within each human being.

Rabbi Josef A. Davidson is adjunct rabbi at Congregation B’nai Amoona and treasurer of the St. Louis Rabbinical Association.