Bless the Lord, my soul

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In “The Second Gate” of Shulhan Shel Arba by Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher Hlava, he uses the passage “My soul bless YHWH, all that is inside me [bless] His holy name” to highlight the necessity of bodies and nourishing the body to praise God. The soul may be what we usually focus on, but the body houses the soul and in this world, we can’t recognize one without the other. In this book, the passage has to do with eating, tasting, and dinner rituals, but I couldn’t help thinking of how this same point has been illustrated with this same passage but through sight and sound rather than taste.

As soon as I read this quote, I got this song stuck in my head. The overall structure of Godspell is goofy parables followed by big, theatrical musical numbers that incorporate a line or two of scripture. All of this takes place over the lose arc of the gospel story, beginning with Jesus’s baptism and ending with his death. The parable that precedes this song in the show is about the idea that ‘man cannot serve both God and money.’ The combination of the parables with the song read, to me, very similarly to the above quoted passage from the reading. It is being recognized that we have bodies that have needs, but if we spend too much time worrying about that and really satisfying our needs by financial means (serving money), then we’re not properly honoring God. But if we have faith in God and use our physical bodies for worshiping, God will makes sure our bodily needs are taken care of. Or, “… the powers of the soul are not visible and are actualized only through the body. If so, the body is a great necessity for the public revelation of the high degree of the soul and its perfection.”
The two texts may not be moving towards the same ends, but I find it interesting that they highlight the same passage and make very similar points, but one emphasizing food and community, using writing as a medium, and the other using song and dance and visual spectacle.

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