The Baal Shem Tov, or Besht —  the founder of Chasidism — 
met the soul of the Messiah during an ascent to heaven. 
The Besht asked him, "When will the Master come?" 
The Messiah answered, "When your wellsprings break forth to the outside!" 
(from a letter written by the Besht to his brother-in-law about one of his soul ascents) 

Lulei He'emanti (Psalm 27)

This song goes to the last verses of 13-14, which are my favorite verses in Psalm 27.

Had I not trusted to see YHVH’s goodness in the land of the living... Hope in YHVH, strengthen your heart, and hope in YHVH

לוּלֵא הֶאֱמַנְתִּי לִרְאוֹת בְּטוּב י״הוה בְּאֶרֶץ חַיִּים קַוֵּה אֶל י״הוה חֲזַק וְיַאֲמֵץ לִבֶּךָ וְקַוֵּה אֶל י״הוה

Lulei he'emanti lir'ot b'tuv Adonai b'eretz chayyim... Kaveh el Adonai chazak v'ametz libekha v'kaveh el Adonai.

The Psalm ends with the speaker (with us) being suspended between faith/hope and whatever all-too-real reality that ellipse might allude to at the end of verse 13 (for our times global climate disorder might be a big one). The capacity for hope in spite of all challenges is the salvation that we can grasp, is what it means to dwell in the land of the living, and it is perhaps the only salvation we can count on.

Here are links to the score with chords as well as to a youtube video for the song:

GET THE SCORE

The song repeats the words at the end in a slightly altered manner: v'kaveh el Adonai, kaveh Adonai. Here's what that means to me: first the grammar: the object of the verb "to hope" is usually indicated el or le- meaning "to" "for" or "toward" -- as in this verse -- but not always. In several verses (e.g. Ps 40:1 and 130:5) what one hopes or waits for (God in both of those verses) is the direct object of kaveh. But by its nature, this new phrase also has another message: we are asking (telling) God to have hope, i.e. to be hopeful in us, to wait for us. I like that double meaning.

Design in progress © Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg 2006