How Can We Sing In a Strange Land?

The mournful lament of the Jews captured and taken from their ancestral homeland in the 6th Century BCE is heard in Psalm 137: “How can we sing the Lord’s Song in a strange land?” They were bereft. They had left behind their home and, they believed, their God. This intense longing for home is woven into the story and history of the Jewish people. And yet, it is not a unique story. It is universal—and, therefore, all the more powerful. At times, the scattered self that lives in the new place does not even feel like oneself. Contemporary immigrants also give voice to their lament: “How can we sing in a strange land?”