Cast Up Your Burdens

Psalm 55:23

Hasleich hashleich hashleich al Ya, v’hu y’chal kalecha
Cast up cast up cast up upon God your burdens,
and the Source of Life will sustain you.

This verse animated me during the month of Elul before the Jewish High Holidays. During Rosh Hashanah there is a Jewish tradition of casting away one’s sins by throwing bread crumbs in a flowing body of water, called Tashlich. This name is the same root as hashleich in this verse, meaning to cast off. I realized that our sins are really wounds that have not been healed and cause us to miss the mark with our behavior and our words, often hurting those we love most. That’s why we need to cast up our burdens to God
so they can be released and healed

When this chant came to me I was feeling overwhelmed by all, but also grateful. These words of “cast up cast up cast up your burdens upon God” feels like we’re lifting them up to such a high rarefied, refined field or level of consciousness and from there asking God to take them. From the higher plane it releases them and then the Source of Life who gave us life is there to sustain us through all the most difficult times. This reminds me of the “Footprints in the Sand”* story.
May this be a balm for your burdens

*This story describes an experience in which a person is walking on a beach with God. They leave two sets of footprints in the sand. The tracks represent stages of the speaker’s life. The two trails dwindle to one, especially at the lowest and most hopeless moments of the person’s life. When questioning God, believing that God must have abandoned God’s love during those times, God gives the explanation, “During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

 

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