Presidential Power Has Its Limits, the Psalms Remind

In Biden’s decline, a caution for Trump and his admirers, too

For a memorial service at my 30th college reunion, I volunteered to participate by reading a Jewish prayer. 

The role turned out to include some flexibility to choose the text. I selected some passages from the Psalms stressing the transience of life. These verses are often used in synagogues as an introduction to Yizkor, a memorial prayer recited on four Jewish holidays each year.

They include Psalm 144:3-4: “Lord, what is Adam that you know him, or a son of a human that you think of him? Adam is like a breath, his days are like a shadow that passes.” And Psalm 90:6: “In the morning it flourishes and grows, in the evening it is cut and withers.”

I thought of the words again recently while contemplating President Biden’s apparent decline, which was so visible in the CNN debate, and again yesterday when he called Vice President Harris Vice President Trump and President Zelensky President Putin.