Tefillah 016

18:
The first item that follows Barukh Sh'Amar is a lengthy quotation from I Chronicles 16:9-36 [Sim Shalom, page 84; Va'ani Tefillati, page 36]. This is a paean of praise that was sung by King David and all the people when he succeeded in bringing the holy ark to Jerusalem and installing it with pomp and circumstance in a special tent that he had erected for it (the Bet Mikdash had not yet been built). The passage recounts God's praise and recalls the covenant with the patriarchs:

It also hints at the vicissitudes that beset Israel until it reached this joyous moment:

The passage then continues with exhortations to exalt God, and concludes as follows:

19:
This passage is immediately followed by something which is typical of the earlier parts of our liturgy: the sages delighted in agglomerations of verses quoted from various parts of the bible. Verse is piled upon verse, creating a wondrous patchwork of praise. In the collection of which we now speak all the verses are from the psalter: sixteen different quotations, some of just one verse and some of a couple of verses. The anthology of verses concludes with Psalm 13:6 –

This is a most appropriate conclusion to what is, in fact, a lengthy introduction to the selection of psalms which will follow.

20:
We have already mentioned in a previous shiur that the sages used to spend a long time preparing themselves mentally and emotionally for worship. We are told that the early pietists would recite the whole of the psalter – all 150 psalms! – before they began their worship. Clearly ordinary mortals are not capable of such feats of piety. It became the custom, however, to include in P^esuké d^eZimra every day the last six psalms of the psalter (Psalms 145-150). However, on Shabbat and Festivals, when it was presumed that people would have not only more time but also more inclination, further psalms were added.

21:
The first of the psalms that are added to P^esuké d^eZimra on Shabbat (and Festivals) is Psalm 19 [Sim Shalom, page 87; Va'ani Tefillati, page 39]. This psalm clearly divides into two parts. Indeed, the content of one part is so different from the other that most modern scholars think that Psalm 19 is a combination of two different psalms. The first part of Psalm 19 is a paean of praise about sunrise:

I am sure that some of my readers, carefully comparing my translation with others with which they are more familiar, will complain that in one phrase I have mistranslated. Where I have rendered "their call carries throughout the earth" others will have translated "their line carries throughout the earth". I maintain, however, that what I have written reflects the intention of the original poet. I have translated the Hebrew word as 'call' and others have rendered it as 'line'. Everything – common sense, context and the parallel 'their words to the end of the world' – indicate that a letter is missing from the Hebrew word 'kavam' which when restored will yield 'kolam', "their call".

22:
The second part of Psalm 19 is a hymn of praise to the Torah:

It should be clear now why modern scholars fail to see any logical connection between the two discrete parts of this psalm.

To be continued.

In Tefillah 014 Israel Man suggested that the reason why the Psalm of the Day had been brought forward in Siddur Sim Shalom to be recited even before P^esuké d^eZimra was because modern worshippers have no patience for it at the end of the service. Dan Werlin points out:

The decision to move Shir Shel Yom to the beginning of the service, at least in Conservative circles, predates Sim Shalom by about forty years. The “Silverman” Sabbath and Festival Prayer Book (1946) places them before Pesukei d’Zimra, as well, although the “Silverman” Weekday Prayer Book (1956) places them at the end of the service.

In Tefillah 015 I wrote: The prayer traditions of Eretz-Israel died out about 1000 years ago.

Meir Stone asks: Was this in part because of the first Crusade?

I respond:

It is very difficult to ascertain exactly why this happened, but Meir is certainly on the right track. There were congregations in the diaspora that still used the ancient liturgy of Eretz-Israel as late as the 13th century. And even as late as the 18th century it is clear that the prayer book of the congregation in Aleppo (Syria) was heavily influenced by the liturgy of Eretz-Israel. We are able to reconstruct that liturgy – at least in part – from the prayerbooks that have miraculously survived in the Genizah of the Ben-Ezra synagogue in Cairo; this synagogue, in the 13th century, still served the local congregation that followed the prayer services of Eretz-Israel. In all probability it was a combination of war, political oppression and economic depression that gradually emptied the Promised Land of most of its Jews. The crusades, of course, played a very large part in this.