Tefillah 023

48:
P^esuké d^eZimra now continues with Psalm 146 [Siddur Sim Shalom page 97; Siddur Va'ani Tefillati page 50]. (You will recall that Psalms 145 – 150 are read as the major element of P^esuké d^eZimra.) This psalm glorifies God as the source and mainstay of justice and succour for the unfortunate and the oppressed. It seems to me that the psalmist himself (or herself) had been in dire straits and found that other people could not be relied on for help. This is suggested to me by the psalmist's recommendation [verses 3-4]:

Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan z"l (and others) have seen in verse 4 an indication that in biblical times there was no belief in life after death. I cannot agree that this is necessarily so: all that the psalmist says is that man dies and is buried and that is the end of his earthly activities; it speaks only of the physical side of man, not of any spiritual aspect that man may have.

49:
Mortal man failed the psalmist in his hour of need; but God did not. God does not suffer from the frailties of humans because God is "the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them." But more importantly, unlike fickle man, God "keeps faith forever." Our psalmist now glorifies God as the source and the succour of those in need and oppressed [verses 7-9]:

God's relationship with man is seen as consisting of two elements: God secures justice and God performs acts of loving-kindess [g^emilut ĥasadim]. God's kindness is not only in the field of medicine (restoring sight and correcting posture) but also in the field of economics: the stranger, the orphan and the widow in biblical times were among the most unfortunate in society. The stranger was someone (like Ruth the Moabitess) who had left another people to join Israel: they had no ancestral land to sustain them and no relatives [go'el] to help them in their hour of need. The orphan and the widow had similarly lost their life support. The psalmist sees God as their go'el, their redeemer.

The psalm ends with a doxology, a short paean of praise:

50:
The next psalm, Psalm 147 [Siddur Sim Shalom page 98, Siddur Va'ani Tefillati page 50], is also about God as the great saviour and supporter of man, but from a different point of view. It is very tempting to see this psalm as having been composed by one of the returnees to Eretz-Israel after the Babylonian exile. If this is the case it would have been composed some time after 538 BCE. It was in that year that the first returnees arrived back in Jerusalem. They found it in ruins, just as the Babylonians had left it some 50 years previously. However, it may be the case that it was composed almost a century later, when Nehemiah was appointed governor of Judah by the Persian government and set about rebuilding the defences of Jerusalem in earnest. It seems to me that this latter is the case because all that is described is the rebuilding of Jerusalem and not the rebuilding of the Bet Mikdash (which had been completed 70 years before the time of Nehemiah).

After a short introduction ("It is good to chant hymns to our God; it is pleasant to sing glorious praise") the psalmist states his main reason for this praise:

And later in the psalm [verses 12 – 13] the psalmist elaborates:

We should note here a very important element in the understanding of the nature of God's relationship with man and his world as seen by the psalmist (and others in biblical times). The psalmist knew very well that the walls and gates of Jerusalem had been rebuilt and restored by gangs of citizens organized by Nehemiah [445 BCE]. Yet he ascribes the deed to God, since for him this is the way in which God works: God inspires man to act and works salvation through the agency of man – even when man has no inkling that he is God's agent. Thus, in the previous psalm, when God is described as 'restoring sight to the blind and making those who are bent stand straight' this does not at all preclude medical successes. For the psalmist the skilled physician is 'the hand of God', as it were.

51:
As in Psalm 146, so in Psalm 147 the psalmist sees God also as the ultimate source of g^emilut ĥasadim:

52:
But God is manifest in our world in yet more ways: God is seen as the Master of Nature, which serves for man's benefit:

53:
And this last idea, that God's word causes great effect, brings the psalmist to yet another conclusion: God does not only speak to nature, but God also speaks to man:

It seems to me that there is here a clear reference to the other major achievement of Nehemiah (and Ezra): the acceptance of the Torah as we now know it as Israel's 'constitution'. We discussed this at great length in an excursus when we studied Tractate Sanhedrin. I refer those interested to the discussion section in that shiur: Sanhedrin 016. The time of Ezra and Nehemiah was a time when the Jews began separating themselves in earnest from the surrounding nations: Ezra even forced those returnees who had intermarried to divorce their wives! This explains the rather chauvinistic element in the last verse of the psalm.

To be continued.

Art Evans has written to me concerning two matters. Firstly, he writes concerning Ashré, which was the subject of our last shiur, Tefillah 022.

I have long understood the merit of reciting Ashrei three times a day rather differently, and I regret that I no longer remember where I learned this bit of Torah.

As you pointed out, Ashrei comes near the beginning and end of most morning services, and at the beginning of Mincha. My teacher Rabbi Daniel Wasserman has pointed out that, for the person active in the world, mincha is the hardest of the three services to daven. One can pray shacharit before going to work and ma'ariv after work, but praying mincha requires finding a minyan during working hours. Thus the person praying ashrei three times during the day comes early to shacharit, stays to the end, and arrives at mincha at the very beginning. It is this devotion to the ritual that earns merit.

On a very different note, let me point out that there are three different siddurim called 'Sim Shalom.' The initial 'Siddur Sim Shalom,' first copyright in 1989 and reprinted many times since, is "A Prayerbook for Shabbat, Festivals, and Weekdays." Later two updated siddurim were published, one for weekdays only and one for Shabbat and festivals. I deduce that your page references refer to the last one. This is not in any sense a complaint – I think you have made the
proper choice. I have yet to purchase the Shabbat and Festival version mainly because the original version was reprinted in a reduced size format which is quite easy to carry with me.

I respond:

As far as what Art's teacher told him: this is well known. It can be found in the great halakhic compilation of Rabbi Ya'akov ben-Asher, the Tur: Tur Oraĥ Ĥayyim 232. Concerning Art's second comment: he is right. The pagination that I give in these shiurim from siddur Sim Shalom is according to the Sabbath and Festivals edition, New York, 1998. I am very ignorant of the American scene and assumed that this would be the siddur most used in American Conservative congregations. It is now clear to me that a much greater selection of siddurim is used; but, for the sake of convenience and brevity, I shall continue to give pagination according to the two siddurim that I initially chose.