Tefillah 021

Today's shiur is dedicated by Sherry Fyman
in memory of her mother,
Glickel bat Pinchas haLevi v'Elka z"l
whose Yahrzeit is today, 26th Elul.

35:
The recitation of Psalms 92 and 93 brings to an end the long insertion of extra psalms that are introduced into P^esuké d^eZimra on Shabbat and YomTov. The next part of P^esuké d^eZimra brings us back to passages that are read daily. The first passage is an amalgam of various biblical verses strung together. We have seen this kind of concatenation of verses before, in the collection of verses that followed Hodu [see Tefillah 016, explanation #19]. The passage which is the subject of our present discussion begins with Psalm 104:31. In Hebrew the first words of this verse are Yehi kevod, so this has become the designation of the whole passage in rabbinic literature.

36:
Yehi kevod [Sim Shalom, page 95; Va'ani Tefillati, page 48] is a paean of praise to God. The first few verses laud God as the Author and Sovereign of all creation. The next few verses move that theme forward: God is not only sovereign of the physical universe; He is also the Director of everything that happens in it – the Lord of history, the Shaper of events. Lastly, even though God is the Arbiter of the fate of all nations He has a special relationship with the people of Israel.

37:
The first section of Yehi Kevod reads as follows:

These verses are drawn, in order, from Psalm 104:31; 113-2-4; 135:13, 103:19; 1Chronicles 16:31. The last sentence does not appear in the bible but is an extrapolation from Exodus 15:18.

The theme of these verses is clearly 'God as Master of All'. Rather fancifully, the sages interpreted these verses as being directly associated with the act of creation. In the Gemara [Ĥullin 60a] we find Rabbi Ĥanina bar-Pappa claiming that when God instructed each individual species of tree to produce fruit of its own kind [Genesis 1:11] the angel appointed over the creation of the world – Sar ha-Olam – exclaimed in wondrous astonishment: "May God's glory endure forever; may God rejoice in His works!"

The medieval commentator on the prayer book, Rabbi David Abudraham [Spain, 14th century], in a quasi kabbalistic manner, even developed a most fanciful exposition of the whole of P^esuké d^eZimra as a kind of midrash on the ten commands by which God created the universe (in the first chapter of Genesis). Because Yehi Kevod contains the verse "God has established His throne in heaven, and His sovereign rule is over all" he allocates this passage as being parallel to God creating a firmament [Genesis 1:6]. Rabbi Yosef Ĥayyim of Baghdad [1832-1909] is better known by the name of his halakhic compilation Ben Ish Ĥai, which is a series of lessons each one based on one of the weekly Parashot of the Torah. He says [Ben-Ish-Ĥai, 1st year, Mikketz, 11] that the eighteen verses of Yehi Kevod are parallel to the "eighteen letters of six permutations" of God's title "Shaddai"! Furthermore, he says, the eighteen names of God in these eighteen verses are to indicate that God is "the life of all worlds" (because the Hebrew notification of 18 can also be read as 'life')!

38:
The second section of Yehi Kevod, as we have already mentioned, celebrates God as Lord of
all nations and Master of all events and devlopments.

These verses are drawn, in order, from Psalm 10:16; 33:10; Proverbs 19:21; Psalm 33:11; 33:9. The choice of Psalm 10:16 as the first verse of this section is a perfect example of concatenation (Shirshur in Hebrew): the first word or thought of the new verse is 'chained' as it were to the last word or thought of the previous verse. A careful reading of Yehi Kevod – especially in Hebrew, but also in English – will show how much concatenation there is the the whole passage.

39:
We now come to the last section of Yehi Kevod. This section, you will recall, celebrates the special relationship that is deemed to exist berween God and Israel.

These verses are drawn, in order, from Psalm 132:13; 135:4; 94:14. Here, too, there is a development of thought: First the passage celebrates God's selection of Jerusalem (Mount Zion) as the site of His Temple ('seat'); then He has chosen Israel as his treasured possession [Exodus 19:5], the vehicle through which His will is delivered to mankind.

40:
The passage ends with a doxology:

To be continued.

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the fact that of recent weeks the shiurim in the Halakhah series have been somewhat sporadic. This has been caused by rather frequent visits to the hospital at inconvenient times in connection with my broken foot. At this time of mutual pardoning, please forgive me. Which, by concatenation, as it were, brings me to a heartfelt wish for all participants in this Halakhah Study Group: may we all enjoy a very happy New Year in which we and all Israel be inscribed for a good year – Le-shanah tovah tikatevu.