Shacharis > Pesukei D’zimra > Hallelu Shiru Lashem
Based on Sefer Aish Ha’Avodah
Imagine a world-famous wrestler. Tall, broad, powerfully built, muscles bulging everywhere. At some point, he decides to make a dramatic career change, and he becomes an elementary school teacher. One day, he decides to take his class on a hike as a field trip. They come across a very narrow stream of water. These little kids are unable to cross the stream without getting wet, so they need to find a way over the water. The teacher, on the other hand, simply steps over the stream. The kids are blown away by his incredible strength! For the next few weeks, all they could talk about is the unbelievable strength of their teacher, that he was able to simply walk over this stream of water!
This endless praise from the kids might be seen as cute in the eyes of the teacher, but he understands good and well that this is a laughable attempt at describing his strength. The kids have short legs, so they couldn’t cross the stream, but any adult can simply walk over it, let alone a world-famous wrestler.
Our praise of Hashem falls so dramatically short of capturing His praise, that, if not for the fact that He allows us to praise Him within our human capacity, our attempts would be futile, and even laughable. From our perspective, creating the world and everything in it, and guiding His creations with attention to every single detail with an intricate Divine plan is a mighty and mind-blowing accomplishment.
But that’s just because we are human beings, with an extremely limited capacity. We have a hard enough time completing our to-do list on any given day, so thinking about what Hashem does is simply incredible! But from the perspective of the Infinite One, nothing He does is “hard,” and the fact that He created and guides our world is not an “impressive” accomplishment, and isn’t even a drop in the bucket of His Infinite abilities. From this perspective, we’d be better off not praising Him, rather than praise Him in such a belittling way.
Out of Hashem’s tremendous love and compassion for His children, He desires and cherishes our praises of Him, even though they fall far short of properly describing His greatness.
Where are we going with all these Hallelukahs? We head to the final words of Tehillim, the end of Chapter 150 which we read every morning in Pesukei d’Zimrah. The final message from Dovid Hamelech, the climax of all of Tehillim: Kol haneshamah tehallel Kah, hallelukah. Our sages teach us that this can be read: Al kol neshimah uneshimah tehallel Kah—for every single breath we take, we praise Hashem.
When we contemplate the breadth of the universe and the vastness of the Infinite One, and internalize how Hashem recreates us and the entire world at every moment, there is only one conclusion we can draw: Thank You, Hashem, for every breath I take, for every moment that You choose to recreate me and give me another moment to live in Your world.
At every moment a person’s neshamah desires to leave his body, and Hashem, in His abundant compassion, actively guards over us and does not allow the neshamah to leave, giving us another moment of life.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 36.