Why Does Hashem Need Our Blessings? | Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:00 Have you ever thought about the meaning of the blessings we say every day? We say so many blessings over the course of a day. We start as soon as we wake up, and throughout the day we say the morning blessings, the blessings in davening, and blessings over food. Before eating something, we say a blessing. When we finish eating, we say an after-blessing. Our Sages say, “A person is obligated to say one hundred blessings every day.” King David instituted one hundred daily blessings for the Jewish people. “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you?” In that verse in Parshas Eikev, Moshe Rabbeinu asks the Jewish people: What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want from us? “Only to fear Hashem”—that we should have fear of Hashem. The Gemara derives from this: Do not read mah, “what,” but me’ah, “one hundred”: we must say one hundred blessings every day. But when we think about what a blessing means, something is hard to understand. Think about the words: “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the world.” What does that mean? We bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Does Hakadosh Boruch Hu need us to bless Him? I understand that, at first glance, a blessing should be a kind of thanks. We constantly thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and we certainly have reasons to thank Him from the moment we open our eyes in the morning until we go to sleep. So we have many reasons to give thanks—but then we would say, “Thank You, Hashem.” Yet we say “thank You” perhaps once, in Modeh Ani, and in the Amidah we say, “We thank You.” But the wording our Sages established for a blessing is “Blessed are You, Hashem.” We bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And when we think about the words, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Hakadosh

02:26 Boruch Hu is the One who should bless us. “May Hashem bless you and guard you.” The priestly blessing is Hakadosh Boruch Hu blessing us. There is also such a thing as a blessing from a tzaddik. A tzaddik has the power to bless, as we see with our forefathers Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, to whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the power of blessing. That is why people go to a tzaddik: he has a G-d-given power to give blessings, and his blessings come true. But even the simplest Jew gets up in the morning, opens a siddur, and says blessings. He is about to drink a glass of water and says, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the world, by Whose word everything came to be.” He goes to eat or drink something else. At every step, we bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What exactly is the meaning, the intent, the substance of “Blessed are You, Hashem”? We bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Today we’ll see something wonderful. When we look more deeply, Chassidus reveals the inner dimension of everything, and we’ll discover a profound and wonderful meaning. First, in the plain meaning of “blessed,” a Jew really does have the power to bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Second, there is another, quite surprising meaning of “blessing” and “blessed.” It gives us an entirely new way to understand what we do when we say a blessing: the remarkable effect of every blessing on our souls, our bodies, and the whole world around us. We’ll begin with a chassidic story. There was a chossid, one of the great chassidim, who had been with the Tzemach Tzedek and later with the Rebbe Maharash and the Rebbe Rashab. He lived a long life and saw several of our Rebbeim, the leaders of Chabad. His name was Reb Dovid Tzvi Chein, known for short as Radatz. He was a rabbi in Chernigov, and he was the son

04:52 of one of the great chassidim. His father was Reb Peretz, a chossid who had even seen the Alter Rebbe. They say that he saw six of our Rebbeim. He saw the Alter Rebbe when he was a child, and he lived to see all the Rebbeim through to the Frierdiker Rebbe, the sixth Rebbe of Lubavitch, when the Frierdiker Rebbe was a child. His son, Radatz—Reb Dovid Tzvi—also saw most of the Rebbeim, the leaders of Chabad. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates in one of his sichos that he heard the following story from Radatz himself. When Radatz was twelve years old, his father, Reb Peretz, took him to the Tzemach Tzedek for the first time. The Rebbe showed this pre-bar-mitzvah boy great warmth and gave him many blessings. During that first yechidus, the Tzemach Tzedek told him, “Listen to me: it’s time for you to stop being a child.” In other words, it was time to grow up. Then he gave him advice on how to do that: Every time you’re about to say a blessing—whether a blessing over food, a morning blessing, or a blessing in davening—first think about Whom you are about to bless and what the blessing means. From then on, he grew into Radatz, one of the great chassidim, about whom extraordinary things were said. He reached a very high level in his service of Hashem and was among the greatest chassidim. Besides being an important rabbi and a brilliant scholar in the revealed teachings of Torah—the rabbi of Chernigov—he was also one of the great chassidim, one of the great servants of Hashem. As the Frierdiker Rebbe relates in his sichos, whenever people saw him about to say a blessing over food, a drink, or anything else, before

07:14 saying the blessing he would put his hand on his forehead, close his eyes, and concentrate for a few moments. Then he would say the blessing with special intent. He followed this practice for the rest of his life, from the time the Tzemach Tzedek gave him that instruction. He lived a long life. In his later years he moved to Eretz Yisroel and lived in Jerusalem. He passed away in the holy city of Jerusalem in 5686 and is buried there on the Mount of Olives. What is the deeper meaning of a blessing? In particular, we want to understand the wording our Sages established: “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the world.” What does it mean that we bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Let’s begin with the Gemara in Berachos. What does the Gemara say is the point of blessings? It tells us: “Anyone who derives benefit from this world without a blessing is as though he has benefited from consecrated property.” If someone eats or drinks without first saying a blessing, it is as though he has benefited from something consecrated to Heaven. In other words, it is as though he has misused consecrated property. We all know how serious that is. Consecrated property is something that belongs to the Beis Hamikdash—food, drink, or any other object. A person who benefits from it is guilty of misusing consecrated property, one of the most serious offenses in halachah. Yet the Gemara says that if someone takes ordinary food in his own home—a piece of bread, some chocolate, or a glass of water—and eats or drinks it without first saying a blessing, it is as though he has benefited from consecrated property or misused it. May Hashem protect us. The Gemara continues, citing the verse, “The earth and all it contains belong to Hashem.” The world belongs to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so it is consecrated to Heaven. In fact, everything is holy; everything belongs to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Gemara asks: But it says, “The heavens”

09:37 “The heavens are Hashem’s heavens, but the earth He gave to mankind.” How do these two things work together? On the one hand, we say, “The earth and all it contains belong to Hashem,” meaning that everything belongs to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Yet here we say, “The heavens are Hashem’s heavens, but the earth He gave to mankind.” The Gemara answers: one verse speaks before the blessing, and the other after the blessing. Before a person eats—before he recites a blessing—the food is consecrated to Heaven. “The earth and all it contains belong to Hashem.” Everything belongs to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Once he has recited the blessing, “the earth He gave to mankind.” It belongs to the person, and he can benefit from it and eat it. And here a simple question arises: What does this Gemara mean? Seemingly, it’s a simple question. What does it mean? Before I recited the blessing, everything belonged to Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it was something holy, consecrated to Heaven. The moment I recited the blessing, it became mine. Does that mean the blessing brought it down from its level? When we think about it, that sounds like a decline. Before the blessing it belonged to Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it was holy. After the blessing it became ordinary, something mundane, something without holiness. Surely it should be the other way around. You recited a blessing over it; seemingly, it should be elevated in holiness, become something more significant. But we’re told the opposite: it becomes mine. How do we understand this Gemara? And this brings us to the deeper meaning of a blessing. The Alter Rebbe explains the essence of blessings through the meaning of the word berachah. As we said, the simple meaning of berachah is what everyone understands: we bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What does it mean to bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu? But there is another

11:41 meaning of the word berachah. The Alter Rebbe says that berachah is also related to the expression “layering from one tree to another.” In the Mishnah in tractate Kilayim, and in several other places in the Mishnah, we find a method of planting trees called havrachah, or layering: layering from one tree to another, from one grapevine to another. What exactly does it mean to do that? The commentators explain it this way. You have a tree with branches, and you want to make several trees from that one tree. You want to have a number of trees growing side by side. So you take the branches of the tree. Once the tree has grown tall, you take one of its branches, pull it down and place it in the ground. You leave it there for a few days or weeks until the branch takes root in the soil. Then, once it has taken root, you cut the branch, and now you have two trees. That process is called havrachah—layering from one grapevine to another, from one tree to another. So, the Alter Rebbe says, berachah means drawing something down: bringing something from one place to another. What does that mean for the blessings we recite, all the blessings in which we say, “Blessed are You”? According to this meaning, when we say, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe,” we are asking that through the blessing we recite, we draw down the Divine flow—Hakadosh Boruch Hu—from above to below. What does “from above to below” mean? After all, “His glory fills the entire earth.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere. But although we know He is everywhere, He is concealed. In the higher worlds, Hakadosh Boruch Hu shines openly. In this lower world, He is present in a hidden and concealed way. We do not see Him down here. You open your eyes. What do we see? We see nature, a world, a reality in which the Divine light does not shine openly. A blessing—“Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe”—means that we ask for the infinite light concealed above, high above, to be drawn down and revealed here below. We find that King David—one of the blessings we... After all, King David instituted the recitation of one hundred blessings; he was the one who originally established that practice. Although, as is clear from the commentators in several places, it was the Men of the Great Assembly who formulated the wording of the blessings—the text, the established formula. Only at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash period did the full wording of the blessings become fixed. But King David was the one who originally instituted the one hundred blessings. What do we see with King David? Tanach tells us in Divrei Hayamim that near the end of his life, the Sanhedrin, the elders and the Jewish people came to meet him. We actually say every day in davening what happened there: “And David blessed Hashem.” King David was the one who taught the Jewish people about blessings. “And David blessed Hashem.” And what did he say? When King David blessed Hashem, he used the words we say in that verse: “Blessed are You, Hashem, G-d of Israel our father, from world to world.” That is the wording of King David’s blessing: “Blessed are You, Hashem, G-d of Israel our father, from world to world.” What does “from world to world” mean? That is exactly the point we’re discussing. “From world to world.” There is a higher world, the World to Come, the supernal world. In the terminology of

14:20 Hakadosh Boruch Hu shines openly. In this lower world, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present in a hidden, concealed way. We don’t see Him down here. You open your eyes—what do you see? You see nature, you see a world, you see a reality where the G-dly light does not shine openly. A blessing means that when we say, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe,” we are asking that the infinite light concealed far, far above be drawn down and revealed here below. We find this with King David. One of the blessings that we... After all, King David instituted the recitation of one hundred blessings; he was the one who established the practice of saying blessings in the first place. Although, as is clear from the commentators in several places, it was the Men of the Great Assembly who formulated the wording of the blessings—the text, the fixed formula. Only at the beginning of the Second Temple period did the full, established wording of the blessings come into use. But it was King David who originally instituted the one hundred blessings. What do we see with King David? Tanach tells us in Divrei Hayamim that toward the end of his life, the Sanhedrin came, the elders came, and the Jewish people came to meet with King David. We actually say what happened there every day in davening: “And David blessed Hashem.” King David was the one who taught the Jewish people about blessings. “And David blessed Hashem.” And what did he say? When King David blessed Hashem, he used the words we say in that verse: “Blessed are You, Hashem, G-d of Israel our Father, from world to world.” That is the wording of the verse, the words King David used when he said the blessing: “Blessed are You, Hashem, G-d of Israel our Father, from world to world.” What does “from world to world” mean? This is exactly the point we are discussing. “From world to world”—meaning, there is a higher world, the World to Come, the upper world. In the language of

16:33 Kabbalah, it is called the world of Atzilus. There are hidden worlds, concealed worlds, exceedingly lofty worlds, where the Divine light is present on such a lofty level. In the language of the Zohar, this is called alma d’iskasya, the concealed worlds. We are in alma d’isgalya, the revealed world. That is, the world is visible: we see the world, we see the created beings, we see what is happening around us. We do not see the Divine light in the world. The Hebrew word for “world,” olam, is related to he’elem, concealment and hiding. The physical, material world is what is visible. “Blessed are You, Hashem, G-d of Israel our father, from world to world,” says King David. What are we asking for? That the infinite light found above in the higher worlds be drawn down and revealed here below, in this world. And within that, we first say “our G-d” and then “King of the universe.” Let’s pay attention to the wording of the blessing and see how remarkable and profound it is. What are we saying here in the blessing? First, we say “Blessed.” The remarkable insight the Alter Rebbe teaches us is that “Blessed” means to draw down, to bring down. What do we want to draw down from above? “You.” First of all, “You.” When you say “You,” you are speaking to Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. I remember once having the privilege of hearing the Rebbe at a Simchas Torah farbrengen in 5749. The Rebbe spoke about the word “You,” because the hakafos begin, “You have been shown, to know.” And the Rebbe dwelled on the word “You.” It is remarkable that a Jew, wherever he may be, at any moment, says “You,” addressing Him directly. To whom is he speaking? To Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. He says “You”—to his right, to his left, in front of him, wherever he stands. “You.” I am speaking to Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, beyond names. After that we say the name Havayah, the holiest of Hashem’s names. But that is already a name. But that

18:43 The holiest Name. The explicit Name, Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei, past, present, and future as one. “Our G-d”—ours, the G-d of the Jew saying the blessing, the G-d of the Jewish people—and after that, “King of the universe.” What is the explanation? The Rebbe says: When I say a blessing, first of all I draw down and reveal Hakadosh Boruch Hu from the hidden, concealed worlds, so that He becomes our G-d, our strength and our life-force. As it says in the Shulchan Aruch, Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveals Himself first to the Jew, strengthening the Jew’s own faith. Every Jew has faith by nature. We Jews certainly have faith by nature. Jews are believers, the children of believers. But as we know, and as each of us feels, we believe, yet that faith is hidden, concealed, somewhere very high up. We want to make faith come alive: “The righteous shall live by his faith.” To live our faith, so that it penetrates our very bones, our minds, our feelings, our thoughts, speech, and actions—so that our whole body lives that faith. So first of all, “our G-d.” When we train ourselves to say a blessing over everything, we are actually strengthening our faith, making it a revealed faith. It should not remain in alma d’iskasya, in the concealed worlds, but should come into the revealed worlds, becoming openly manifest in the soul of each one of us. But from there we go on to “King of the universe”: it should not remain only with me; the world should be refined. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King of the entire world, and that is why blessings are said over everything in the world. From the time I get up in the morning, the morning blessings—what do I say them over? Opening my eyes, the rooster that wakes us in the morning, getting up, the shoes we tie, “Who has provided me with all my needs,” the steps we take, and all the pleasures—as it says in the Shulchan Aruch, all the pleasures of the world. In the morning we say the morning blessings to reveal Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the most

20:58 ordinary things of daily life. After that, we enter into prayer, and there we say blessings, drawing Hakadosh Boruch Hu into the things we ask for in prayer. In Torah study: “Graciously grant us wisdom, understanding, and knowledge from You”; “Bring us back, our Father, to Your Torah.” In material matters: for livelihood, “Bless us”; for health, “Heal us.” In every single thing in the world, we ask that the Divine light be revealed in every detail of creation. Then we bring this to food as well. When I have food, before I eat it I say: “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who creates the fruit of the tree,” “Who creates the fruit of the ground,” “Who creates various kinds of nourishment,” “Who brings forth bread from the earth,” or “By Whose word everything came into being.” I reveal the Creator, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, through His word—the word of Hakadosh Boruch Hu within even the smallest, simplest thing in the world. In this way we make Him “King of the universe,” so that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King over all of reality. With this in mind, if we consider the deeper meaning of a blessing according to this wonderful explanation, let’s return to the words of the Gemara. We will understand them in a wonderful way. What, then, is the Gemara actually telling us? It tells us that before a Jew says a blessing, everything is sacred to Heaven, and one may not derive benefit from what is sacred to Heaven. These things are holy; they belong to Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “The earth and everything in it belong to Hashem”—they are sacred to Heaven. But the moment I say a blessing, two remarkable things happen. First, regarding me: I, the Jew, said “our G-d.” Through the blessing I made Hakadosh Boruch Hu King over me, and I became a servant of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What is the halachah regarding a servant? The servants of kohanim. After all, a kohen may eat what is sacred to Heaven. And not only the kohen: as it says, the kohanim, their children, and their servants may do so. The servants of kohanim may eat terumah just like the kohanim themselves. The moment I

23:12 made Hakadosh Boruch Hu King, I became a servant of Hashem. I became like the kohen, or at least like the kohen’s servant. So what is sacred to Heaven remains sacred to Heaven. It is not that I said a blessing and can now eat like an animal, in a purely material way. Rather, I eat as a kohen eats, as a servant of Hashem eats. I may derive benefit from what is sacred to Heaven because I am a kohen. That is with regard to the person. And second, “King of the universe”—not just the person. I made Hakadosh Boruch Hu King over the world, so the material things also became sacred to Heaven. Into these material things down here, I drew down, revealed, and brought Divine holiness, openly, into all of reality. Then my food is sacred to Heaven. So I, too, may eat what is sacred to Heaven. The food is sacred to Heaven, and that is the remarkable thing we accomplish through a blessing. This is essentially what the Gemara says: “Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, except to fear Hashem your G-d?” The verse comes and says—Moshe Rabbeinu says to the Jewish people—“What does Hashem your G-d ask of you?” What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want from us? What does “what” mean? He is not asking much of you. Chassidus explains that mah, “what,” expresses self-nullification and humility. “And what are we?” When Moshe Rabbeinu says, “And what are we?” he means: Who am I, and what am I? Complete self-nullification before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The soul has this quality of mah, the power of mah. Chochmah, says the Alter Rebbe, is koach mah—the power of self-nullification. A Jew is nullified before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But how do we bring out this self-nullification, this faith that is within the soul but lies hidden? “Do not read it as mah, but as me’ah”—one hundred. You want to awaken and reveal that mah, to bring it to life, to live your soul and feel your faith openly in daily life? Through what? One hundred blessings. The hundred blessings are

25:20 what awaken us “to fear Hashem,” “to love Him,” as it says later in the verse—to come... to bring love of Hashem and fear of Hashem into daily life in an open, tangible way. This is the remarkable power of saying a hundred blessings every day: the blessings we say at every step, over every detail. And actually, when we think about it, let’s return to the simple meaning. We said that, in the simple sense, a blessing means that we bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Now we see something interesting. For us Jews to be able, through our blessing, to reveal the hidden Divine light and bring it down here into this lower world, we must, so to speak, bestow a blessing above as well, drawing down additional light there. Here we come to a truly remarkable principle that Chassidus teaches us: For something very high, something very exalted, to be able to descend and have an effect in a lower world, there must also be an added blessing in the higher world. When there is an added blessing above, the light need not remain above; it can descend below. As long as the Divine light is above, confined there, remaining above without the ability to descend into a lower world, it is precisely by drawing down from an even higher place that we change this. The higher something is, the farther down it can descend. This is a basic, ironclad principle revealed by the Maggid of Mezritch. It also makes simple sense; everyone can understand it. An ordinary wise person can teach people on his own level. It is precisely the greater sage who has the ability to reach lower levels. We see this with King Shlomo. Tanach tells us that precisely because King Shlomo “was wiser than all men,” because his wisdom was so profound, “he spoke three thousand parables.” He had the ability to bring profound ideas down to lower levels.

27:37 So there are really two things here. A Jew blesses Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and through his blessing he reveals—and, so to speak, adds—light and strength above, in the higher worlds. We find the verse, “And now, may the power of Hashem be magnified, as You have spoken.” A Jew has the power, so to speak, to add to the strength above. When a Jew is down here in this physical world and says a blessing, the great pleasure he brings Hakadosh Boruch Hu causes an increase of light in the higher worlds. That is the simple meaning of a blessing: we, so to speak, bless Hashem, bringing an increase of light above. The word for blessing, brachah, is related to the word for a pool of water, as the Kabbalistic works explain: a pool where a great deal of water gathers. A Jew adds light to the higher Divine light, to the higher sefiros, to the power above. And when there is more light above, it bursts forth, descends, and breaks through every barrier. Then it is drawn down—brachah also means drawing down. The Divine light is drawn all the way down here. This then finds expression in the three kinds of blessings. As the Rambam writes, blessings as a whole fall into three categories: the blessings we say over mitzvos; the blessings we say over food and drink, blessings over enjoyment; and blessings of praise and thanksgiving. There are three kinds of blessings, and each contains this wondrous quality. First, blessings over mitzvos. A mitzvah is something truly extraordinary. It gives us the power to connect ourselves to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We have already discussed how mitzvah is related to the word tzavsa, meaning connection. Through a mitzvah, a Jew connects with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And not just the person—the object with which we perform the mitzvah connects too. The physical tefillin, made from animal hide and parchment, connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When we make tzitzis, the physical wool of the tzitzis—

29:44 We connect it with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The coin we give to tzedakah: we connect that very physical thing with the Infinite, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. What gives us the power to make that connection? The blessing over the mitzvah. When you say the blessing before performing the mitzvah—as the Gemara puts it, “before performing them”—that blessing has the power to reveal and draw down the infinite flow from above, connecting the mitzvah with the One who commanded it, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the blessing over mitzvos. And beyond that, blessings over enjoyment: over every food and every drink, as we discussed. The simplest things, ordinary things, everyday life. I take a simple cup of water and want to drink it, and first I say: “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, through Whose word everything came to be.” I connect that simple cup of water with “through Whose word everything came to be,” with “our G-d, King of the universe.” Then that plain water becomes something dedicated to Heaven, and the world becomes a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then there are blessings of praise and thanksgiving. Take the simple act of praise and thanksgiving that we do every morning in the morning blessings. Think for a moment about what happens then. A person wakes up in the morning, and everything is dark. It is not just dark outside—on some days it is still a little dark—but, more importantly, dark inside. I have woken up, and I am still tired. I would like to keep sleeping. The yetzer hara tells me, “What’s the rush? You can sleep a little longer.” My mind still is not working, my heart still is not working; everything feels blocked up. And I get up in the morning. The first thing I do is wash my hands and say the morning blessings. What power do those blessings have? Chassidus explains that they have the power to break through the darkness. Every blessing among the morning blessings—“Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe”—

31:37 “Concerning the washing of the hands”; “Who formed man with wisdom.” They are about the simplest, most basic things we do every day: opening our eyes, getting out of bed, moving our bodies. When we say them, we break through the darkness of the material world, and reveal the Divine light that pierces the darkness. Those are blessings of praise and thanksgiving. So today, when we understand the depth of a blessing, and we come to say blessings with an appreciation of their beauty, we can see the two aspects of a blessing. First is the simple meaning: we bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is a teaching of our Sages in Tractate Brachos: Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha, the Kohen Gadol, relates that on Yom Kippur he entered the innermost chamber, the Holy of Holies, and there he heard Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, say to him, “Yishmael, My son, bless Me.” What does “bless Me” mean? Hakadosh Boruch Hu asks to be blessed. Chassidus explains that this did not happen only to Yishmael the Kohen Gadol. He heard it, but in fact it happens with every one of us. Through a simple blessing we say over ordinary food in the middle of the day, we have the power to crown Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King. And through “bless Me,” we fill Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, with pleasure, delight, blessing, and light. When that light fills the pool above, it is drawn down all the way below, making our world brighter, cleaner, and more refined, until the whole world becomes “The earth and all it contains belong to Hashem.” And may it be soon in our days: by each of us strengthening our practice of saying blessings, wherever and however we can, may we merit to see the Divine light throughout the world. May we see how Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“Blessed is Hashem—

33:42 the G-d of Israel, our Father, from everlasting to everlasting”—with the coming of Moshiach, our righteous redeemer, speedily in our days. Amen.