Explanations of the Prayer - Hodu - Part 1

00:00 Once, he was traveling with the Alter Rebbe in a horse-drawn wagon. In the middle of the journey, he took out some mezonos and ate it. It was the kind of mezonos discussed in the siddur. In the laws of blessings over food in his siddur, the Alter Rebbe writes about pas haba’ah bekisnin. Regarding one of the types listed there, he writes that a person who is careful about such matters should be stringent. So the Alter Rebbe said, “I wrote in the Shulchan Aruch that a person who is careful about such matters should be stringent and not eat this without washing his hands.” There are several kinds of mezonos that the Alter Rebbe writes one may, strictly speaking, eat after saying the blessing mezonos. But a person who is careful about such matters should first eat a kezayis of bread, to avoid a question about washing his hands. So the Alter Rebbe asked Reb Aizik why he was eating it without washing. Reb Aizik said, “I’m not a person who is careful about such matters!” The Alter Rebbe answered him—there are two versions. In one version, he said, “If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have taken you into my wagon.” In the other version, he said, “If you daven according to my nusach, you are.” If you daven according to my nusach, you are a person who is careful about such matters. What does that mean? The explanation is that in the Alter Rebbe’s nusach, you begin with Hodu. In Nusach Ashkenaz, they used to begin with Baruch She’amar and say Hodu afterward, as those who follow Nusach Ashkenaz do today. In Nusach Chabad, you say Hodu first; you begin with Hodu. And beginning davening with Hodu has to do with the level of nefesh. That is the meaning.

02:29 With Hodu—the idea of Hodu, as we said, is kabbolas ol. A person doesn’t understand or grasp it, but he acknowledges that it is the truth. That is Hodu. He acknowledges that the truth is that there is nothing besides Him; the truth is that everything before Him is considered as nothing—even though he himself neither feels nor understands it. That point of kabbolas ol is the level of nefesh. Among the levels of the soul—nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah—nefesh is kabbolas ol. Ruach is the emotions, and neshamah is the intellect. Nefesh is kabbolas ol. That is what the Alter Rebbe meant when he told him, “If you daven according to my nusach, you are a person who is careful about such matters.” In other words, if you begin davening with Hodu, and Hodu is kabbolas ol, then beginning davening with that acknowledgment means you already have the level of nefesh, that point of kabbolas ol. That is how Rabbi Tzvi of Zmig[?] would explain the story about Reb Aizik. That was just in connection with the first verse. In the previous class, we explained the first part of the verse; now we’ll explain “Make His deeds known among the nations.” In short, what does “Make His deeds known among the nations” have to do with davening? We see that parts of davening speak about the nations. Many passages in davening contain verses about them. On the plain level, what does that mean? It refers to the days of Moshiach, when the nations will recognize the truth. We see many verses that refer to the nations. In Hodu in particular, there are quite a few verses—“All you peoples, clap your hands” and [unclear]—that emphasize the nations. Now, on the plain level, it isn’t so clear why this is so relevant to davening. Why does it matter so much to us that we speak about the nations? As if—

04:27 Why is this focus on the nations so important? In davening, a Jew is connecting to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What place do the nations have in that? “Make His deeds known among the nations.” According to Chassidus, there are two ways to look at it. How can we explain it through Chassidus? One explanation is that, in davening, the nations are connected with the sparks of holiness. The “nations” refer to the sparks found in the world. More generally, they mean not only non-Jews, but everything that is not holiness. There is the work of refining the sparks, which is a central part of serving Hashem. As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, the soul descends into the world not for its own sake, but to rectify and refine—to elevate the animal soul, the body, and its portion of the world. This work of refining the sparks is the idea of the “nations.” A spark is found within kelipah, somewhere it does not belong, within something physical. That is what the “nations” represent: a G-dly spark found in a foreign place, somewhere else. When we engage with it for the sake of Heaven, we, so to speak, take it out of there. We refine it and elevate it to holiness. This is the meaning of “The Jewish people were exiled only so that converts would be added to them.” The question is: how so? The Rebbe asks what this means. After all, there aren’t so many converts. We haven’t seen a campaign to seek converts. Rather, the “converts” are the sparks of holiness found throughout the world, which Jews refine. And davening is a refining of the sparks. The Alter Rebbe explains at the end of Tanya, in Igeres Hakodesh, that the main purpose of davening is—

06:30 refining the sparks. That is why Eitz Chayim says that, specifically in the footsteps of Moshiach, the main service is davening: our work now is to refine the sparks and complete that refinement. This is the idea of “Make His deeds known among the nations.” When Moshiach comes and they recognize Hashem, we will also see how “His deeds” were made known among the nations. We will see that everything that happened in the world was part of His plan. All the confusion and all the concealments in the world were things Hakadosh Boruch Hu brought about so that we could refine the sparks. The fact that a Jew finds himself in exile—all the exile and all the confusion—was part of that plan. Hakadosh Boruch Hu brought it about so that a Jew would reach some place in the world during exile and move from place to place to refine a spark. This is also connected with the Aron Kodesh. As we said, this verse was recited earlier, and the Aron Kodesh had been among the Philistines. There, too, events unfolded for the sake of refining the sparks. The Philistines stole the Aron Kodesh and thought that, having stolen it, they had control over it. What happened in the end? Not only did they have no control over it, but the Aron Kodesh brought a plague upon them and other things as well. Outwardly, it seemed that the Aron Kodesh had been stolen, that the Philistines controlled something holy. In the end, the opposite was revealed. And precisely through this came the elevation involved in refining the Philistines and nullifying their kelipah. The same applies more broadly to serving Hashem: Hakadosh Boruch Hu sends a Jew out, and it appears to him that sparks of holiness are buried deep within the world—

08:11 and through his service of Hashem, the Jew elevates them. These are the deeds of the Master of the World. It becomes clear that all the confusion and concealments were the means of revealing G-dliness in the world and preparing the world to be a dwelling place for Him in the lower realms. That is one explanation given in Chassidus. Another way—which isn’t really different, but brings it closer to our own inner lives—concerns the animal soul. It is explained that the animal soul is called the non-Jew within each person. So when davening speaks about nations and non-Jews, a more inward understanding also refers to the inner “non-Jew” in every one of us. This is explained in [unclear] on Tehillim. If you want to look it up afterward, there is the [unclear] Tehillim, where he discusses at length the story of the attendant of the Rebbe Maharash, of the Tzemach Tzedek and the Rebbe Maharash—the non-Jewish attendant and the Jewish attendant. When asked, “Why do you eat?” the non-Jewish attendant said he ate for pleasure, while the Jewish attendant said he ate so he would have the strength to daven. There he explains that, in general, this is the difference between the animal soul and the G-dly soul. The animal soul is the non-Jew within each person, and it eats for pleasure. By contrast, the Jew within him is the G-dly soul. So this is what we mean when we say, “Make His deeds known among the nations”: the whole purpose of davening is that the “non-Jew” too—meaning the animal soul—should recognize the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.