Explanations of the Prayer - Hodu - Part 2

00:00 Speaker 1 The first paragraph is enough; we’ve already discussed it. Let’s move on to the second paragraph. It says: “Sing to Him, make music to Him; speak of all His wonders.” What does that mean? It’s the plain meaning of what follows. I’m talking about the continuation here. Someone is simply explaining that we need to thank Hashem and tell of all the great things, all the deeds, everything Hakadosh Boruch Hu has done, so that the nations of the world will know about it too. That’s how he continues, with more and more expressions of praise, and he says: “Sing to Him, make music to Him; speak of all His wonders.” Cantar—I don’t know how you say it—“make music.” Another word for cantar. Ah, how does he translate it in [unclear]? I don’t know.

01:06 Speaker 2 Zemer means song, doesn’t it?

01:07 Speaker 1 Yes, “Sing to Him, make music to Him.” Then it says, “Speak of all His wonders”—to speak about the wonders He has done. Fine, that’s clear. First, there is what Chazal say: What is the difference between shir and zemer? And this isn’t relevant only here. It’s a general subject that we’ll encounter in several places in the siddur, because the terms shir and zimrah appear many times in the siddur. Yes, they appear a lot in the siddur: shir, zimrah, mizmor, a shir that is a mizmor. Mizmor comes from zimrah, zemer, canto; and shir also appears many times in davening. What’s the difference between shir and mizmor? Chazal say that shir is with the mouth, while zemer is with an instrument. That’s the difference between shir and zemer: shir is with the mouth. Like canto con la boca—singing with the mouth—that’s called shir. When someone plays a musical instrument, that’s called zemer. Why is that? Why is shir with the mouth and zemer with an instrument? We need to explain that. And in sefarim we find—apparently it has a source in the Zohar or somewhere—that shir refers to souls and zimrah refers to angels. After all, both souls and angels sing. There is the song of the souls and the song of the angels. The angels say “Holy,” and we say “Blessed.” That has to do with the song of the angels. And there is what the souls sing. Souls also sing up there in Gan Eden; they, too, have songs that they sing to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The difference is that what the angels sing is called zimrah, while what the souls sing is called shir. So we need to understand both things: Why souls? What is the connection between the two explanations—the plain explanation, the explanation of the Midrash, that shir is with the mouth and zemer is with an instrument, and the explanation in the inner dimension of Torah, that shir is souls and zemer is angels? And then we also need to understand how this applies in serving Hashem. We’ll talk about that shortly. First, the idea itself, the idea in its spiritual sense.

03:20 Speaker 1 The idea is as follows. The difference between the mouth and an instrument, when a person sings with his mouth—simply put, this is the general idea—is that singing with the mouth means the song seems to come of its own accord. A person has a feeling, an awakening of emotion, of joy or of pleasure, a certain pull, some desire, and a melody comes out. The melody, the song, is something that comes almost automatically, as though it emerges by itself. An instrument, by contrast, doesn’t work that way. An instrument doesn’t play on its own; it’s inanimate. The instrument itself doesn’t play. You have to act upon it, make it in a certain way—with strings and all the other things that are done to it, whatever the structure may be—then work with it to produce different sounds and notes, and the notes become a melody. In other words, a melody that comes from the mouth is more natural, more automatic—or rather, by “automatic” I mean that it comes from a particular inner feeling that expresses itself in melody. An instrument, by contrast, doesn’t play on its own. You have to act upon it to make it do something, to make it play. Chassidus explains that this is the difference between souls and angels. A soul above has no body. A soul is truly a part of G-d Above. So when a soul senses G-dliness—when it contemplates and senses, when the soul senses Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that brings about a ratzo in the soul, a pull toward G-dliness, and that pull is expressed through shir. Shir is an expression of desire. When someone feels a pull toward something higher, a song expresses that pull. A song expresses that he is drawn to something: he wants something, he responds to it, he feels drawn to it. That is why Chassidus says this about souls

05:47 Speaker 1 that have no bodies: they sense Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and this naturally comes out as a song of ratzo, of longing, of love and delight in G-dliness. Angels, by contrast, have bodies even above. Angels are created beings. That’s the difference between a soul and angels: a soul is a part of G-d, whereas angels are created beings. So for angels it doesn’t work in the manner of shir, but in the manner of zimrah—that is, like an instrument. The angels have to work with the body, with their own physical form and existence. They have to work with the body and bring about ratzo. But the ratzo doesn’t come naturally; it comes through working with the angel’s body. It’s a spiritual body, but it still requires work. That’s why the song of the souls is called shir: shir is with the mouth, expressing something more spiritual. Shir refers to the soul. The song of the angels is with an instrument, because they have a body. So it is more like, as we said, playing an instrument: you take something that does not, in itself, play music, and you have to act upon it to make it play. In the same way, you have to act upon the angel’s body so that it will produce a melody, a song. So this explains why one is called shir and the other zimrah. Where is this expressed in the words shir and zimrah? What is the difference between them? In tractate Shabbos, there’s the fifth chapter—I don’t know if they’ve studied it yet in yeshivah. The fifth chapter of Shabbos. The fifth chapter, “With what may an animal go out?” There, the Mishnah says that one of the things an animal may go out wearing on Shabbos is a shir. What is a shir? Rashi, the Bartenura, and the other commentators explain there that a shir is a round implement. It’s

07:46 Speaker 1 a kind of ring, a round collar that they put around the animal’s neck and pull on to lead it. So shir refers to something round—this round implement—and to something used to draw another thing along. In spiritual terms, “round” refers to a makif, an encompassing light. The idea of a circle is a makif. In other words, the soul senses an encompassing light, a G-dly light, something beyond the progression of the worlds. The soul senses the G-dly light that is beyond the worlds, and that draws it; it is naturally drawn toward G-dliness. When the soul senses that G-dly light, it arouses longing and ratzo within it. And what is it drawn toward? Through shir, it is drawn toward G-dliness. That is the pull expressed through this song and melody. But “make music,” zimru, is related to lizmor, to prune. Also when... in the laws of work on Shabbos, in the chapter “A Great Principle.” You studied “A Great Principle.” You did study that. Why wouldn’t you have? What did you study there? In any case, among the prohibited forms of work on Shabbos, the Gemara lists one of the derivatives of reaping, called zomer. What does zomer mean? Cutting branches. That’s called zomer. So zimrah means to cut, to prune. Pesukei Dezimrah—“He will cut down the mighty.” As though you are cutting things away. What does this mean in our service of Hashem? Since we’re speaking of something that has a body, it is something that is not, on its own, a vessel for G-dliness. It isn’t like the soul, which is a part of G-d Above. Angels are created beings, so they have a certain body that conceals G-dliness. You have to cut things away. You have to prune. You have to cut away the things that conceal, cut away the sense of self, and only then can you make it play, make it sing. In other words, zimrah comes through deliberate action; it doesn’t happen of its own accord. Like

09:57 Speaker 1 As we said, this is the difference between a soul and an angel. And that is the idea of zimrah, making music. Everything has to find expression in serving Hashem; we are not just discussing abstract ideas. In serving Hashem, these two levels—“Sing to Him, make music to Him”—are explained as song and music in a person’s avodah: the divine soul and the animal soul. The divine soul serves through song, and the animal soul through zimrah. The divine soul is, after all, “an actual part of G-d above,” even down here. It is naturally drawn to G-dliness. So when a Jew is stirred during davening, contemplates G-dliness and connects to it, the divine soul begins to sing. It sings to Hakadosh Boruch Hu because it is drawn to Him and wants to leave the confines of the body and connect to G-dliness. The animal soul, however, is not naturally drawn to G-dliness. It is an animal, so it is not drawn to G-dliness on its own. We have to work on it through refinement, through zimrah—as though cutting away the animal soul’s material coarseness and physicality—and, through avodah, bring it to desire and be drawn to G-dliness as well. That is what we mean by song and zimrah: song is the divine soul, and zimrah is the animal soul. These are the two aspects of davening: working with the animal soul and working with the divine soul, song and zimrah, corresponding to the soul and the angel. The divine soul corresponds to the soul, and the animal soul corresponds to the angel. That is why “Sing to Him” refers to the soul, while “make music to Him” refers to the angel. In our avodah, too, they refer to the divine soul and the animal soul. Why do we say this at the beginning of davening? One of the maamarim says that davening contains both of these aspects. Davening includes Pesukei Dezimrah. The entire first part of

11:58 Speaker 1 davening, Pesukei Dezimrah, is primarily for the animal soul. That is when we contemplate straightforward ideas that even the animal soul can understand. We contemplate how G-dliness is invested in the world, how Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life and sustenance to creation. This awakens the animal soul to love Hashem. That is why it is called Pesukei Dezimrah. As is known, zimrah also relates to pruning: the work of refining the animal soul. Afterward comes the recitation of Shema, which is the soul’s song. The soul’s song is “Hear, O Israel.” Chassidus explains that the letters of Yisroel can be rearranged to spell shir Keil, “a song to G-d.” Yes, that remains. So at the beginning of davening we speak of “Sing to Him, make music to Him” as a preparation for davening. What are we going to accomplish during davening? We are going to work on both of these aspects. We will work with the soul—“Sing to Him”—awakening its desire and thirst for G-dliness, which it already has in its very essence but which may have fallen somewhat dormant. We need to awaken it. And on the other hand, there is “make music to Him”: we need to take the animal soul and work on it too, cut away its material coarseness and physicality, and connect it to G-dliness as well. Then the verse continues, “Speak of all His wonders.” So we have “Sing to Him, make music to Him”—the two aspects I mentioned, Pesukei Dezimrah and the recitation of Shema, the animal soul and the divine soul. We have to work with both. Then it says, “Speak of all His wonders.” How does that follow? On the simple level, it means to speak of His wonders, to recount the wonders of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But here too, Chassidus explains it more deeply. Chassidus explains that there are several interpretations of “Speak of all His wonders.” According to one of them, the word sichu, “speak,”

13:43 Speaker 1 has the sense of drawing something down, bringing it from one place to another. Think of a person in the sea. What do we say someone does in the sea? He swims. Swimming means going from one place to another. So here, sichu means to draw something along, to move it from one place to another. “Speak of all His wonders” means to draw down the wonders of Hakadosh Boruch Hu here below. Through “Sing to Him, make music to Him”—through the avodah of davening, when a person works with both the divine soul and the animal soul—he brings about sichu, the drawing down of G-dliness. He draws down the wonders, those aspects of G-dliness that are beyond the world, and brings them here below. And sichu also means drawing down. This relates to the ten... and so on. It is a whole subject that needs to be discussed at length, and there is no time for it here. The point is to bring down the wonders of Hakadosh Boruch Hu here below, into this physical world.