Explanations of the Prayer - Hodu - Part 14

00:00 Speaker 1 And He is over us. Our soul waits for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, because He, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is our help and our shield. Then it says: “For in Him our hearts will rejoice.” Our joy is in Him, in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “for we have trusted in His holy name.” We trust in the holy name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then it says: “May Your kindness, Hashem, be upon us”—may the kindness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu be upon us. That means His kindness should be revealed to us. Hakadosh Boruch Hu will bestow His kindness upon us “as we have hoped for You”—because we have hoped for You. We wait and ask; we look forward to His kindness and ask that it be revealed to us. Then it concludes—well, let’s leave it there for now. First, these three verses. We said these three verses come from the same chapter, right? Chapter 33. What is the point here? On the plain level, it’s simply the language of the verse, as we explained. But Chassidus explains the whole matter a little more deeply. Chassidus discusses the idea of waiting, the point expressed in these verses: the power of a person’s avodah to bring down all the revelations from above, all the blessings that come from above, even the very greatest ones—specifically through human effort and toil. There is a passage in the Zohar, in Bereishis, about the verse “He will do for the one who waits for Him.” It says there: “No eye has seen, O G-d, besides You, what He will do for the one who waits for Him.” When Moshiach comes, there will be such revelations, such a great revelation of G-dliness, that no eye has seen it. “O G-d, besides You”—these revelations are even beyond the order of hishtalshelus. And then it says, “He will do for the one who waits for Him.” Who will receive and merit to enjoy all these revelations? The one who waits for Him. What does “waits for Him” mean? On the plain level, it means someone waiting for Moshiach. But

02:15 Speaker 1 the Zohar says that “waiting” also has the sense of hoping and toiling. When someone studies something and struggles to understand it, and works at it so hard that he reaches a point where he is just waiting to understand the sugya—he develops a kind of longing to understand it already. He looks forward to and hopes that its depth will be revealed to him. In the language of the verse, that is called “waiting.” “Those who press to grasp a matter of wisdom.” This is someone who presses and toils in matters of wisdom. Through the concealments and contradictions, through the questions he has, he reaches a state where he is pressing forward, simply waiting for the point to become clear to him. Then he merits the revelation of what “no eye has seen.” Now the Rebbe Rashab explains at length in Sefer Bereishis that this comes through a person’s toil in learning and toil in yiras Hashem. Not just learning by rote—specifically the toil, the questions and the concealments. This is like what is written at the end, that the halachah follows the Babylonian Talmud rather than the Jerusalem Talmud. Why? Because the Babylonian Talmud has more questions, more concealments and contradictions, and that enables one to reach a greater depth of understanding. So, that too brings us to—

03:31 Speaker 2 The Babylonian Talmud has many questions.

03:32 Speaker 1 The Babylonian Talmud has many questions. The Jerusalem Talmud has fewer questions. In other words, the Jerusalem Talmud is written in the form of halachah. There are almost no questions there. Everything is straightforward.

03:41 Speaker 2 There are no concealments.

03:43 Speaker 1 So there are no concealments or contradictions. That means the light comes openly; the light of Torah there is more revealed. There are no questions, nothing confusing. A question is a concealment and a contradiction. In the Babylonian Talmud, by contrast, there is a great deal of discussion and argument because the light is not seen; there are many questions. And for that very reason—precisely because there are more questions, more concealments and contradictions—it leads to a deeper understanding. That is why the halachah follows the Babylonian Talmud. Similarly, here too, one reaches the revelation of what “no eye has seen” specifically when one toils more, when one works harder to seek Moshiach and work on oneself, to seek G-dliness—particularly through toil in the avodah of teshuvah. That toil leads to the higher revelations. This is also the meaning of “Our soul waits for Hashem”: waiting in the sense of toil. It doesn’t mean that we just sleep and say, “When Moshiach comes, he’ll come.” Rather, there is this idea of waiting: a person seeks G-dliness, pursues it, and works with great effort to understand whatever G-dliness he can understand. With that in mind, he prays and seeks Hakadosh Boruch Hu as much as he can through his own efforts. Precisely then will he reach all the revelations. So, “Our soul waits for Hashem.” We wait, look forward, and exert ourselves for Hashem. Why specifically Hashem? He explains: “For in Him our hearts will rejoice.” Why? Because our joy is specifically in Him. That means we are not satisfied with lights, tzimtzumim, or limited revelations. We want Him specifically. Our joy comes specifically when He Himself is revealed, like the son who says he does not want Gan Eden, does not want the World to Come; he wants only Him Himself. That is “For in Him our hearts will rejoice.” We are not satisfied with a small ray of some particular light,

05:34 Speaker 1 as in the Baal Shem Tov’s parable of a person entering the king’s palace. Some people are satisfied with the gold and the birds, the treasures in the king’s courtyard. But the wise person says, “I choose the King”—he wants the king himself, not the things around him. That is the meaning of “For in Him our hearts will rejoice.” Our joy is specifically in Him, in Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, “for we have trusted in His holy name.” We place our trust in nothing else. That is, we do not trust in the workings of nature, but specifically in Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. That is why we ask: “May Your kindness, Hashem, be upon us”—may the kindness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the kindness of the name Havayah, be revealed to us—“as we have hoped for You.” Our hope is in You. What are we asking for? What are we seeking? We seek Him Himself. We seek specifically Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, Him Himself. So “as we have hoped for You”: in proportion to the effort and difficulty, so too will “Your kindness be upon us.” This is the idea of “as water reflects a face back to a face.” When a Jew works on himself by studying Chassidus and exerting himself in the avodah of prayer, so that his desire is to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, he wants no lights or revelations, no tzimtzumim. He is not satisfied with external things, with things apart from Him. He wants the King Himself, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Then, “as we have hoped for You”—according to what he asks for and seeks, so is the kindness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu revealed to him. As we have hoped for You, so may “Your kindness, Hashem, be upon us.”

07:13 Speaker 3 Help and protection.

07:15 Speaker 1 Huh?

07:16 Speaker 3 Help and protection. [unclear]

07:20 Speaker 1 What is the significance of “our help and our shield”? There are other places that explain the particular meanings of “our help” and “our shield,” but not here. Later on, where it discusses the yetzer hara. I don’t remember the point right now.

07:38 Speaker 3 Six—the last five lines.

07:40 Speaker 1 Yes, there is an explanation. Right now I don’t remember the verse. Then it says: “Show us Your kindness, Hashem, and grant us Your salvation.” So it goes on. All of this is what a person arouses. As we said, all these verses at the end of Hodu are about the foundation of everything we’ve discussed: a Jew arouses great mercy within himself, asks for and wants a revelation of G-dliness, seeks it and pursues it with all his strength. Then he continues: “Show us Your kindness, Hashem.” We say, “May Your kindness, Hashem, be upon us as we have hoped for You”—may the kindness of the name Havayah be upon us, just as we seek and ask for it. But here he adds, “Show us”: it should be something we can see. Sometimes kindness can be bestowed, G-dliness can be bestowed, but in a way that we cannot see. There are forms of kindness that come as hidden kindness. So here we add this request. There is another verse in Tehillim, in chapter 80—84, but here it is chapter 85. What are we asking? “Show us”—may this kindness be visible, so that we can see it with our physical eyes, as revealed and apparent good. “Show us Your kindness, Hashem.” And what kind of kindness are we asking for? The kindness of the name Havayah, as we said—not just limited kindness, but the great, boundless kindness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So “show us”: it should be visible. “And grant us Your salvation”—may Hakadosh Boruch Hu grant us salvation. The Rebbe explains that there are two distinctions between “Your kindness” and “Your salvation.” Kindness is—kindness is revealed kindness, the bestowal of kindness. Salvation is needed when there are things that are not good. Sometimes there are situations that are the opposite of kindness, matters of severity, things that are not...

09:29 Speaker 1 Well—things that aren’t good, when we need salvation. So, “And grant us Your salvation”: in those places where salvation is needed, let Your salvation be there—the salvation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. “And grant us Your salvation”—the emphasis is also on “grant.” As the saying goes, “One who gives, gives generously”: the giving should be generous, not limited, but without restrictions. “Grant us”—may Hakadosh Boruch Hu bestow it upon us. What does “us” mean here? As with “Show us,” the emphasis is that we should see it. “Grant us”—so that we can benefit from it. It’s like what we say on Yom Kippur, at Ne’ilah: “Open the gates of heaven, and open Your good treasure for us.” The Rebbe Rashab says that the simple meaning is “Your good treasure”—the good treasure—“open for us”: that Hakadosh Boruch Hu should open it for us. But the Rebbe Rashab explains—and you can see that the punctuation in Chabad machzorim reflects this—that there is a comma after “for us” in the phrase “Your good treasure for us.” He was careful to say “for us” together with “good.” In other words, it isn’t only “open for us”; it should be good for us, so that we can see the good in it. Sometimes there can be good blessings, but to our eyes the good isn’t visible. It’s a hidden good. So we ask that it be good for us. The same applies here, when we say, “And grant us Your salvation.” What is the emphasis on “us”? That we should be able to see the salvation in it. That is the request: “Grant us.” I saw in the name of the Ben Ish Chai that “lanu,” “us,” has the same numerical value as Elokim. This is the meaning of “Show us, Hashem, Your kindness, and grant us Your salvation.” Havayah is revealed kindness.

11:16 Speaker 1 That is why we say, “Show us, Hashem, Your kindness.” “And grant us Your salvation”—“lanu,” “us,” corresponds to Elokim, the Divine Name associated with severity. In other words, the severities should be transformed. That is why the word here is “salvation”: salvation is needed when things aren’t good, to transform them. Then it says, “Arise to help us, and redeem us for the sake of Your kindness.” That Hakadosh Boruch Hu should send us help and take us out of exile. “Arise” relates to the idea of rising, because exile also means that the Shechinah is in exile. Rising is the opposite of falling: the Shechinah should rise from exile, and through that He will also save us from exile. “And redeem us for the sake of Your kindness.” We’re out of time, so we’ll have to finish on Wednesday.