A note fell from heaven? Am I supposed to take that literally?
The Tur (a law code from the 1300s) says only that a book called Sefer Heichalot counts 87 words here. He mentions no note. The note appears in the Taz (a law commentary from the 1600s). It quotes the book Tola'at Yaakov, which cites an older book, Or Zarua: the Men of the Great Assembly set this praise by way of a note that fell from heaven.
The phrase is older than that. The Gemara tells of the Jews who came back from Babylonia in the days of Ezra. They cried out to God to take away the urge to worship idols. "A note fell to them from heaven, and on it was written: truth." The same passage goes on to speak of the Men of the Great Assembly. The tradition about Baruch She'amar uses nearly the same words. That link is ours. No source here draws it.
What can be checked? Peninei Halakhah (a modern guide to Jewish law by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed) notes that the wording first appears in the prayer order of Rav Amram Gaon (Babylonia, 800s), and that some conclude it was composed in that era. He sets other views beside that: the Or Zarua's note, and one that dates it to the time of the Mishnah.
The old texts also differ. The Rambam (Maimonides, died 1204) has lines ours does not, such as "Blessed is He who removes darkness and brings light." The Tur, right after the count of 87, adds: "and that is the Ashkenazi text."
The sources do not agree on when it was written. They do show how the tradition was used. The Mishnah Berurah concludes that no word may be added or dropped. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary, early 1900s) concludes that this is unlike a blessing on a mitzvah. It was not composed for the psalms, he says. It was set by way of the note, and only then placed before them.
Is the note a report of an event, or a way of saying how these words were regarded? The sources quoted here do not say.
Tur, Orach Chaim 51,Taz, Orach Chaim 51:1,Yoma 69b,Peninei Halakhah, Prayer 14:1, note 1,Rambam, Order of Prayer,Mishnah Berurah 51:1,Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 51:1 and 51:7The Gemara calls daily Hallel an insult to God. So why sing psalms every morning?
Baruch She'amar opens Pesukei DeZimra, the morning's verses of song. The classic source for the whole section is one line in the Gemara. Rabbi Yosei said: "May my share be with those who finish Hallel every day." The Gemara objects. Was it not taught that one who reads Hallel every day "is cursing and blaspheming"? It answers that Rabbi Yosei meant Pesukei DeZimra.
Why would Hallel, the psalms sung on holidays, be an insult on an ordinary Tuesday? Rashi (the classic commentator, France, 1000s) explains that the early prophets set Hallel for particular occasions, as praise and thanks. Someone who reads it all the time, out of its time, is only singing a song and joking around.
The Maharal (Rabbi Yehudah Loew of Prague, who died in 1609) goes further. Hallel was set for miracles. Saying it every day amounts to saying that God works miracles every day, as if the world did not run by any order. That would leave no wisdom and no order in what He created, and that, he writes, is the insult. A miracle that comes once in a while does not cancel the order.
Later in the book he gives a second reason, and says both are true. If you announce every day that God is running the world by miracle, the next question is obvious. Why are good people in trouble, and why is idol worship still here? It ends up sounding as if God is not able to fix it.
So what is the daily praise about? Look at how its blessing opens: "He spoke and the world came to be," and "who makes creation," in the present tense. The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code from around 1900) says these lines are there to say that God's word created the world and that He renews creation every day.
The Maharal does not mention Baruch She'amar in these passages, so the link is ours. But the two fit. Hallel is kept for the days when the usual order was broken. The praise for every other morning begins with the usual order itself.
Shabbat 118b, with Rashi,Maharal, Gevurot Hashem, Second Introduction and chapter 61,Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 51:3God has no mouth. So what does "He spoke and the world came to be" mean?
The creation story says "God said" again and again, and this blessing names God by it. But speech needs a mouth, breath and someone listening. Before the world existed, there was no one to hear.
The Rambam (Maimonides, died 1204) raises exactly that in his book of philosophy, the Guide for the Perplexed. A command, he writes, is given to someone who exists and can receive it. So every "God said" in the creation story means "God willed." He points to a verse in Tehillim: "By the word of Hashem the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host." Just as "mouth" and "breath" are borrowed language, he says, so are "word" and "saying."
The Ramban (Nachmanides, Spain, 1200s) reads "God said: Let there be light" in a similar way. Saying here points to will, he writes, or to thought. Then he adds what the word teaches: "that it was without toil."
That is how Abudarham (Rabbi David Abudarham of Seville, 1300s) explains our line. The world was created by saying, with no strain and no other action. He quotes a Midrash that this world was created with the letter hei. Every other letter, the Midrash says, takes hold of the tongue, and hei does not. No letter is easier to say, Abudarham adds.
Then why does the Torah say "said" at all? The Rambam's answer: at first thought, a person cannot picture a thing getting done by will alone. We assume that whoever wants something must either make it or order someone else to make it. So the Torah borrows the language of giving an order.
The Mishnah asks one more question. It counts ten sayings in the creation story and asks: could the world not have been created with one? Its answer is about people. The ten are there to give good reward to those who keep such a world going, and to hold to account those who wreck it. Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura (Italy, 1400s) explains: ruining work that took many days is not like ruining one day's work.
Rambam, Guide for the Perplexed 1:65 (Ibn Tibbon's Hebrew),Ramban on Bereishit 1:3,Abudarham, Songs of Praise,Bereishit Rabbah 12:10,Tehillim 33:6,Pirkei Avot 5:1, with Bartenura