Draft. This siddur is waiting for a rav's review. For a halachic question, ask your rav.
Hebrew, then English. Open "What it means" under any line for the explanation.
The siddur's note: this psalm stirs a person to return to God and do good while still alive, and to rely on God, not people.
הַלְלוּיָהּ הַלְלִי נַפְשִׁי אֶת יְיָ.
Halleluyah. Praise Hashem, my soul.
The Gemara (the rabbis' discussions built on the Mishnah) asks whether Halleluyah closes a psalm or opens the next one. Here all agree: the Halleluyah after the last verse of Tehillim 145 opens this psalm. Ibn Ezra (a Spanish commentator who died in the 1160s): the first word is said to the people. Then the poet says it to his own soul.
Pesachim 117a; Ibn Ezra on Tehillim 146:1אֲהַלְלָה יְיָ בְּחַיָּי אֲזַמְּרָה לֵאלֹהַי בְּעוֹדִי.
I will praise Hashem as long as I live. I will sing to my God while I am still here.
Why "as long as I live"? Midrash Tehillim (a collection of rabbinic teachings on Tehillim): if a person does not praise while he is alive, when will he? Not after he dies. Its proof is "The dead do not praise God," the verse that comes right before the line that closed Ashrei.
Midrash Tehillim 146; Tehillim 115:17אַל תִּבְטְחוּ בִנְדִיבִים בְּבֶן אָדָם שֶׁאֵין לוֹ תְשׁוּעָה.
Do not put your trust in nobles, in a human being who has no power to save.
Never trust people? Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, Provence, around 1200) does not read it that way: if you rely on a person, keep God as the main thing. The first hard question has more. Ibn Ezra prefers to read the last words this way: a human being cannot save even himself.
Radak and Ibn Ezra on Tehillim 146:3תֵּצֵא רוּחוֹ יָשֻׁב לְאַדְמָתוֹ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא אָבְדוּ עֶשְׁתֹּנֹתָיו.
His breath goes out, he goes back to his earth. On that day his plans are lost.
Midrash Tehillim compares a person to a leather bag blown full of air. The air is all that holds it up. So with a person: the breath leaves, and at once he is dust. The Story section tells the whole parable.
Midrash Tehillim 146אַשְׁרֵי שֶׁאֵל יַעֲקֹב בְּעֶזְרוֹ, שִׂבְרוֹ עַל יְיָ אֱלֹהָיו.
Happy is the one whose help is the God of Yaakov, whose hope is in Hashem his God.
Why Yaakov, of all people? Rashi: God promised him, "I am with you and I will guard you." That was said as Yaakov was leaving home. Radak: his brother was plotting to kill him and he ran, and he trusted God for the basics, "bread to eat and clothing to wear."
Rashi and Radak on Tehillim 146:5; Bereishit 28:15, 28:20עֹשֶׂה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ אֶת הַיָּם וְאֶת כָּל אֲשֶׁר בָּם, הַשֹּׁמֵר אֱמֶת לְעוֹלָם.
He makes heaven and earth, the sea and everything that is in them. He keeps truth forever.
Why list the sea? Rashi: everything is His, so He can guard a person at sea and on dry land. A king who worships idols may guard you on land, but he cannot guard you at sea. And "keeps truth forever": even at the end of many generations, Rashi says, God carries out and keeps the truth of His promise.
Rashi on Tehillim 146:5-6עֹשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט לָעֲשׁוּקִים נֹתֵן לֶחֶם לָרְעֵבִים יְיָ מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים.
He does justice for the oppressed, gives bread to the hungry. Hashem frees the bound.
He does justice for the oppressed and gives bread to the hungry. Hashem frees the bound.
The last two words here and the next two phrases are also three of the morning blessings (the Birkot HaShachar prayer tells how). Malbim (a rabbi and commentator of the 1800s) on this line: a human king who frees a prisoner has done his kindness and is finished with him. God frees him, then gets him justice, then makes sure he has bread.
Berakhot 60b; Malbim on Tehillim 146:7יְיָ פֹּקֵחַ עִוְרִים יְיָ זֹקֵף כְּפוּפִים יְיָ אֹהֵב צַדִּיקִים.
Hashem opens the eyes of the blind. Hashem straightens the bent. Hashem loves the righteous.
Why does God love the righteous? Midrash Tehillim: because it does not come from family. The righteous chose it on their own and loved God. The third hard question tells the rest.
Midrash Tehillim 146יְיָ שֹׁמֵר אֶת גֵּרִים יָתוֹם וְאַלְמָנָה יְעוֹדֵד וְדֶרֶךְ רְשָׁעִים יְעַוֵּת.
Hashem guards strangers. He gives strength to the orphan and the widow, and He twists the path of the wicked.
Midrash Tehillim reads "strangers" as converts and tells a story. A wild deer joined a king's flock and grazed with it every day. The king ordered the shepherd to take special care of it. Why the deer? Sheep know no other life, the king said. The deer left the open wilderness for us. So God says of the convert, who left family and home and came to Him.
Midrash Tehillim 146יִמְלֹךְ יְיָ לְעוֹלָם אֱלֹהַיִךְ צִיּוֹן לְדֹר וָדֹר הַלְלוּיָהּ.
Hashem will reign forever, your God, Zion, for generation after generation. Halleluyah.
Earlier the psalm spoke to the people listening. Here it turns to Zion and says "your God." Ibn Ezra: if God is like this, He is the one fit to be King. And the poet closes the way he began.
Ibn Ezra on Tehillim 146:10The Mishnah Berurah (a guide to daily Jewish law, about 1900) counts Ashrei and the Halleluyah psalms, through "Let every soul praise God," as the main part of Pesukei DeZimra. On how to say these songs he writes: skip no word and swallow none. Say them as if you were counting money.
Mishnah Berurah 52:4 and 51:20The Gemara tells how Potiphar's wife kept after Yosef in Egypt. When he refused her, she threatened him. "I will lock you in prison." He said: "Hashem frees the bound." "I will bend you over." "Hashem straightens the bent." "I will blind your eyes." "Hashem opens the eyes of the blind." All three answers are lines from this psalm. In the Gemara's telling, they are what a slave far from home says to someone who has power over him.
Yoma 35bThe word translated "nobles" here is nedivim. It can also mean generous people, who like to help. Midrash Tehillim (a collection of rabbinic teachings on Tehillim) reads it as a warning about family. A person who does no good himself should not rely on what his fathers did. Yishmael should not say, "Avraham is my father, he will save me." So what can you rely on? The Midrash answers: your own deeds. In the time to come nobody eats from what his fathers did. "Each one eats from his own."
Midrash Tehillim 146; Meiri and Malbim on Tehillim 146:3"His breath goes out, he goes back to his earth." Midrash Tehillim gives a picture. A leather bag is blown up, full of air, and stood on the ground. A man sees it and is afraid of it. Then he walks up and touches it. It falls over and the air goes out. "This is what I was afraid of? There was nothing in it." The Midrash names Sancheriv (the Assyrian king who attacked Jerusalem), Pharaoh and Haman. They cursed God, and they were air. Their breath left and their plans were lost.
Midrash Tehillim 146, on Tehillim 146:4Tehillim ends with five psalms that each open and close with the word Halleluyah. This is the first. In the Gemara, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi calls Halleluyah the greatest of the ten expressions of praise in Tehillim, because it holds God's name and praise together. The Rambam (Maimonides, Egypt, 1100s) writes that the Sages praised whoever reads from Ashrei to the end of the book every day. Rashi (France, 1000s) names only two of the five, psalms 148 and 150. The Baruch She'amar prayer has the Gemara behind this.
Pesachim 117a; Rambam, Laws of Prayer 7:12; Rashi on Shabbat 118bWhen you bow at a blessing in the Amidah, you bend at "Baruch" and you are standing straight again by the time you say God's name. The Gemara gives this rule in the name of Rav: when you bow, bow at "Blessed." When you straighten, straighten at the Name. Why there? Shmuel explains: because it is written, "Hashem straightens the bent." That is verse 8 of this psalm. Each of those bows acts this line out.
Berakhot 12a, with RashiThe last verse is "Hashem will reign forever, your God, Zion, for generation after generation. Halleluyah." You say it again later this morning. It is the last verse of Kedushah, which the minyan says aloud during the chazan's repetition of the Amidah. There it is introduced with the words "And in Your holy writings it is written." Here you meet it in its original place, as the last line of a psalm about who can be relied on.
Tehillim 146:10; Siddur Sefard, weekday Amidah, KedushahThe psalm sounds extreme. The prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) sounds harsher: "Cursed is the man who trusts in people." But that verse does not stop there. It ends: "and whose heart turns away from Hashem."
Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, Provence, around 1200) points to exactly that verse. If you do rely on a person, he writes, keep God as the main thing, because God is the one who puts it in a generous person's heart to help. Rescue belongs to God, and He brings it about through people. His example: the Babylonian exile ended through Koresh (Cyrus), a Persian king.
The psalm gives its own reasons. A human being "has no power to save." Ibn Ezra (Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra, Spain, 1100s) reads that as: he cannot even save himself. And when his breath leaves, his plans go with him. The Talmud Yerushalmi (the Gemara of the Land of Israel) adds that a human protector has power in one province and not in the next. Even someone who rules the whole world rules the dry land. Does he rule the sea?
So should you skip the doctor? Ibn Ezra comes closest to saying so. A person with an eye disease, or stuck in bed, he writes, "should not lean on a doctor." On the Torah's words "he shall surely heal," he limits doctors to wounds that can be seen on the outside.
Others say otherwise. Chovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart, by Rabbeinu Bachya ibn Pakuda, Spain, about 1080) has a whole section on trust. A person must work at staying healthy, it says, and fight illness in the usual ways, as that same verse commands. He just should not think the cure helps or harms without God's permission. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) rules that healing is a mitzvah, and that a doctor who holds back is like one who sheds blood.
So Radak and Chovot HaLevavot do not tell you to stop using people's help. They tell you not to forget who stands behind it.
Yirmiyahu 17:5,Radak and Ibn Ezra on Tehillim 146:3 and 146:8,Talmud Yerushalmi, Berakhot 9:1,Ibn Ezra on Shemot 21:19,Chovot HaLevavot, Gate of Trust, chapter 4,Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 336:1The psalm says it in the present tense: justice for the oppressed, bread for the hungry, prisoners freed, the blind seeing. You know that is not the whole picture. The commentators knew it too.
Radak says two things that help. First, he adds the same phrase to line after line: "in every generation." He reads these as things God does again and again, in each generation. He does not say that every prisoner in every generation walks out. Second, he says the list is also the story of the Jewish people in exile: oppressed, hungry, locked up. "Blind," he says, may be meant literally, or it can mean people in great trouble, because "trouble is like darkness and rescue is like light."
Midrash Tehillim moves it to the future. No suffering is as hard as blindness, it says, and when God comes to heal the world, He will heal the blind first. It also has a second reading. The blind are "these generations," who read and do not know what they are reading.
Radak ends up in the future too. On the last verse he asks, "And when will this be?" His answer: when Hashem reigns forever and the whole world recognizes that He is king. So for Radak, at least part of this is still ahead.
Then there is Yosef, in the first Story card. He answers a threat of prison with "Hashem frees the bound." The Torah says he was put in prison anyway, and that later Pharaoh sent for him and he was rushed out. The Gemara does not comment on this. It only shows Yosef saying the verse to the person threatening him.
None of these sources claims that every prisoner goes free today. The Ashrei prayer takes up the same question about hunger, in its second hard question.
Radak on Tehillim 146:7, 146:8 and 146:10,Midrash Tehillim 146,Yoma 35b,Bereishit 39:20 and 41:14Look at where the line sits. It is in a list of people God looks after: the oppressed, the hungry, the bound, the blind, the bent, strangers, orphans, widows. Almost all of them are on the list because of what they need. Only the righteous are there for something they did.
And a minute ago, in Ashrei, you said: "Hashem is good to all, and His compassion is on everything He made." So the davening itself does not limit God's care to the righteous.
Midrash Tehillim first says simply that they love God, so God loves them. Then it asks why, and answers: because being righteous is not inherited. A kohen is a kohen because his father was one. So is a Levi. If you want to be one and your father was not, you cannot. "But if a person wants to be righteous, even a non-Jew can." The righteous "volunteered on their own and loved the Holy One."
The Midrash goes straight on to the next words, "Hashem guards strangers." Ibn Ezra explains that strangers have no one to help them, because they come from another nation. The Midrash reads the word, gerim, as converts: people who left their family and their father's house and came to God. The note on that line tells its story of the king and the deer.
Not every line is this open. The same Midrash asks whether God gives strength to every orphan and widow, and answers: only if they are righteous. Ibn Ezra reads "loves the righteous" as protection. God guards them from being oppressed, hungry, bound, blind or bent.
So the sources pull two ways. There is care for anyone in need, and a particular love for people who chose it. What the Midrash insists on is that nobody is born into that second group, and nobody is born out of it.
Tehillim 146:7-9 and 145:9,Midrash Tehillim 146,Bamidbar Rabbah 8:2,Ibn Ezra on Tehillim 146:8-9Short ideas from the Chassidic masters, the Kabbalah and the Mussar teachers.
The psalm says "the God of Yaakov." The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) asks why. Why not the God of Avraham, or of Yitzchak? Its answer: when Yaakov ran from his brother, he did not rely on his father or on his mother. He left alone, with no money. As he put it later: "With my staff I crossed this Jordan." The one he relied on was God. He asked God for everything, and God gave it to him. Now reread the line "Do not put your trust in nobles."
בְּגִין דְּיַעֲקֹב לָא אִתְרְחִיץ בַּאֲבוֹהִי, וְלָא בְּאִמֵיהּ, כַּד עָרַק קַמֵּי אֲחוּי, וְאָזַל יְחִידָאי, בְּלָא מָמוֹנָא
Zohar, Parashat Vayakhel (2:198a)In the Story section, the Midrash reads the "nobles" as your forefathers. Rabbi Yaakov Leiner of Izhbitz (a Chassidic master in Poland, 1800s) explains the name: nedivim also means generous people. The forefathers did not take the reward for their good deeds, he says. They left it for their children. Even so, the psalm warns you not to lean on it. "Happy is the one whose help is the God of Yaakov" is a person who also serves God from his own side. Yaakov did not rely on the holiness he got from Avraham and Yitzchak. He always worked on himself.
אל תבטחו בנדיבים, היינו שאל תבטחו על קדושת אבות שהם יגעו עצמם בכל כחם בעבורך... אשרי שאל יעקב בעזרו, היינו שעובד השי"ת מצדו ג"כ
Beit Yaakov, Parashat Vayechi and Parashat VayishlachRebbe Nachman of Breslov (a Chassidic master who died in 1810) says it is hard to pray honestly in a room full of people if you need those people. For money, or just for respect. You start making moves for them: a gesture, a clap. Some are too embarrassed to fake it, so they talk themselves into thinking the gesture is sincere. He reads "as long as I live," word for word "in my life," as: a life that is mine. Someone who needs people, he says, lives off others, and that life is not his. When my life is my own, I can praise and pray in truth.
אֲבָל כְּשֶׁאֵינִי נִצְרָךְ לַבְּרִיּוֹת, וַאֲנִי חַי חַיִּים שֶׁלִּי, אֲזַי אוּכַל לְהַלְּלוֹ וּלְהִתְפַּלֵּל לְפָנָיו בֶּאֱמֶת
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Likutei Moharan I:66The psalm's word for "his hope" is sivro. The Zohar notes that with one dot moved it reads shivro, "his breaking," and says the righteous are willing to break themselves, all for God. Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) applies it this way. The sharper your moral sense gets, the more you see yourself exposed, and the more bitter it is that you are not yet who you should be. An honest person, he writes, accepts this with love, because it is what refines a person. About that, he says, this verse was written.
כל מה שהחוש המוסרי מתחדד, האדם רואה את מערומיו... בכל זאת משכיל כל ישר לב לקבל באהבה תכונה זו, המזקקת את האדם
Rav Kook, Orot HaKodesh, volume 3; Zohar, Parashat Vayakhel (2:198a)The Birkot HaShachar prayer told Rebbe Nachman's idea of the one good point. He learns it from another verse, Tehillim 37:10, and then reads this verse with it. Be'odi means "while I am still here." He reads it as "with my od," my little bit more: the bit of good still in me. When a person sees how far he is from God, he usually cannot pray at all. He cannot even open his mouth. So he looks for one good point in himself, and then another. Gathering them, Rebbe Nachman says, is how melodies get made. That is the word azamra: I will make music.
בְּעוֹדִי דַּיְקָא, הַיְנוּ עַל יְדֵי בְּחִינַת הָעוֹד שֶׁלִּי, שֶׁאֲנִי מוֹצֵא בְּעַצְמִי
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Likutei Moharan I:282The practical laws. For a final ruling, ask your rav.
Not on the short list. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) has a latecomer say Baruch She'amar, Ashrei, Tehillim 148 and 150, then Yishtabach. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short law guide, 1860s) and the first Chabad Rebbe's code of law add: with more time, the other Halleluyah psalms, this one included. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary, early 1900s) notes that the siddur of Rabbi Shalom Sharabi (a Jerusalem Kabbalist, 1700s) gives a role to all five. If so, he writes, all are needed.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 52:1; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 14:7; Shulchan Aruch HaRav 52:1; Kaf HaChaim 52:4Because authorities disagree about what the core of this section is. Rashi names two psalms, 148 and 150. The Rambam names everything from Ashrei to the end of Tehillim, this psalm included. The Story section has both. The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code, about 1900) sets the two views side by side. Even on the Rambam's view, he suggests, some psalms come first when there is no time for all of them.
Rashi on Shabbat 118b; Rambam, Laws of Prayer 7:12; Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 52:2This psalm closes with Halleluyah and the next one opens with it. The Ashrei prayer explains the pattern: a verse ending in Halleluyah was attached to Ashrei so that, as Rav Amram Gaon (Babylonia, 800s) put it, Halleluyah would be "chained" after Halleluyah. The Aruch HaShulchan reads that as a practice: the closing Halleluyah and the next opening one are said together, with no break. "Some do so," he writes. For the rules about interrupting, that spot is still the border between two units. See the next card.
Tur, Orach Chaim 51; Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 51:1 and 51:7At the end of the psalm, if you can. The Shulchan Aruch is stricter about the middle of a psalm than about the gap between two. The Mishnah Berurah (a law commentary, about 1900) counts each psalm here as one unit, from Halleluyah to Halleluyah. He quotes Derech HaChaim (a siddur with laws, by Rabbi Yaakov of Lissa, early 1800s): if you must stop and the end is near, hurry and finish first. The Aruch HaShulchan: at least finish the verse. The Baruch She'amar and Yehi Chevod cards cover what you may stop for.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 51:5; Mishnah Berurah 51:12-13; Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 51:6-7Yimloch, the last verse here, is the third thing the congregation answers in Kedushah, after Kadosh and Baruch kevod. The Mishnah Berurah reports that several later authorities do not count Yimloch as the core of Kedushah. That has a practical side. He rules that someone in the middle of Shema or its blessings who hears Kedushah answers only Kadosh and Baruch, "and not Yimloch." About these psalms he writes simply that you may stop for Kedushah.
Mishnah Berurah 125:1, 66:17 and 51:8; Siddur Sefard, weekday AmidahThe Shulchan Aruch rules that these psalms are not said in a rush, only calmly. The Beit Yosef (Rabbi Yosef Karo's commentary on the Tur, a law code from the 1300s) quotes an older rebuke of people who race through the verses: they cut God's praise short to get to their own requests. "Is there a ruler who would accept that?" The last Halacha card on Mizmor LeTodah covers what to do when the whole congregation is racing.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 51:8; Beit Yosef, Orach Chaim 51The Kaf HaChaim quotes Sefer Chasidim (a book of piety and custom from medieval Germany) on this: people who say these psalms out loud, with a sweet tune, and get words wrong because they do not know the verses, their prayer and song are accepted like the aroma of an offering. God rejoices over such a person and says, "How he sings before Me, as best he knows." Of people who cannot pronounce some letters it says: the Creator, who examines hearts, asks only that a person's heart be whole with Him.
Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 51:47; Sefer Chasidim 18אָמְרָה לוֹ: הֲרֵינִי חוֹבַשְׁתְּךָ בְּבֵית הָאֲסוּרִין! אָמַר לָהּ: ״ה׳ מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים״. הֲרֵינִי כּוֹפֶפֶת קוֹמָתְךָ! ״ה׳ זוֹקֵף כְּפוּפִים״. הֲרֵינִי מְסַמָּא אֶת עֵינֶיךָ! ״ה׳ פּוֹקֵחַ עִוְרִים״.
She said to him: I will lock you in prison. He said to her: "Hashem frees the bound." I will bend you over. "Hashem straightens the bent." I will blind your eyes. "Hashem opens the eyes of the blind."
לא יבטח אדם במעשה אבותיו. לא יאמר ישמעאל אברהם אבי יש לי מחלקו והוא מצילני... על מה תבטחו על מעשיכם.
A person should not rely on what his fathers did. Yishmael should not say: Avraham is my father, I have a share in what is his, and he will save me... What should you rely on? On your own deeds.
משל למה הדבר דומה לנאד שהוא נפוח ומלא רוח ועומד בארץ מי שהוא רואה אותו מתיירא ממנו סבור שהוא כלום... אמר אותו האיש מזה הייתי מתיירא לא היה בו כלום אבל הרוח היא המעמדת אותו.
What is this like? A leather bag that is blown up, full of air, standing on the ground. Whoever sees it is afraid of it and thinks it is something... The man said: this is what I was afraid of? There was nothing in it. Only the air was holding it up.
אם יבטח באדם ישים העיקר האל יתברך שיתן בלב האדם הנדיב בעזרו... כי לה׳ לבדו התשועה והוא יסובבנה על יד בני אדם
If he relies on a person, he should make God the main thing, since God puts it in the generous person's heart to help him... Rescue belongs to Hashem alone, and He brings it about through people.
מֶלֶךְ בָּשָׂר וְדָם יֵשׁ לוֹ פַּטְרוֹן שׁוֹלֵט בְּאֵיפַּרְכִיָּא אַחַת וְאֵינוֹ שׁוֹלֵט בְּאֵיפַּרְכִיָּא אֲחֶרֶת. אֲפִילוּ תֵימַר קוֹזְמוֹקְלָטוֹר שׁוֹלֵט בַּיַּבָּשָׁה שֶׁמָּא שׁוֹלֵט בַּיָּם. אֲבָל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא שׁוֹלֵט בַּיָּם וְשׁוֹלֵט בַּיַּבָּשָׁה.
A king of flesh and blood has a protector who rules in one province and does not rule in another. Even if you say he is a ruler of the whole world, he rules the dry land. Does he rule the sea? But the Holy One, blessed be He, rules the sea and rules the dry land.
אֲבָל אִם מְבַקֵּשׁ אָדָם לִהְיוֹת צַדִּיק, אֲפִלּוּ גּוֹי יָכוֹל הוּא, שֶׁאֵינוֹ בֵּית אָב... אֵינָן בֵּית אָב אֶלָּא מֵעַצְמָם נִתְנַדְּבוּ וְאָהֲבוּ לְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, לְפִיכָךְ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אוֹהֲבָם
But if a person wants to be righteous, even a non-Jew can, because it does not go by family... They are not a family line. They volunteered on their own and loved the Holy One, blessed be He. That is why the Holy One, blessed be He, loves them.
הַמִּתְפַּלֵּל, כְּשֶׁהוּא כּוֹרֵעַ כּוֹרֵעַ בְּבָרוּךְ, וּכְשֶׁהוּא זוֹקֵף, זוֹקֵף בַּשֵּׁם... אָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל: מַאי טַעְמָא דְרַב, דִּכְתִיב: ״ה׳ זוֹקֵף כְּפוּפִים״
One who prays: when he bows, he bows at "Blessed," and when he straightens, he straightens at the Name... Shmuel said: What is Rav's reason? Because it is written, "Hashem straightens the bent."
ומי הן העורים הדורות האלו שהולכות בתורה כעורים... כולם קורין ואין יודעין מה הן קורין שונין ואין יודעין מה הן שונין.
And who are the blind? These generations, who walk in the Torah like blind people... They all read and do not know what they are reading. They study and do not know what they are studying.
ומתי יהיה זה כשימלוך ה׳ לעולם אלהיך ציון לדור ודור
And when will this be? When Hashem reigns forever, your God, Zion, for generation after generation.
עַל הָאָדָם לִבְטֹחַ בַּבּוֹרֵא בָּזֶה וּלְהִשְׁתַּדֵּל בְּהַתְמָדַת הַבְּרִיאוּת בַּסִּבּוֹת אֲשֶׁר מִטִּבְעָן זֶה וְלִדְחוֹת הַמַּדְוֶה בְּמָה שֶׁנָּהֲגוּ לִדְחוֹתוֹ כְּמוֹ שֶׁצִּוָּה הַבּוֹרֵא יִתְעַלֶּה... וְרַפֹּא יְרַפֵּא
A person must trust the Creator in this, and work at staying healthy by the means that naturally keep him so, and push off illness in the usual ways, as the Creator commanded: "he shall surely heal."
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