Halleluyah: Tehillim 148

David asked for the hail to be moved

One opinion in the Gemara (the rabbis' discussions built on the Mishnah) counts seven heavens. One stores the snow, hail, storm and steam. Then the Gemara objects: this psalm lists fire, hail, snow, steam and storm wind under "Praise Hashem from the earth." The answer, in the name of the sage Rav: David asked for mercy and brought them down. He told God, "Evil does not live with You." Rashi (the classic commentator, France, 1000s): they are kinds of punishment, and it was not fitting to keep them where God dwells.

Why people come last

Angels, sun, sea creatures, hail, mountains, trees, animals, birds. Only then kings, and after them, you. Bereishit Rabbah (the classic Midrash on the book of Bereishit) noticed. Rabbi Shmuel: in praise too, people come only at the end. Rabbi Simlai: people come after the animals and birds in the praise, just as they came after them in creation. The same Midrash adds: if a person is worthy, he is told, you came before the angels. If not, he is told: a fly came before you. A gnat came before you.

A law that does not break

Verse 6 says God gave the heavens a law that will not pass. What law? Rashi: one light serves by day and the other by night. Ibn Ezra (a Spanish commentator who died in the 1160s) reaches for astronomy. Saturn goes around twice in 59 years, and each of the others has its own fixed law. He then quotes the prophet Yirmiyahu, who turned that regularity into a promise: only if these laws stopped would Israel stop being a nation.

The palace sings first

Why does the psalm start in the sky? Midrash Tehillim (a collection of rabbinic teachings on Tehillim) gives a picture. Everyone praises a king, but the people of the palace go first and the people of the country go after them. And on earth, who goes first? Whoever is biggest. So the great sea creatures open the second half. The Torah itself calls them "the great" ones, on the fifth day of creation. Next come the depths. To this day, the Midrash adds, no one knows how many depths there are.

Down, then back up

The small note printed above this psalm echoes Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, Provence, around 1200), nearly word for word: the poet starts with the great world and ends with the small one. Radak then tracks the earth half step by step: mountains, trees, animals, people. Malbim (a rabbi and commentator of the 1800s) sees one shape in the whole psalm. The praise comes down from the highest heavens to the lowest point. Then it climbs: stone, plant, animal, human. The last line is the top: "the people close to Him."

Why "praise the name" twice?

"Let them praise the name of Hashem" comes twice, once to close the heavens and once to close the earth. The second time adds: "because His name alone is beyond reach." Midrash Tehillim asks why say it again. A human king has officers who carry the kingdom with him, so they share his honor. God has no deputy. No one else does His work, so He is praised alone. Radak hears "alone" as a message to the kings and judges just named. Nothing great on earth lasts. In a short time it is gone. So they have no reason to be proud.

You already know the ending

The last two verses are the ones said when the Torah is carried back to the ark. The prayer leader says, "Let them praise the name of Hashem, because His name alone is beyond reach." Everyone answers with the rest of the psalm. And the first six verses, about the sun, moon and stars, open Kiddush Levanah in Siddur Sefard. That is the monthly blessing said outdoors on seeing the moon. The blessing itself comes from the Gemara, and it sounds like verse 6: "He gave them a law and a time, so that they do not change their task."

Translating is not enough

Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Rebbe of Piaseczno in Poland, killed in the Holocaust in 1943) says to pay attention to what the words of prayer mean. Then he warns about one way of doing it, using this psalm. You can translate in your head: hallelu, praise; from the heavens. That, he writes, wakes up nothing. Mean instead that you are speaking to the world right now and ordering it to praise God. You are made of clay, he says, but a Jew is an officer of the world and can command all of it, from angels to crawling things and grass.

יְכַוֵּן שֶׁהוּא מְדַבֵּר עַתָּה אֶל הָעוֹלָם... וּבְכוֹחוֹ לְהַכְרִיז וּלְצַוּוֹת לְכָל הָעוֹלָם, לָעֶלְיוֹנִים וְתַחְתּוֹנִים, מִן מַלְאֲכֵי מַעְלָה עַד רֶמֶשׂ וְעַד עֵשֶׂב הָאָרֶץ

Oil and a wick

How does hail praise anyone? Rabbi Yitzchak Aizik Epstein of Homel (an early Chabad Chassidic thinker who died in 1857) asks it straight: rocks and plants are not able to praise. He answers from the word hallelu, which he ties to a Hebrew word for a lamp shining. Oil and a wick do nothing by themselves, he says. Once a person lights them, they give light to everyone. When someone with a clear heart says these words and means them, God's light shows in the sea creatures and the depths, even to people who could not see it there before.

כמו נר השמן ופתילה שאינן בני פעולה לפעול איזה דבר מצד עצמן לעיני האדם אך כשידליקם האדם באש המאיר הנה אז השמן והפתילה פועלים הילוי אור לעיני כל אדם

A praise nobody else can give

Why does the psalm name everything one at a time? The Maharal of Prague (a major Jewish thinker who died in 1609) answers in a sermon for the Shabbat before Pesach: each kind is named by itself because each one gives a praise of its own, unlike any other. Then he says what the human ones are. A king praises God when, with all his power, he humbles himself before God and does what He wants. A prince, when he does not rob people. A judge, when he fears God while he judges. And young men: when they do not sin, and win against their own urges.

ומזכיר הפסוק זה אחר זה כל מין בפני עצמו... מפני שכל אחד נותן קילוס מיוחד

The ending flips the order

The psalm goes heaven first, then earth. Near the end it switches: "His splendor is over earth and heaven." Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (an early Chassidic master who died in 1809) puts this line next to a verse in Bereishit with the same order: "on the day Hashem God made earth and heaven." He reads both as the goal of creation. In the future earth will come before heaven, he says, and the point of it all is that those above receive from what is done down here. God's splendor, as he reads the line, is there when earth comes first.

וזהו תכלית הבריאה שהעליונים יקבלו ממעשי התחתונים. וזהו הודו על ארץ ושמים

What the young say without knowing it

"Old people with the young." The Gemara says that after the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to fools and children. Its example: a sage overheard a fool in the street, understood that the words were about him, and acted on them. Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Izhbitz (a Chassidic master who died in 1854) says this verse hints at that Gemara. The young praise God without knowing what they are saying. The old are the ones who understand it from them. And only the person it is meant for understands.

שֶׁהַזְּקֵנִים יָבִינוּ מֵהַנְּעָרִים שֶׁגַּם הַנְּעָרִים מְהַלְלִים אַף בְּלֹא יְדִיעָתָם

I'm late. Is this one of the psalms I keep?

Yes, until time gets tight. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) names it: a latecomer says Baruch She'amar, Ashrei, this psalm, Tehillim 150, then Yishtabach. With less time, this psalm is skipped too, and Tehillim 150 stays. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short law guide, 1860s) ranks them the same way. The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code, about 1900) records a view that the core is Tehillim 150 alone: Rav Natronai Gaon (Babylonia, 800s). The Tehillim 146 cards have the other views and the full order.

Where else do I say the end of this psalm?

When the Torah goes back into the ark, as the Story section tells. In Siddur Sefard, whenever the Torah is read, the prayer leader says the first half of verse 13, Yehalelu, and the congregation answers with the rest of the psalm. Machzor Vitry (a prayer book from France, about 1100) has the same. Ta'amei HaMinhagim (a book of reasons for customs, from Lemberg) cites a reason: people bow in honor of the Torah, and this verse makes clear that it is not a god.

The prayer leader stops mid-verse and we finish it. Is that allowed?

An old question. The Gemara (Megillah 22a): a verse Moshe did not split, we do not split. The Magen Avraham (a 1600s commentary on the Shulchan Aruch) reports that the brother of the Rokeach (Rabbi Elazar of Worms, about 1200) questioned this custom: Yehalelu cut in two when the Torah is put away. The Rokeach gave a reason. The Magen Avraham is not satisfied: the Gemara forbids it outright. He also quotes the Kol Bo (a medieval law book): in Ketuvim, the part of Tanach with Tehillim, splitting may be allowed.

Is this psalm said anywhere outside Shacharit?

Yes: under the moon and, rarely, the sun. In Siddur Sefard, Kiddush Levanah, the monthly blessing on the new moon, opens with this psalm's first six verses, up to chok natan velo ya'avor. The Ba'er Heitev (a 1700s digest printed with the Shulchan Aruch) brings this from the Arizal (the 1500s Kabbalist of Tzfat). Once in 28 years there is a blessing on the sun. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch: say this psalm before it. Peninei Halakhah (a modern law guide by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed): the next one is 23 Nisan 5797, in 2037.

Mountains and the deep are in this psalm. Is there a blessing for seeing them?

Yes. The Shulchan Aruch: on seas, rivers, mountains, hills and deserts, say oseh ma'aseh vereishit, "who makes the work of creation." Not every mountain: only unusual ones that show the Creator's power. "The Great Sea," the one crossed to reach the Land of Israel, has its own blessing. The Mishnah Berurah (a law commentary, about 1900): many authorities say it is the ocean. He adds: only if thirty days have passed since you last saw it. Peninei Halakhah: on a routine drive, only if the view catches your attention.

The psalm calls on fruit trees. Do they get a blessing?

Once a year. The Shulchan Aruch: someone who goes out in Nisan and sees trees in bloom blesses God, who "left nothing lacking in His world" and created good creatures and good trees for people to enjoy. The Mishnah Berurah: only fruit trees, and blossoms, not just leaves. Nisan, he adds, is when trees usually bloom. Another month counts too. Siddur Sefard asks for at least two trees. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary, early 1900s) gives an order in which this whole psalm is said before the blessing.

The psalm calls on wild animals. Is there a blessing at the zoo?

For two animals, yes. The Shulchan Aruch: on seeing an elephant or a monkey, say meshaneh habriyot, "who makes creatures different." Peninei Halakhah: at a zoo that can be two blessings, unless you see both at once. How often? As the Mishnah Berurah reads the Shulchan Aruch, only the first time. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice): some say every thirty days. The Mishnah Berurah's ruling: after thirty days, without God's name. Peninei Halakhah: for these two, the full blessing again.