Siddur › Tikkun HaKlali › Before the ten psalms
TT Siddur · Tikkun HaKlaliהֲרֵינִי מְזַמֵּן
Getting your mouth ready to praise, just before the ten psalms.
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.
Right before the ten psalms begin (many siddurim print it before Baruch She'amar):
הֲרֵינִי מְזַמֵּן אֶת פִּי לְהוֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵּל וּלְשַׁבֵּחַ אֶת בּוֹרְאִי.
I am hereby calling up my mouth to thank, to praise, to extol my Creator
I am hereby calling up my mouth to thank, praise and extol my Creator.
Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) says speech has two sources. Everyday talk comes from the impressions that settle in a person's soul. Holy speech comes from a higher source of knowing. So before praying, he writes, a person should invite his mouth to be ready for holiness.
Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on Hareini Mezamenלְשֵם יִחוּד קוּדְשָא בְּרִיךְ הוּא וּשְכִינְתֵּהּ בִּדְחִילוּ וּרְחִימוּ עַל יְדֵי הַהוּא טָמִיר וְנֶעְלַם בְּשֵׁם כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל.
For the sake of the unification of the Holy One, blessed is He, and His Presence, in awe and love, by means of that One, hidden and concealed, in the name of all Israel.
Rav Kook says this joining comes from the highest source, above every name and every thought we can put into words. The Tallit prayer tells where this sentence comes from and which rabbi objected to it.
Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on Leshem YichudThe second sentence is the Leshem Yichud. The Kaf HaChaim (a major book of Sephardic law from Jerusalem, early 1900s) says the custom spread to say it before every mitzvah and prayer. It also warns: say it with real thought, since someone used to it can end up saying it with no thought at all.
Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 60:11Mezamen has the same root as zimun, the invitation to say Grace After Meals together. The Mishnah says three who ate together must "zamen." Rabbi Natan of Breslov (the main student of Rebbe Nachman) calls the zimun "a preparation and an invitation" to the mitzvah. This line uses the same word for your mouth.
Mishnah Berakhot 7:1; Likutei Halakhot, Grace After Meals 4:21Lehodot, lehallel, leshabeach: to thank, to praise, to extol. The Mishnah lists nine such verbs for what we owe God for the miracles of Egypt, and the Haggadah repeats the list at the Seder. Siddur Sefard has the list again, with one word added, in Nishmat (the long praise said on Shabbat morning). Our line uses its first three, in the same order. No source we found says where our line took them from.
Mishnah Pesachim 10:5; Siddur Sefard, Shabbat Morning, Pesukei Dezimra 97The Tikkun HaKlali (ten psalms taught by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov) prints 25 words. The Siddur Sefard and Machzor Sefard texts we checked print 23: they leave out "in awe and love" (bidchilu urchimu). In Siddur Sefard the line comes right before Baruch She'amar, the blessing that opens the main morning psalms. We could not find a source that names who first wrote it or when. In the texts we could search, it appears only in prayer books and in Rav Kook's commentary on them.
Tikkun HaKlali 1-2; Siddur Sefard, Shabbat Morning, Pesukei Dezimra 71-72"For the sake of uniting the Holy One and His Presence, through the hidden and concealed one, in the name of all Israel" is a template, not just a line for this spot. Siddur Sefard has it before Kiddush Levanah (blessing the new moon), right after "I am ready and prepared" to do that mitzvah. The Kaf HaChaim (a major work of Sephardic law from Jerusalem, early 1900s), citing earlier books, says to whisper it while walking up to the Torah. The Tallit prayer opens with a related, longer formula.
Siddur Sefard, Kiddush Levanah 4; Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 141:40The Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Chassidut, who died in 1760) is quoted on this ending. When you only think about doing a mitzvah, he says, nothing opposes you. Once you speak it, forces that oppose mitzvot can get a grip, because they draw from the place of speech. So the formula lifts the mitzvah up to "the hidden and concealed one," out of their reach. This is his explanation, in a collection of his teachings.
Sefer Baal Shem Tov, Parashat Matot 2:3-4Fair question. This line praises nothing. It only says you are about to. Of the sources we could open, only Rav Kook comments on this line directly. The others write about the moment before prayer, and about similar lines.
The Mishnah says a person should not stand up to pray except from a serious frame of mind. It adds that the early pious ones would wait an hour first, so they could aim their hearts at God. The Rambam (Maimonides, died 1204) turns this into a rule: clear your mind of other thoughts, picture yourself standing before God's Presence, and sit a little before praying in order to do it.
Few of us wait an hour. Nothing in these sources says this line was written to replace that wait. But it gives you a place to take a short one: you stop and say in words what you are about to do.
Rav Kook starts with the word "mouth." Speech has two sources, he writes. Ordinary talk comes from the pictures the world prints on your mind. Holy speech comes from the source of all knowledge. So a person about to begin praying must give his mouth an invitation fitting for holiness, so that his words flow from the holy source.
Rabbi Natan of Breslov writes about a similar line, "I am ready and prepared," said before mitzvot. We cannot do mitzvot properly by our own strength, he says. What we can do is say aloud that we want to. That wanting is the main thing, and then, with God's help, the mitzvah gets done.
Not every rabbi liked adding statements before a mitzvah. The Tallit prayer tells how one leading rabbi argued that a mitzvah with a blessing needs only its blessing. This line is a later custom, not a requirement from the Gemara.
Mishnah Berakhot 5:1,Rambam, Laws of Prayer 4:16,Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on Hareini Mezamen,Likutei Halakhot, Grace After Meals 4:21,Noda BiYehuda, first edition, Yoreh Deah 93The sources know this problem. The Shema says Hashem is one. The Rambam writes that God is one in a way nothing else is: not a group of parts, and not a body that can be divided. If so, what is there to unite?
Start with the word Shekhinah. It comes from the root "to dwell." In the Torah, God says, "Let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them." In the Gemara, the Presence means God close by, in the world.
The Sages picture that Presence as sharing Israel's story. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a sage of the Mishnah, says that wherever Israel was exiled, the Presence went with them, and in the redemption God will return with them. In the Mishnah, Rabbi Meir says that when a person suffers, the Presence says, "My head is heavy, my arm is heavy," so to speak, and he concludes that God hurts even over the blood of the wicked, and all the more over the righteous.
The kabbalists take that picture further. Rabbi Elazar Rokeach (a kabbalist and rabbi of Amsterdam, whose commentary on the Mishnah was printed there in 1740) writes that in exile there is a separation between the Holy One and His Presence, and only at certain times is there a union. So every mitzvah, and all Torah study, should aim to unite them, using the words of our line: "through the hidden and concealed one."
Rav Kook describes it differently. For him the union is between holiness that flows from a source without limits and holiness that marks limits (times and places, actions and thoughts, wishes) inside which the divine light moves.
So the Rambam says God cannot be split, and the siddur speaks of God and His Presence being joined. The sources we could open do not stop to reconcile the two in so many words. What they give is the picture: a Presence close enough to share the exile, and a prayer that asks for the distance to close. The question stays partly open.
Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah 1:7,Shemot 25:8,Megillah 29a,Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:5,Maaseh Rokeach on Mishnah, Nazir 29,Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on Leshem YichudThe last words are "in the name of all Israel." You are not saying it for yourself alone. You are saying it for the whole Jewish people, even if you are alone in a room.
Jewish law cares about this. The Rambam writes that the prayer of the community is always heard, even if there are sinners in it, because God does not despise the prayer of the many. So a person should join himself to the community, and not pray alone when he can pray with it. In Pirkei Avot, Hillel says: do not separate yourself from the community.
These words go back at least to the Arizal. When Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote down an instruction of his teacher, the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the kabbalist of Tzfat who died in 1572), to say a statement of intent before doing a mitzvah or giving charity, "in the name of all Israel" was already part of it. The Tallit prayer tells that story.
Rav Kook adds a thought about the whole line, the joining of God and His Presence through the hidden one. He writes that not every individual can be gripped by this lofty idea, only the nation as a whole.
The Hareini Mekabel prayer tells a related instruction from the Arizal: before praying, decide to love every Jew as yourself.
None of these sources promises you will feel it at that hour. They describe a choice about who you are speaking for, made in words.
Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer 8:1,Pirkei Avot 2:4,Rabbi Chaim Vital, Sha'ar Ruach HaKodesh 16:3,Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on Leshem YichudShort ideas from the Chassidic masters, the Kabbalah and the Mussar teachers.
Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl (an early Chassidic master in Ukraine) writes that no mitzvah or decent word is small when it is done with real life in it. Even if you see nothing happen and do not know how to have the right intentions, when you put your whole life-force into your words or into what you do, something is joined together above. Just do what you can, and do it as one with all of Israel and the righteous, tying your thought to theirs. That, he says, is why we say "in the name of all Israel" before a mitzvah.
ואינו יודע לכווין כוונה מכל מקום כשמשים כל החיות בהדבור או בדבור שעושה נעשו יחודים למעלה
Me'or Einayim, Parashat BeshalachRabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk (a Chassidic master in Poland in the 1700s) left a short list of daily habits. Number four: whatever you do, Torah, prayer or a mitzvah, get used to saying, "I am doing this for the sake of uniting the Holy One, blessed is He, and His Presence, to give pleasure to the Creator." Get used to saying it from deep inside the heart. Over time, he promises, you will feel a great light in saying it.
הריני עושה זאת לשם יחוד קודשא בריך הוא ושכינתיה לעשות נחת רוח להבורא יתברך שמו
Noam Elimelech, Tzetel Katan 4The Shelah (Rabbi Yeshayahu Horowitz, a kabbalist who died in 1630) uses this formula outside of prayer too. Before you go out to buy and sell, he writes, say: "I am going to do business honestly," and then a short form of this line, for the sake of uniting the Holy One and His Presence through the hidden and concealed one. Then pray for blessing and success in your work. In the same passage he quotes Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (a kabbalist of Tzfat) and the Gemara: the first question asked in judgment is, did you deal honestly?
אני הולך לישא וליתן באמונה, לשם יחוד קודשא בריך הוא ושכינתיה על ידי ההוא טמיר ונעלם
Shelah, Masechet Chullin, Torah OhrThe practical laws. For a final ruling, ask your rav.
Rabbi Ben-Zion Uziel (Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, died 1953) writes that the line "for the sake of uniting the Holy One and His Presence" (Leshem Yichud) was not set by the sages who set the blessings and prayers. So each community says it in the wording it got from its own teachers. The Tallit prayer tells why the Noda BiYehuda (Rabbi Yechezkel Landau of Prague, 1700s) argued against saying it.
Mishpetei Uziel, volume 3, Orach Chaim 2; Noda BiYehuda, first edition, Yoreh Deah 93The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, written around 1900) says a person should not aim at divine names and unifications in prayer. He should pray plainly, to understand the words. The exception is someone who knows Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and how to do it with heart and awe; otherwise, he warns, it can spoil a great deal. He cites a responsum telling of a sage who said that after studying Kabbalah he prays like a day-old baby. He does not discuss this line itself.
Mishnah Berurah 98:1The Ashrei prayer gives the rule about pausing before you stand for the Amidah, and how short that pause can be. One more point belongs here. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to the Shulchan Aruch, the main code of Jewish law) writes that before praying, a person should think about how exalted God is and how lowly a person is, and put the pleasures of this world out of his heart.
Rema, Orach Chaim 98:1לפיכך אנחנו חייבין להודות. להלל. לשבח. לפאר. לרומם להדר. לברך. לעלה ולקלס
Therefore we are obligated to thank, praise, extol, glorify, exalt, honor, bless, raise high, and acclaim.
שלשה שאכלו כאחת חייבין לזמן
Three who ate together are obligated to invite one another to say Grace.
בִּרְכַּת הַזִּמּוּן, דְּהַיְנוּ נְבָרֵךְ שֶׁאָכַלְנוּ מִשֶּׁלוֹ שֶׁהוּא הֲכָנָה וְהַזְמָנָה לְהַמִּצְוָה שֶׁל בִּרְכַּת הַמָּזוֹן
The zimun, that is "Let us bless Him of whose food we have eaten," is a preparation and an invitation to the mitzvah of Grace After Meals.
שיפנה את לבו מכל המחשבות ויראה עצמו כאלו הוא עומד לפני השכינה לפיכך צריך לישב מעט קודם התפלה כדי לכוין את לבו
He should clear his heart of all thoughts and see himself as if standing before the Presence. So he should sit a little before the prayer, to aim his heart.
צריך האדם, בהיותו נגש להחל דבורו בקדש, בתפלה לאל חי, להזמין את פיו הזמנה הראויה לקדושה
A person who comes to begin his speech in holiness, in prayer to the living God, must invite his mouth with an invitation fitting for holiness.
שבכל מקום שגלו שכינה עמהן... מלמד שהקדוש ברוך הוא שב עמהן מבין הגליות
Everywhere they were exiled, the Presence was with them... This teaches that the Holy One returns with them from among the exiles.
קאי על זמן הגלות שיש נזירה ופרישה בין קב"ה ושכינתיה, רק בזמנים ידועים שיש יחוד וזיוג ביניהם
It speaks of the time of exile, when there is a separation between the Holy One and His Presence, and only at certain times is there a union between them.
כשאדם מחשב לעשות מצוה, עדיין אין לו פחד מקטרוג הקליפות כי אין להם אחיזה במחשבה, רק כשהאדם מדבר בפיו לעשות מצוה, אז יש לו קטרוגים לבטל המצוה
When a person only thinks of doing a mitzvah, he has no fear of the opposing forces, because they have no hold on thought. Only when he speaks it with his mouth do they have accusations to cancel the mitzvah.
ההתאחדות הזאת באה ממקור העליון, המתעלה מכל הערכה של שם ובטוי של רעיון ומחשבה
This union comes from the highest source, which is above every measure of name and expression, of idea and thought.
אין הקדוש ברוך הוא מואס בתפלתן של רבים. לפיכך צריך אדם לשתף עצמו עם הצבור
The Holy One does not reject the prayer of the many. Therefore a person should join himself to the community.
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