Lamenatzeach: Tehillim 20

Nineteen psalms, counted as eighteen

Nineteen psalms come before this one, but the old sources count eighteen. The Yerushalmi (the Gemara compiled in the Land of Israel, about 1,600 years old) asks why the Amidah, the standing prayer, has eighteen blessings. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi answers: they match the eighteen psalms up to "May Hashem answer you." If someone says there are nineteen, tell him Tehillim 2 is not counted. The Gemara in Berakhot agrees that Tehillim 1 and 2 are one psalm.

What you say to a friend after he prays

Abudarham (a Spanish commentary on the prayers, about 1340) quotes Midrash Tehillim (a collection of rabbinic teachings on Tehillim) to explain why this comes at the end. When a person finishes praying, you tell him: "May your prayer be answered." David did the same. After eighteen psalms of praise he said "May Hashem answer you." The Yerushalmi adds that a student should wish his teacher the same, that his prayer be heard. So the psalm works as a wish for someone who has just prayed.

Who is "you"? The commentators disagree

The voice keeps shifting between "you," "we," and "I." Rashi has David praying for his army, then speaking for himself in verse 7 once the rescue comes. Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, a commentator from southern France, around 1200) says each Israelite says "Now I know." Ibn Ezra (a Spanish commentator who died in the 1160s) lists more options, including David speaking to someone else, or to himself, or, as some say, a psalm about the Messiah.

It starts with "answer" and ends with "answer"

Read the first and last verses. The Hebrew for "may He answer you" is ya'ancha. The last verse says "may He answer us," ya'anenu. It is the same verb, with "you" turned into "us." Midrash Tehillim notices that the psalm begins with answering and ends with answering. It opens with a wish for someone else and closes with the same wish for all of us.

The graveyard that means the city is near

Midrash Tehillim explains "on the day of trouble" with a picture. A father and son are walking. The tired son asks where the city is. The father says: when you see the graveyard in front of you, the city is close. In the same way, God tells Israel that when troubles cover them, that is the moment they are being redeemed. The midrash says this to Israel as a people.

A map of the end of days

Abudarham gives a second reason it sits just before Uva LeTzion, which opens "A redeemer comes to Zion." He reads the psalm as being about the end of days. "Day of trouble" matches the "time of trouble" in Daniel. "Help from the sanctuary" is the Messiah, a king from David's family. The "chariots" are Gog and Magog, the enemy in Yechezkel's vision of a war at the end of days. That is one reading. The plain sense is a battle in David's time.

Skipped on happy days, and on Tisha B'Av

Abudarham says it is left out on Shabbat and Yom Tov: it is a psalm of pleading, and those are days of joy, not trouble. Shulchan Aruch HaRav (by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad) says the same of Erev Yom Kippur. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who recorded Ashkenazi custom) skips it on a short list of days. The Hebrew note in Siddur Sefard has that list. The English note in the same siddur, like Sephardi custom, skips it whenever Tachanun is skipped. Tisha B'Av is on every list.

The place to say what is tight in your heart

The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) walks through the morning prayers. At this point it says: from here on, a person should say what is tight in their heart, with the words "May Hashem answer you on the day of trouble." It compares this to a pregnant woman sitting in distress. Then it ends with a line from Ashrei, which you just said: "Happy are the people who have it like this." Now read the psalm as if it were about you.

מכאן ולהלאה לימא ב"נ עאקו דלביה, הה"ד יענך יי' ביום צרה. כעוברתא דיתבא בעאקו

The psalm is the shape of a cry

The Zohar describes a doe (a female deer) about to give birth. When her time comes she cries out, one voice after another, up to seventy voices. The Zohar says that matches the number of words in this psalm, "May Hashem answer you on the day of trouble," and calls the psalm this mother's song. God hears her and is there with her. Now say the psalm slowly, one word at a time.

געאת ורמאת קלין, קלא בתר קלא, עד שבעין קלין, כחושבן תיבין דיענך יי' ביום צרה, דאיהי שירתא דעוברתא דא. וקב"ה שמע לה

Why is trouble called a day?

The Sefat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, a Chassidic master of Ger, in Poland, who died in 1905) asks why the verse says "day of trouble." A day is named for light, and the Torah calls light good. A Midrash compares this verse to a woman in labor. He explains: every trouble that comes on the Jewish people is only for the good, like the pain of a woman in labor, which gets her ready for the birth. Every new thing that has to be born among the Jewish people, he says, comes as a kind of birth. Now read "day of trouble" again.

כל צרה שלא תבוא על בנ"י היא רק לטובה כצרת היולדת שהיא הכנה אל הלידה

The horse and the rider

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses." The Sefat Emet quotes this verse to show that the strength of the Jewish people is in the mouth, in Torah. Then, using another verse about horses (Habakkuk 3:8), he says the body is like a horse and the soul is its rider. Let the body give way to the soul, and rescue comes on its own. Other nations, he writes, win by the strength of their bodies. Israel wins in proportion to how much it sets its own force aside. Now read "some trust in horses" again.

הגופים כסוסים. והנשמה הרוכב. וצריכין לבטל הגוף אל הנשמה וממילא בא הישועה

Which days do we skip it?

Our siddur's note lists Rosh Chodesh, Chanukah, Purim, the day before Pesach, the day before Yom Kippur, Tisha B'Av, and in a leap year the 14th and 15th of the first Adar. It adds a house of mourning. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, written around 1900) gives the same list, and so does the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short guide to daily Jewish law from the 1860s).

Is it skipped on every day without Tachanun?

It depends on the custom. The Mishnah Berurah says Tachanun (the pleading prayer after the Amidah) is dropped on more days than this psalm is, such as Tu BiShvat, Tu B'Av and Lag BaOmer, and this psalm is still said. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) quotes the Peri Chadash (a 1600s commentary) and others who skip it on every day without Tachanun. He calls that the custom of Sephardic Jews, not Ashkenazim, and says each keeps its own. Our Nusach Sefard siddur gives the shorter list.

It is a prayer for hard times. Why skip it on happy days?

Abudarham (a commentary on the prayers, Spain, around 1340) gives the reason for Shabbat and Yom Tov: this is a psalm of pleading that opens "May Hashem answer you on the day of trouble," and those days are days of joy. Siddur Rashi (an early book of prayer customs from the school of Rashi, the great French Torah commentator) says the same of Purim. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the law code of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe) says it of the day before Yom Kippur: it is not a day of trouble.

Is it skipped in a mourner's house?

Yes. Our siddur says so, as does the Magen Avraham (a 1600s commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, the main code of Jewish law). The Mishnah Berurah explains, about Tachanun, that this means the seven days of shiva (the first week of mourning), and that when the mourner prays in a synagogue the congregation still says Tachanun. The Eliyah Rabbah (a commentary from about 1700) leans toward saying this psalm even in a house of mourning, with perhaps only the mourner skipping it. The Kaf HaChaim says follow local custom.

Mourning is hard times. Why skip a prayer for hard times?

The sources give reasons for Tachanun, and later authorities apply them here. The Beit Yosef (Rabbi Yosef Karo's work on the Tur, an earlier law code) links mourning to a festival through the verse "I will turn your festivals into mourning" (Amos 8:10), so like a festival it has no pleading prayers. The Levush (Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, died 1612) gives another: strict judgment already hangs over a mourner, so we do not add to it. The Knesset HaGedolah (Rabbi Chaim Benveniste, 1600s) asks how that fits this psalm.

I came late and they are already in Uva Letzion. Do I skip this?

No, you say it afterward. The Mishnah Berurah rules: if the congregation has begun Ve'atah Kadosh (the Kedushah in Uva Letzion) and you have not yet said Ashrei and Uva Letzion, say Ve'atah Kadosh with them. Then say Ashrei and Lamenatzeach, and the two verses that come before Ve'atah Kadosh. The reason is that this Kedushah is better said with the congregation than alone.

Can the gabbai make announcements here?

It is better not to. The Mishnah Berurah says an announcement should be made before the leader begins Ashrei, and not between Ashrei and Lamenatzeach. All the more so not while the congregation is saying Ashrei or the Kedushah of Uva Letzion, because it breaks their concentration. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says to take great care to say that Kedushah with concentration. A gabbai is the person who runs the service.