Tehillim 90

Repentance was made before the world

The Gemara (the rabbis' discussions built on the Mishnah) lists seven things created before the world, among them the Torah, the Temple, and repentance. For repentance it quotes this psalm: before the mountains were born (verse 2), then "You bring a human back until he is crushed, and You say, Return, children of Adam" (verse 3). Midrash Tehillim (a collection of rabbinic teachings on the psalms) has Rabbi Abahu say: how great repentance is, that it came before the creation of the world.

Why God is called "the Place"

Verse 1 calls God a ma'on, a dwelling place for us. Midrash Tehillim asks which way it works: does God depend on the world, or the world on God? A sage says we would not know until Moshe explained it. God told him, "Here is a place with Me" (Shemot 33:21), so the world depends on God, not the other way. Rav Huna adds that this is why God is called HaMakom, "the Place." You may know it from the Haggadah: "Baruch HaMakom."

A man, or a god?

The title calls Moshe ish ha-Elokim, "man of God." Midrash Tehillim asks: if he is a man, why God? If God, why a man? One answer: before Pharaoh he was called Elokim, because God told him "I have made you a god to Pharaoh." When he fled from Pharaoh he was called ish, a man. Another answer: on the mountain he did not eat or drink, and then he was called Elokim. Back down, eating and drinking, he was called ish.

Moshe lived to 120. So why does he say 70?

Moshe died at 120 with his eye still sharp (Devarim 34:7). Ibn Ezra (a Spanish commentator, 1100s) raises the obvious question: how could he write "seventy"? One answer he gives: Moshe speaks in the voice of every generation. Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, Provence, around 1200) says Moshe describes what is true for most people. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot (the Mishnah's book of wise sayings) uses the same numbers: seventy for old age, eighty for gevurah, strength.

Who wrote it? The clues in the text

Radak says David found this psalm already written, with a tradition that it was Moshe's. Ibn Ezra gives two clues from the text. It speaks as "we," which is not David's way. And it opens with the word ma'on, "dwelling place," which also appears in Moshe's last blessing: "The God of old is a dwelling place" (Devarim 33:27). The Mizmor LeTodah page tells about the eleven psalms of Moshe.

Why Moshe's psalms are not in the Torah

Midrash Tehillim says Moshe said eleven psalms, starting with this one, and he said them the way a prophet speaks. So why are they not written in the Torah? The Midrash answers: these are words of Torah, and those are words of prophecy, and we do not break up one with the other.

Seventh of the ten, with a hint about salt

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (a Chassidic master in Ukraine, 1772 to 1810) matched his ten psalms to ten kinds of song in Tehillim, pointing to lists in the Gemara and the Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah). This psalm is the seventh, and its word is tefillah, prayer. He gave each word a hint from a verse. For tefillah it is Iyov 6:6: "Can bland food (tafel) be eaten without salt?" Tafel sounds like tefillah. In that lesson he does not explain the hint. The Tikkun opening page has the rest of the story.

A poor person's prayer comes before Moshe's

The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) says there are three people whose words the verses call a "prayer": Moshe, David, and a poor person. Moshe's prayer is one like no other person's, and David's is like no other king's. But the Zohar says the prayer of the poor person comes before Moshe's, before David's, and before every other prayer in the world. Now read the title of this psalm again.

תפלה למשה איש האלהים, תפלה דא דלית כגיניה בבר נש אחרא... הוי אימא תפלה דעני. תפלה דא, קדים לתפלה דמשה. וקדים לתפלה דדוד, וקדים לכל שאר צלותין דעלמא

The way back was ready before the world

The Gemara learns from this psalm that repentance was created before the world. Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) builds on that idea in his commentary on the siddur. The way back lies deep inside real life, he writes, and it is ready before any mistake happens. So nothing in the world is as certain as repentance.

בעומק ההויה של החיים המציאותיים מונחת התשובה, מפני שהיא קדמה לעולם, וטרם שבא החטא כבר מוכנת התשובה ממנו. על כן אין דבר בטוח בעולם כמו התשובה

A prayer for cravings sized to your strength

The Mei HaShiloach (teachings of Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Izhbitz, a Chassidic master who died in 1854) hears the start of this psalm as Moshe's prayer about Korach (who led a revolt against Moshe), a man whose own heart carried him away. "Mountains," he says, means powers and desires. He reads "teach us to count our days" as a request: that God give a person strength to overcome his craving, and never give him a desire bigger than his strength to handle it.

ולא יתן לו תאווה גדולה שכחו יקטין שלא יוכל להתגבר על תאוותו רק יתן לו התאווה לפי כחו

The morning will show what your days were worth

This psalm says life is over in a moment. Rav Kook says that feeling lasts only until God's kindness shines on life like morning light. Then the real worth of the whole past shows. Each day and what it left behind becomes a vessel that holds lasting joy. What looked like it was passing and gone turns out to be seed for lasting righteousness. Now read "satisfy us in the morning" again.

שבענו בבקר, בעת ההזרחה של האורה האמתית... שלא דברים כלים הם מה שרשמו החיים, אשר נראו לפנינו בשטחיותם, כאילו הם עוברים ובטלים, כי־אם דברים שמהם יש תבואה רבה לזריעת צדקה נצחית

Ask for more than relief

Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Rebbe of Piaseczno in Poland, killed in the Holocaust in 1943) gave a talk in Warsaw on Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) of 1939, about the line "Come back, Hashem. How long? And relent." If God only takes back the harm, he says, we stay where we were, as low as before the trouble. So the next verse asks for more: "Satisfy us in the morning with Your kindness, and we will sing out and rejoice all our days."

עד מתי תהא כל התשובה רק בהנחם על עבדיך על הרעות והצרות שמצירים אותנו, שאז נשארים שוב באותו מצב הנמוך, שבענו בבוקר חסדך ונרננה ונשמחה בכל ימינו

Where else do I say this psalm?

On Shabbat morning. It is one of the extra psalms added before the main morning prayer on Shabbat, and Siddur Sefard prints it there. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to the Shulchan Aruch, the main code of Jewish law) writes that people add these songs on Shabbat, each place by its own custom. The Levush (Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, who died in 1612), as the Kaf HaChaim reports, says these psalms speak of creation, finished on Shabbat, or of the Torah, given on Shabbat.

I got to shul late on Shabbat. Do I have to say it?

Not if time is short. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, written around 1900) quotes the Chayei Adam (a code of daily law by Rabbi Avraham Danzig of Vilna, early 1800s): on Shabbat, skip the added psalms and say the weekday order, because the weekday ones are said every day. If there is time, say this psalm and two others first, since they come before the rest. Nishmat (the long Shabbat praise after the Song at the Sea) is a must, and it is better to skip psalms than to skip it.

I skipped it on Shabbat morning by mistake. Do I go back?

No. The Rema writes that if people left out the songs added for Shabbat, we do not make them go back. The Mishnah Berurah explains that this covers every addition made for Shabbat, even Nishmat, and that a song left out does not have to be said after the Amidah (the main standing prayer). The one exception is the paragraph "La'el asher shavat" in the blessings before Shema: if you missed it, you say it after the Amidah, without a blessing.