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| Psalm 148* (taken from The Schottenstein Edition of The Book of Psalms with an interlinear translation, which was edited by Rabbi Menachem Davis and published in 2001 in Brooklyn, NY by Mesorah Publications, Ltd.) |
What's weird here? The psalm mentions all of creation by parts. That's not weird, though. Lots of prayers do that. (Well, it's rare that I see just about every day of creation represented or implied in one prayer, but you've probably read more prayers than I have. Feel free to comment and point out others!) What is weird, to me, is that inanimate objects are praising God. Angels, I get. "קדוש, קדוש, קדוש" ("holy, holy, holy," ). Birds, I can buy. Chirp, chirp, I guess. Maybe water. If you told me water, I'd listen closely. But mountains? Hills? Something else must be going on. (For all of them, not just the mountains because where do you draw the line to decide what can praise God in the "normal" sense and what can't?) How can mountains praise God? Just by existing. (Because that's what they do, mainly, right?) So, how can mountains (or anything else) praise God just** by existing?
יהללו את שם יהוה, כי הוא צוה ונברו. ויעמידם לעד לעולם, חק נתן ולא יעבר
They will praise the name of God (יהוה), because he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever; He gave a decree and it will not pass (transgress/cross).
[verses 5 and 6 above]So, they praise God by just existing because their existence calls back to creation, by which I mean that their existence stands as a witness to and proof of creation. That they exist at all, that they are still here, and by their very nature they praise God. Those mountains sure are mountainy today, aren't they? And the people. And the angels. And the waters. And the birds. Etc. What keeps them looking to fresh, so like themselves? They are filled with the letters that God spoke to create them. And they, like the rest of the world, are created anew each day. Can you see them brimming with letters that define them? The letters within them praise God. They are in God's handwriting.
This begs the next question. If there are so many letters, can we see them? So I started looking in the easiest place to find. me. (Of course, people are tricky because we can praise God ourselves and were created with the intention of such a relationship, but we also have letters written in us.) I've tried to show the letters I found with hand prints. I have concluded, however, that while they are fun to make, they are hard to read. I've finger painted over some to help, but you should probably only use them to get an idea and then look at your own hands for clarification.
The first letter was easy: ה, with the numerical value 5. My palm has a ה on it and 5 fingers stretching out. (Totally cheating!) This is easiest to see with your left hand, but the right hand is legit. I used it for my hand stamp. 
The next was even more cheating: ג, or 3. I held up 3 fingers with my right hand. (You should hold up 3 fingers, rather than look at my print, because ג is hard to get a print of but easy to see.) Then I dropped my hand upside down. (Also totally cheating!)
I couldn't find anything else for a while. And then I decided to do math. Gematria math. Yeah that's right--the bogus kind. I took two ג's, decided that constituted an order of magnitude shift, and called it 30 or ל. This one is also better with your own hands. Hold up 3 fingers, or a ג, with each hand. Close the legs of the ג's, and touch your left thumb to your right pointer. There's the ל.
With 30 out of the way, I decided to go for 300 (or ש). I mean, why not, if I was already doing bogus math? So, I doubled my ל as best I could, holding up another ג on each hand and went from 30 to 300. (See picture for diagram of where the 4 ג's are.) Lo and behold, I had the ש that the priests formed with their hands when blessing the Jews. (I did many hand prints and picked the best to share. Every single one had a divot in the paint where I was taught the eye of God looks out from between the middle and ring fingers during the priestly blessing. I don't know where I got that idea, to be totally honest because I can't find it on the internet, and everyone seems to have a different superstition for not looking at the priests during the blessing, so it's probably not true. Or rather, there seems to be some consensus that something is true, but I'm not sure what. Welcome to superstition. It was sort of uncanny, though, but we are two steps into the realm of bogus, and nothing else about my hand prints is clear, so it's probably nothing.) If you are unsatisfied with this post, you are not alone. I wasn't satisfied either. For satisfied, you will have to wait for next week because I am against typing too much or making anyone read too much at once. I suspect one reason that you are dissatisfied is that you, like I, were hoping to see the letters that spell our name and define our nature, like Adam found in each of the animals when he named them. Not some random palm letters. I wish I could find those letters! I can't. Maybe we can find them together, though. Feel free to post ideas. (Actually something just came to me about אדם (Adam) and איש (man), but I'll save it for next time. I still can't find any animals, though. Let's work on that together, if it's okay with you. I'm not sure I've explained myself very well, so don't worry if you feel like you want to wait until next time before throwing out some ideas.)
*I sort of get a kick out of the fact that this is psalm number 148 or (in Hebrew numbers) קמח (flour). As in ''אם אין קמח, איו תורה. אם אין תורה, אין קמח" ("If there is no flour, there is no Torah. If there is no Torah, there is no flour.") from Pirkei Avot:2:17. Of course, in verse 18, the translation I just read calls gematria (number games like this one) the condiments, "not the true meat," of halachah (Jewish law). But I still get a kick out of it. That's what condiments are for, right? Tasty.
**I was taught once that "just" is a magical word. You can tell a person is asking for a miracle when they use the word "just." You might hear people ask for miracles like, "Can you just make 100 copies and hang them up around the building this afternoon?" (Can you picture the poor Shmoe carrying a mound of paper around and tacking/taping them one by one to the walls?) Another miracle request might sound like, "Can you just deliver the food (for 250 people) at 11:30am (half an hour after your restaurant opens)?" (I hope you tip high for your miracles.) Listen for the word "just" in your life. Just existing might be a miracle.
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