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Orchard of Delights
God is good, His kindness endures forever, and from generation to
generation is His faithfulness.
This psalm of thanksgiving is found in the section of the Morning
Service entitled Pesukei Dezimrah (Verses of Song). The entire
section is suffused with a joyous and grateful sense of appreciation
for the beautiful world God has given us. In the Amidah, Judaism’s
quintessential prayer, acknowledgment and thanksgiving are
interwoven, especially in the concluding blessings:
We gratefully thank You, for it is You Who are God,
our God and the God of our forefathers for all eternity;
our Rock, the Rock of our lives, Shield of our salvation
are You from generation to generation. We shall thank
You and relate Your praise – for our lives, which are
committed to Your power and for our souls that are
entrusted to You; for Your miracles that are with us
every day…. Everything alive will greatly acknowledge
You, Selah! And praise and bless Your great name
sincerely, forever, for it is good. O God of our salvation
and help, Selah! The beneficent God, Blessed are You,
God, Your name is “The Beneficent One” and to You it
is fitting to give thanks.
The Sages instituted the practice of reciting 100 blessings a day.
They derived this custom from a derash (a homiletic interpretation)
of the following verse: “And now Israel, what does God your God
require of you, but to fear [be in awe] of God, your God, to walk
in all His ways and to love him” (Deuteronomy 10:12). Employing
a play on words, the Sages noted that the phrase, “what does
God your God require of you,” begins with the Hebrew word mah
(what). They read this word as me’ah (100); thus, changing the
verse’s meaning to “one hundred does God your God require of
you.” Since every blessing is essentially an expression of gratitude
and thanks for God’s kindness, the 100 daily blessings encourage
a Jew to constantly recognize how grateful he or she should be to
God.
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Vayikra
£The Creation of the World, the Ten The Creation of the World, the Ten
££The Creation of the World, the Ten
Crowns, and the T
Crowns, and the T
Crowns, and the Ten Utterancesen Utterancesen Utterances
A new perspective on the connection between the small alef of
Vayikra and Rosh Chodesh Nisan, discussed in the precious section,
emerges if we place it in the context of the Talmudic debate over
which month the world was created in: Tishrei, the month in which
Rosh Hashanah, the New Year of years falls, or Nisan, the month
in which Pesach falls and which is the New Year of the months
(Rosh Hashanah 11a). Both sides make numerous arguments, but
the Talmud reaches no definitive conclusion. Rabbeinu Tam, a later
commentator, explained the underlying unity of both opinions: the
world was created in potential in Tishrei and in actuality in Nisan.
This sheds a totally new light on the significance of Rosh Chodesh
Nisan, as according to this explanation the erection of the Tabernacle
occurred on the same day in the calendar that God created the
world!
Indeed, Rosh Chodesh Nisan’s “ten crowns,” the ten rituals first
performed on the day the Tabernacle was erected, are a manifestation
of the ten utterances through which God created the world. This
correspondence is alluded to by Vayikra’s (“and He called”) being,
quite literally, an utterance. Serving God gives us the strength and
creative ability to renew ourselves again and again, thus connecting
our service of God with the power of creation itself.
Furthermore, building on this confluence between creation and
the Tabernacle, the mystical tradition teaches that the Tabernacle’s
construction and contents were intended to reflect the upper spiritual
worlds. On Rosh Chodesh Nisan, God clarifies the offer He made at
Mount Sinai: “And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a
holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people were
passive, but in the Tabernacle, they took an active role in partnering
with God in the creation and maintenance of the world, and even in
influencing the upper worlds. The service that God invited Moses and
all Israel to partake in on the day the Tabernacle was inaugurated is
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