Psalm 119, longest of all psalms, includes 176 verses- organized alphabetically. But it’s not just size that matters and sets this one apart - it’s also what the focus is about. While most of the psalms praise God in as many ways as possible - this one, using the alphabetical form with eight verses per letter - celebrate our wisdom tradition and the words composed of the combinations of letters - as the way to honor the divine mystery in the world. It’s actually quite a radical notion.
As the biblical scholar Dr. AJ Berkovitz writes:
“ Psalm 119 does not praise God. Instead, it praises God’s laws and precepts. Nearly every line contains the word “Torah,” or its synonyms. This poem, which contains no identifying title, was likely composed in a world where individuals approached God through the study of texts and not by directly encountering Him – a world similar to ours.
In other words, Psalm 119 might be among the latest poems in the Psalter, written after the Exile (586 BCE), when text-production and text-study became the defining anchor of Jewish experience. Instead of encountering God in the desert, we manifest Him before us through carefully reading and analyzing Scripture.“
It isn’t just through the study of Scripture that Jews in the post-temple world started to search for the sacred, and connect with the divine. The words of the Psalms and other biblical texts made it into the liturgy - the many pages of our many prayer books.
One of the verses from today's psalm actually covers both the focus on the study of words of Torah - and the use of blessings to be more present in our lives:
בָּר֖וּךְ אַתָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֗ה לַמְּדֵ֥נִי חֻקֶּֽיךָ׃
“Blessed are You, O ETERNAL One;
Teach me Your laws.”
Ps.119:12
This is one of only two times in the Hebrew Bible that includes the familiar formula ‘Blessed are You’ - referring to God in the second person. It’s likely where we got it from, and this became the foundation of many of our blessings.
In Talmudic times, this verse was often used a blessing recited before studying Torah.
And at some point it also became an ‘emergency blessing’ for times on which, without much thinking, on auto-pilot, one begins to recite a blessing with the first three words -- Blessed Are You -- but then forgets what the blessing is or what the intention was all about. In order not to utter these holy words in vain, Jewish law suggests that we use this verse as back-up - good to use no matter what -- blessed are you -- for teaching me how to handle any and every situation… (I remember being taught this verse as this emergency backup whenI was in first or second grade.)
There is one more unique feature in this longest psalm - it has an elaborate structure - focusing eight times, with eight different verses, on each of the Hebrew alphabet. Imagine it as a Menorah with eight branches, lighting the way.
Why eight, and why the importance of using this method of Alphabetical acrostics?
Prof. Berkowitz explains:
“..acrostic poems were pedagogical. They were easy to memorize. Ancient educators used such poems in teaching children to read and recognize the alphabet. ..It is likely that Psalm 119 was also used for educating the youth of ancient Israel. The poem itself, after all, praises teaching and learning. What better way to socialize children to love and live by God’s Torah than by having them learn and memorize the alphabet through a poem that praises Torah study?”
I wasn’t taught the whole psalm by heart, but I was given the gift of a single verse to store for when I want to praise the legacy, the wisdom and the tools that help us make sense of our messy lives, and pause for gratitude, respect, awe and presence. We get to praise our teachers - people and traditions, words and books, images and gestures.
We often forget or neglect to bless before we take a bite, read a book or meet another person -- yet, poems like this one, and blessings like the one we have so many of us are gifts that keep on giving: The present of being present. Blessed are you, for being part of this perpetual present.
Maybe these daily blessings will also help us focus on what matters and bit by bit help lift each other up and achieve peace?
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