Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M ASM ' lull ' h of lament thai pulls al the heartitringa I the reader. Finally, there are the didactic psalms which give advice concerning righteous conduct and speech, and which caution against improper be- havior. These psalms are entirely universal in their teachings, and appeal to all men. Running all through ihe Psalms, however, whe- ther they be hymns of praise, didactic psalms, or elegies, is the voicing of the Psalmist ' s intense love for God. This love, this outpouring of hrs soul before God, is, indeed, the motif of the entire work. The poet powerfully portrays the vivid con- sciousness of God ' s all-sustaining, guiding, supreme power. God is, to him, the Father who loves and pities His children, the Mighty One who lifts up the lowly and defeats the arrogant and whose glorious kingdom endures forever; the Holy One whose glory the Heavens and all His handiwork declare. God is the Teacher of mankind who instructs mortals how to live. He is the Merciful Judge who, though He should be rightfully indig- nant, yet tempers justice with mercy. He is the Guardian of the poor and the pious, the Hope and Trust of those who pray to Him, the Cre- ator of a vast and wonderful universe, and the Guiding-Force of the world. All this and more God is to the poet and in fervent, intense emotion, the singer cries out: All my bones shall say: ' Lord, who is like unto Thee ' . In joy he proclaims: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. In ardent devotion he ex- claims: But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. Piously he sings: I have set the Lord always before me. (An expression that has become the guiding principle of the Jew. He sets it up before his prayer-table in the synagogue and home.) With intense love and passion he pro- fesses: As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God! In an honest attempt to voice the beneficent deeds of God, the Psalmist beautifully recapitu- lates: Bless the Lord, O my soul; And forget not all His benefits; Who forgiveth all thine iniquity; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from the pit Who cncompassHh thee with loving kindrwu and tender men ie . Who latisfieth thine ' .hi . v with good tl So that thy youth ii renewed like the eagle. v w Who made heaven and r.irth. The sea, and all thai in them is; Who keepeth truth forever; Who execiltetb justice for llx- oppressed; Who giveth bread to the hungry. The Lerd looseth the prisoners; The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind ; The Lord raiscth up them that arc bowed down ; The Lord loveth the righteous ; The Lord prescrvcth the strangers; He upholdeth the fatherless and the widow; But the way of the wicked He makcth crooked. In manners such as these, the poet literally pours out his soul before God. And thus even to the present day, the Jewish people continues to pour out its soul before its God. still reciting the same psalms in a plaintive melancholy tune, for with the Psalmist, the Jews believe that the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart ... He will not despise. Indeed, the Psalmist sings at times no! of his own sufferings, but of those of his people as well. Feeling their pain, their sorrow, he exclaims to the Almighty, pleading: Thou hast counted my wanderings; Put Thou my tears into thy bottle. Fervently he prays for them and implores: Nay, but for Thy sake are we killed all the day : We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Awake, why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Arouse Thyself, cast not off for ever. Truly the Psalmist knew not only his own soul. but that of his people as well. He sings, too, of the greatness of the Torah. which, to him. is the only balm to the wounds of the Jew: Unless Thy law had been my delight.

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Thirtv MASMID devote themselves to the holy duty of the study of the Torah, fulfill their obligation by reading the Psalms. His chevrai Tehillim (Psalm-saying Societies) meet at appointed occasions in order to recite the endearing verses. The Psalms form an integral part of his life. Interwoven in the fabric of the Jew is the Book of Psalms — that portion of his Testament which best fulfills his yearning for the Divine Being. The Psalms form part of the Hagiographa, or third main division of the Hebrew Canon; and number one hundred and fifty. They were writ- ten, most of our Jewish commentators contend, by many authors. These sages believe that, although King David wrote at least half of the Psalms, and is generally credited with the authorship of the Book, other individuals took an active part in their composition. These others were, they say: Adam, Melchi-Zedek, Abraham (called Ethan in the Psalms), Moses, Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph, the three sons of Korah, Solomon and Ezra. Other authorities contend that David wrote all of them when prohetically inspired. Yet, whoever did write them, one fact is very evident aft er reading them. They speak with such intense religious fervor that one is convinced that only the greatest of Jewish singers and divinely-inspired souls could have composed them. The form in which the Psalms are written is quite elaborate. The acrostic or alphabetical ar- rangement of sentences is frequently employed. At times every sentence of a psalm begins with a different letter of the alphabet. At other times every half sentence or every other sentence is alpha- betically arranged. And at still other times, the scheme is employed with eight sentences taken as a unit. Metaphors and other figures of speech are fre- quently used. There is too, all through the Psalms, beautiful rhythm of thought and parallelism of phraseology. Refrains occur often. Indeed, the entire Book of Psalms seems to have but one refrain: For His mercy endureth forever. No rhyme is used, however, though the verses are gen- erally written as couplets. Some of the figures are indeed striking. Speak- ing of the words of God, the Psalmist exclaims: The words of the Lord are pure words; As silver tried in a crucible on the earth, re- fined seven times. Mortal men are pictured as sheep that are ap- pointed for the nether-world, with Death as their shepherd; and human existence is described thus: As for man, his days are as grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. And the place thereof knoweth it no more. The glory of God is proclaimed in this fashion: O Lord my God, Thou art very great; Thou art clothed with glory and majesty. Who coverest Thyself with light as with a gar- ment, Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain ; Who layest the beams of Thine upper cham- bers in the waters, Who makest the clouds Thy chariot, Who walkest upon the wings of the wind; Who makest winds Thy mesengers, The flaming fire Thy ministers . . . There are many more powerful figures of speech, but these will suffice to point out the beauty of expression that was the Psalmist ' s. The content of the Psalms is usually presented as falling under three heads. First, there are the hymns of praise which glorify God, His power and loving-kindness, as manifested in nature and in His dealings with the people of Israel. These hymns celebrate, too, the Torah, Zion, and the Davidic kingdom. They express gratitude to God for help extended, and refuge found, in times of danger and distress. They are all beautifully pro- claimed, and speak with intense earnestness and feeling. Then there are the Elegies which give voice to feelings of grief at the spread of iniquity, at the triumph of the wicked, at the sufferings of the just and at the seeming abandonment of Israel by God. In this division are included, too, the psalms of supplication to God for amelioration of conditions and the restoration of Israel ' s glory, the psalms of repentances for sins committed un- knowingly, and the penitential hymns in which guilt is confessed. All these are recited with a cry

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Thirtv-Tn-i MASM1D I should then have perished in mine affliction. Torah is the only hope of the Jew, he earnestly feels ; it alone can save him, restore his soul, rejoice his heart, and enlighten his eyes. Joyously he lauds the Torah: Oh how love I Thy law! It is my meditation all the day. . . . How sweet are Thy words unto my palate! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. . . . Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And a light unto my path. . . . And even of Zion, fair in situation, the joy of the whole earth, does he sing. Of the land of the Jews he exclaims: Glorious things are spoken of Thee, O City of God . . . The Most High Himself doth establish Thee. Feeling the intense love the Jews hear the Holy Land he proclaims: For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and love her dust. It is no wonder, then, that the Psalms still hold the Jew under their holy spell ; his feelings, yearnings, and hopes are very vividly expressed by them. He needs them ; they are part of his Torah and part of him. He cannot help but respond with pulsating heart to their heavenly strains. They are life itself to him, his beautiful, dynamic religion put into speech — into words and music that resound, and will continue to resound forevermore, in our ears and in the ears of all men. THE SONG OF LIFE Life is a love song that falls on our ears, Mingled with pathos and heart-rending tears, Sad is the melody, short it endures, To its vast audience, dolor insures ; Fate, the maiden who plays on the lyre, Offers no solace to soothe passion ' s fire; Breathless we listen — the melody wanes — Slowly it leaves us, when die life ' s refrains. Bernard Milians.