Mizmor 95

A Call To Sing - Creating an Attitude of Gratitude

By Molly Morris

The words that open the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service come from Psalm 95. As Jews step away from the work week and the preoccupation of our minds with the necessities of material pursuits, we turn to this Psalm that exhorts us, “Come, let us sing to G-d, greet Him with thanksgiving. For in His power are the hidden mysteries of earth” (95: 1- 4). The section continues, “Come let us prostrate ourselves and bow, let us kneel before G-d” (95:6).

Radak describes prostration as completely stretching oneself out on the ground, while bowing involves the head and upper body, and kneeling is with the lower body. Surely, asks Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, the order of this verse seems pragmatically backward. One cannot prostrate oneself until one has first bowed and then kneeled. So, Hirsch understands the reference to prostration to be figurative rather than literal. Prostration, says Hirsch, is an attitude that needs to precede an action. Radak further comments that this psalm is forward-looking – to the Messianic time when we will have a level of understanding of G-d that we can’t even imagine today.

This idea of a progressive, continuous path to bringing in Shabbat, and preparing ourselves for Messianic times gives us a blueprint of sorts to personal growth and drawing ever closer to G-d. Start somewhere – sing to G-d, say thank you – how hard can that be? The more we do so, the more we develop an attitude that allows us to acknowledge G-d’s power and His connectedness to us. The more we do that, the deeper will be our understanding and appreciation of G-d’s power. The deeper our understanding, the more naturally we will kneel before Him, and readily sing His praises. And around again in a spiral drawing us closer to the center.

Each recitation of this psalm on erev Shabbat, and each Shabbat that we experience a hint of the Messianic days to come, draws us progressively closer to G-d, and to the time when, as Radak says “we will praise the Almighty for the wonders He wrought during the epoch of Messianic redemption.”

And it starts with a call to sing