How good and pleasing it is to talk about giving thanks on the week of Parshas Tzav, which deals with shalmei todah. There are four who are required to give thanks by saying Birkas Hagomel: someone who traveled across the sea or through a desert, a prisoner who was set free, and a person who was ill and recovered. The common denominator is that each of them was in danger and went through it safely.
Many times in sefer Chovos Halevavos Rabbeinu Bachyai speaks about giving praise and thanks to Hashem. As an introduction to Shaar Habitachon, he writes that one should “thank Him exceedingly.” Giving thanks is the essence of a Jew. When Dovid Hamelech asks Hakadosh Baruch Hu to fight his battles for him (Tehillim 35), the Midrash relates that Hakadosh Baruch Hu asked Dovid Hamelech: You want Me to fight your battles for you? And what will you do for me? And Dovid responded, “All by bones shall say: Hashem, who is like You?” What Dovid was expressing was: I praise You, Hashem, with all my limbs.
This is a major chiddush. We used to think that it was possible to praise and thank Hashem only using our mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, and throat; and also the heart. It is known that a person gives thanks with all his heart. But this midrash teaches us that for every single mitzvah we do, the inner meaning of the mitzvah is giving thanks to Hashem. How can we thank Hashem for creating hands for us? By doing mitzvos using our hands. How can we thank Him for creating our legs? By doing mitzvos with our legs; and so on. Our 248 limbs are equivalent to the 248 positive mitzvos. With every mitzvah we do, we are thanking our Creator! How uplifting and exciting it is to approach each mitzvah with this thought. Even the smallest mitzvah, and even a mitzvah that does not require action but rather requires abstinence from something that is forbidden – because that is what the Creator yisbarach commanded us; this too is considered praise to Hashem.
Dovid Hamelech said: With the hairs on my head, I perform the mitzvah not to cut those hairs that are at the corners of my head, the peyos; and I don tefillin. With my beard I perform the mitzvah not to destroy one’s beard, and with my eyes I look at the tzitzis and perform the mitzvah of “and you shall see them.” With my right hand I write and show the reasoning of the Torah. With my left hand I tie the tefillin shel yad. My nails – I examine them by the light of the havdalah candle. With my left foot I start taking three steps back following Shemoneh Esrei. With my knees I hold a baby so he can have his bris milah....
This is obviously only a small part of the long list of special praise that Dovid Hamelech would sing to the Creator of all worlds. It’s a wonder that Dovid is the na’im zemiros Yisrael, meaning he was the greatest singer of Hashem’s praises, through song and unique verbal expression, and yet he speaks of the praise that is intrinsic to all of his limbs, not only his mouth.
We know that there are all types of Hebrew expressions connoting praise for Hashem, such as hallel, shevach, hodayah, ha’aratzah, and kilus. Kilus means praising Hashem down to the finest details, with much depth. When Dovid wanted to be mekaleis and to state in detail all the great things that Hashem did for him, he said: I will be mekaleis with all my limbs, which Hakadosh Baruch Hu created; as we say in our davening, “...they [all my limbs] will thank, bless, praise, glorify, and exalt You.” The mere fact that they exist and function at all times announces that there is a Creator Who made them, and delving into the wonders of their creation and functioning will inspire a tremendous feeling of thanks in us, until “all my limbs shall say: Hashem, who is like You?”
The Zohar Hakadosh teaches that this type of praise – “All my bones shall say, Hashem, who is like You?” – is greater than Shiras Hayam, when Am Yisrael said, “Who is like You among the eilim, Hashem?” This is because when they praised Hashem at the sea, they first said three words and afterward pronounced the Name of Hashem, while here, first we say the Name of Hashem, and afterward we add “who is like You?” And this special, exalted praise will be sung in the future, very soon, at techias hameisim, when all those bones will come back to life.
May Hashem yisbarach help us merit to sing His praises and to see with our own eyes His great chassadim, to think about and delve into them and discover more and more details worthy of our thanks, and to offer a korban todah in the Beis Hamikdash, very soon!
