#washyourhands #cleanhands #psalm24 #psalms #tehillim #sayingkaddish #wordshavewings #cleanhandscleanheart #sayingkaddish #dailypsalms
Every morning of the week during the Shacharit prayer there is a Psalm of the day.
Part of this blog is to understand how different pieces of the liturgy fit into the service.
For those of you looking for more detailed information here is something that I found on how the Psalms of the day were into the liturgy. These Psalms brings us back thousands of years to when the Levites sang in the Beit Midrash which is what I love about Jewish tradition; it dates back and then further back still.
Rabbi Dr. Raymond Apple wrote a little bit about the origins of the Psalm of the Day. I'll include just part of what he has said here, but you can do to the link below if you would like to see more: https://jbqnew.jewishbible.org/assets/Uploads/422/jbq_422_6_applepsalmday.pdf
In the text prescribed for the Shaharit (morning) service, the siddur maintains a tradition of ancient lineage: the recitation of a specific psalm for each day of the week: Sunday, Psalm 24; Monday, Psalm 48; Tuesday, Psalm 82; Wednesday, Psalm 94; Thursday, Psalm 81; Friday, Psalm 93; Shabbat, Psalm 92. The Mishnah (Tamid 7:4) states that in the Temple the daily psalm was sung by the Levite choir with instrumental backing. The Mishnaic sources do not specify whether this practice began in the First or the Second 1Temple, although some form of Levitical singing was established by King David even before the Temple was built (I Chron. 16:4-6). In any case, after the sacrificial service was suspended with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, these psalms were incorporated into the daily prayers and given an introductory rubric, "This is the . . . day of the week on which the Levites in 2 the Temple used to say..."
Here is the Psalm for Sunday, which is Psalm 24
24:1 A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
24:2 For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
24:3 Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? and who shall stand in His holy place?
24:4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not taken My name in vain, and hath not sworn deceitfully.
24:5 He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
24:6 Such is the generation of them that seek after Him, that seek Thy face, even Jacob. Selah
24:7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; that the King of glory may come in.
24:8 'Who is the King of glory?' 'The the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.'
24:9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates, yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors; that the King of glory may come in.
24:10 'Who then is the King of glory?' 'The the Lord of hosts; He is the King of glory.' Selah.
What struck me about this Psalm on this particular day, March 15, 2020 is the idea of clean hands. I'll address the idea of clean hands in my next post, but for now, I feel like I understand more about these Psalms added to the end of the service and I hope that you do as well.
