A Question of Prayer
At the end of Tehillim 27, the words, "Hashem hoshiah hamelech ya'aneinu beyom kor'einu" are generally translated as, "G-d will save us, The King will answer us on the day when we call." The interesting thing is that we need to call to be answered. Not only that, but as we say in Ashrei - "G-d is close to all who call him, to all who call Him in truth." Rav S..R Hirsch says that the idea here is that we need to call in truth, that second half of the sentence comes to modify the first, it's not enough to call you have to call in truth. It just occurred to me that it may mean not to call out to G-d in truth, but rather means just as it's written - that G-d must be called by the word "Be'Emet" - "In Truth" - that's what we need to call Him...
A totally different way of reading the last line of Psalm 27 is, "G-d please save the king, answer us on the day we call." This is the way that Professor Aaron Lichtenstein punctuates it in his The Book of Psalms in Plain English.
This change of meaning in a line of prayer reminds me of another one we utter daily: "...Velo neivosh ki becha batachnu." Is it, "And we will not be embarrassed, this is because we trust in you"? I think that's the conventional understanding. Or is it, "Our trusting in you will not lead us to be embarrassed"? (By the way, I know the rule is to always put punctuation within the quote, but in this case it just looks wrong to me.)
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 6:45 AM
2 Comments:
I believe the British place the punctuation outside the quotes, and they have been dealing with the English language longer than we have at the US, so either way should be right. In this case, it is not a written-in-stone either/or, I guess. ;o)
That's cool, thanks. My English techer colleagues have told me the thinking here having something to do with your eye not catching it if it's out of the quotes. it sounded iron clad to me and I don't like it. I like the freedom of the option.
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