Blessed Is He Who Spoke

1. בָּרוּךְ שֶׁאָמַר וְהָיָה הָעוֹלָם. The Mishnah (Avos 5:1) says: “With ten utterances the world was created.” But the first word of the Torah, בְּרֵאשִׁית, has no “and He said”. The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 32a) answers: “‘Bereishis’ is also an utterance.” The commentary in our siddur, from Likkutei Torah, builds on this. שֶׁאָמַר, “Who spoke”, in the past, means one utterance: “the utterance of Bereishis, in wisdom He created”. In that first utterance everything was included at once, the way a flash of insight holds all the ideas that will later be explained; the commentary calls it “creation on the level of thought”. A Hebrew note brings the Rebbe (Toras Menachem), citing Pri Etz Chaim: the first letters of שֶׁאָמַר וְהָיָה הָעוֹלָם spell שָׁוֶה, “equal”: at that first level, all the worlds are one.

2. בָּרוּךְ הוּא. Here we speak about Hashem in the third person, “He”. The commentary explains that in a blessing with “You” we address a level of G‑dliness that we can, in some way, perceive; with “He”, “the third person refers to a level of G‑dliness that is unfathomable; the fact that He exists is known to us, but the nature of His Being transcends our powers of comprehension.”

3. בָּרוּךְ אוֹמֵר וְעֹשֶׂה. Now the present tense: He says and does. Likkutei Torah continues: after the first utterance, the world was spelled out “through nine utterances, let there be light, let there be a firmament, and so on, and this is Who says and does.”

4. בָּרוּךְ גּוֹזֵר וּמְקַיֵּם. In the plain meaning: what He decrees, He fulfills.

5. בָּרוּךְ עֹשֶׂה בְרֵאשִׁית. And Likkutei Torah ends: “Who makes Bereishis”, for Bereishis too, “in wisdom”, is an utterance that came down to make something from nothing. In the Chabad siddur these phrases come in this order, omeir v’oseh and gozeir um’kayeim before oseh v’reishis.

6. בָּרוּךְ מְרַחֵם עַל הָאָרֶץ. The commentary notes that only someone higher can be said to have mercy on someone lower; between equals, there is no “mercy”. Hashem is beyond any comparison with His creatures. How then does He relate to this lowly earth? Through His mercy (Likkutei Torah; Peirush HaMilos). And “the earth”, says the Siddur im Dach, is also Malchus, the attribute of kingship through which the world is made.

7. בָּרוּךְ מְרַחֵם עַל הַבְּרִיּוֹת. First the earth, then the creatures on it.

8. בָּרוּךְ מְשַׁלֵּם שָׂכָר טוֹב לִירֵאָיו. He pays a good reward to those who fear Him. A connection of my own: the same Mishnah that speaks of the ten utterances (Avos 5:1) ends with the purpose, “and to give good reward to the tzaddikim”, וְלִתֵּן שָׂכָר טוֹב לַצַּדִּיקִים: the same words as our blessing.

9. בָּרוּךְ חַי לָעַד וְקַיָּם לָנֶצַח. Hashem Himself is above time; “living forever” describes the light that comes from Him, above time but shining within it and giving it eternity (Peirush HaMilos).

10. בָּרוּךְ פּוֹדֶה וּמַצִּיל. The Siddur im Dach explains: He redeems the sparks of holiness hidden in the world, and He helps each person in the struggle inside him, as the Sages said (Sukkah 52b): “Were not the Holy One, blessed be He, to help a person, he could not conquer the yetzer hara.” Redeems once, and saves again and again.

11. בָּרוּךְ שְׁמוֹ. And the first part ends: blessed is His Name. The second part begins, with בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, “You”.

12. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה. Now we turn to Hashem as “You”, and say how He is praised: by the mouth of His people, by the tongue of His pious ones and servants, and with the songs of David, the Tehillim we are about to say. The commentary explains הַמְהֻלָּל, “praised”, from the same root as a lamp that shines: our praise makes His light shine forth (Siddur im Dach).

Then we promise: נְהַלֶּלְךָ, “we will praise You”, בִּשְׁבָחוֹת וּבִזְמִרוֹת, with praises and with songs. The commentary distinguishes them: praises draw blessing down from Above, the way praising a person brings out his hidden strengths; songs lift us up, above ourselves (Peirush HaMilos). And וְנַזְכִּיר שִׁמְךָ: “we will mention Your Name”, and also, says the commentary, we will remind it, as it were, of us below (Peirush HaMilos).

13. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה … מֶלֶךְ מְהֻלָּל בַּתִּשְׁבָּחוֹת. The King praised with praises: the blessing closes on the word that is the whole subject of Pesukei d’Zimra.

Why so many Baruchs? The commentary opens with a question. Pesukei d’Zimra is our effort from below, and it is meant to awaken a response from Above. But we begin our davening at a low level. Where does the strength come from? From Baruch She’amar, whose purpose is “to draw down vibrant supernal energies to inspire the Jewish people and endow their praise of G‑d with the power to generate an arousal from Above. Since the Jews begin their prayers on a low spiritual rung, an extremely high light must be drawn down to inspire them” (Peirush HaMilos).

So each Baruch is a step. “In the Siddur of the Ari zal”, the commentary writes, “Each phrase relates to a different spiritual rung.” A Hebrew note gives the ladder in full, from the first Baruch at the very top of the world of Atzilus down to the first בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה in the world of Beriah. And it adds a striking point: in every step, “Baruch” is the Kesser, the crown, the highest point of that level. Why the highest? “And this is the rule: the higher something is, the lower it can lower itself” (Peirush HaMilos). To reach someone standing at the bottom of the ladder, the light must come from the very top.

Rabbi Shurpin’s article on Chabad.org gathers several reasons for holding the two front tzitzis, each with its source. I bring them as he cites them.

The Arizal (Shaar HaKavanos). Davening is a ladder through four worlds, and Pesukei d’Zimra, from Baruch She’amar on, belongs to the world of Yetzirah. The two front tzitzis also correspond to Yetzirah, so we join our words to a deed and hold them.

Ten knots. Each tzitzis has five knots; two together make ten, like the ten Baruchs of the first part as the article counts them (Responsa Zichron Yehuda).

Eighty-seven. The Torah calls the tzitzis גְּדִלִים, “twisted threads” (Devarim 22:12). The letter ג is worth 3, ד is worth 4, ל is worth 30, י is worth 10 and ם is worth 40: together 87, like the 87 words (Sefer Mat’amim; §G45).

Thirteen and twenty-six. Each tzitzis has eight strings and five knots, 13, like the thirteen Baruchs; the two together make 26, the value of Hashem’s four-letter Name (Otzar Kol Minhagei Yeshurun).

Near the end we say יָחִיד, חֵי הָעוֹלָמִים מֶלֶךְ, and then pause before מְשֻׁבָּח. The commentary, from Torah Or, explains the words. יָחִיד and אֶחָד both mean “one”. But אֶחָד is a oneness that unites many things, as in the Shema, where Hashem’s unity fills the heavens, the earth and the four directions (Lesson 7). יָחִיד is His oneness as He is by Himself, before any creation.

Yishtabach, at the end of Pesukei d’Zimra, uses the same words in another order: מֶלֶךְ יָחִיד חֵי הָעוֹלָמִים. Why? At the beginning, Baruch She’amar says that Hashem is יָחִיד, and that His giving life to the worlds comes through His kingship, מֶלֶךְ, an outer level. After all the praises, Yishtabach can say more: the יָחִיד itself is inside the kingship, and through it His singular oneness is revealed in all the worlds (Torah Or, Toras Menachem). That is why the pause matters: in Baruch She’amar, מֶלֶךְ closes the phrase “Unique, Life of the worlds, King”.