[Avodah] Mood of Tehillim

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Saul Guberman wrote:
> To me, this is all situational dependent.  The tehillim of
> Hallel, Kabbalat Shabbat & before bentching are all upbeat
> tunes. The Mizmor L'David sung at Sueda Shilshit is not
> sung upbeat.

R' Micha Berger wrote:
> When we say Tehillim in an eis tzarah, we assume the point
> is to plea with the A-lmighty for help. It would seem that a
> number of the regular choices, though, are really more aimed at
> getting strength from knowing He is there for us. "Hashem
> Tzevakos imanu, misgav lanu..." And yet we still say them in a
> sad, rather than reassuring, tone.

It seems to me that these views are actually similar. And I think they provide an answer to something which has been bugging me for a while. Namely: On certain happy days, we omit Tehilim 6 (Tachanun) and Tehilim 20 (Lamnatzeach) from the davening. Apparently, these psalms are too sad to be said on such days. Despite that, they are *not* omitted by someone who is going through Tehilim and happens to reach them on such a day. Why not?

It seems to me that the power of Tehilim is unrelated to the meaning of the words. Or mostly unrelated. Or something like that. It is appropriate to say certain Tehilim in certain circumstances, and certain event/psalm connections have become traditional, but we should not make too much of an effort at understanding the words of the psalm, or their connection to the event.

... I just went to review some thoughts I once wrote on this topic, and it seems that we've been through some of this before!

Click on http://tinyurl.com/5ap6rr to go to the Avodah archives, where you'll find a thread titled "tehillim". A lot of interesting ideas got thrown about there, such as R' Micha's comparison of "tefillah vs tachanunim and tze'aqah vs ze'aqah." It seems that some types of prayer require an understanding of the words, and other types are less connected to the words themselves. Ayen sham.

Akiva Miller
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