Welcome to Tehillim Unveiled.

This is Ari Leviston and it is a huge honor to welcome Doctor Yael Ziegler, one of the preeminent voices in the world of modern Tanak study.

She teaches at Matan as well as Hertzog College, and she's the director of the Kitvuni Women's Writing Fellowship at Matan.

A beloved educator and sought after speaker, she has taught audiences across 5 continents and is the acclaimed author of several foundational works, including books on Ruth, lamentations, and Oats in the Biblical narrative.

Dr.

Ziegler, it's a huge honor to have you thank.

You thank you for having.

Me today.

So Doctor Ziegler, you told me you wanted to talk about till I'm 89 pay tech.

And at first I was a little surprised because it's one that I'm not particularly familiar with, although there are a few lines that are quoted in various songs or parts of davening.

I guess the third longest by verse is more in the entire book of Tehillim.

But you promised me that it's well worth studying.

So what can we expect in this long?

Bismar here, yeah.

So I mean, first of all, I think what's interesting about the mismar is that it starts out so wonderfully.

Haste Hashem, O Lama Shira, right?

I will always sing of the haste Hashem.

Most people, I think, would translate that.

The kindnesses of God.

I'm going to go with what I think is the primary meaning of has said into last, which I think is loyalty, right?

Always sing of the loyalties of God, Lidor vador odia emunatska defeat from generation to generation.

I will tell of your faithfulness in my mouth.

He over and over mentioned this pair of words, kassed the emunah, which basically mean the same thing, right?

If kassed means loyalty and emunah means faithfulness.

So we are singing to God of God's loyalty and faithfulness.

For what is striking about the Mizwah is what happens after verse 38, right?

So verse 38, you know, kind of ends with this sella, which we don't exactly know what it is, but it appears throughout safer T leem as some kind of, you know, end some kind of period at the end of the sentence.

It might be immune.

Heartbreak.

Something right?

So we have this sella and suddenly in verse 39 the means more pivots and becomes this really scathing accusation against God and that means more concludes.

If we go back to this idea of hassed and emunah, the 7th and final appearance of that pair of words and of course 7 times is always very important number.

The word or key phrase is in verse 50 where it says ayeh hassa de ha harishonim adonai nish batali davida emura tefa.

Where are your first loyalties to God, the ones that you swore to David in your faithfulness?

What happened to them?

And it's just it's it's.

180° from where we started.

Yeah, really.

And, you know, it's just a stunning pivot, so much so that when scholars read this news more, they say, oh, the first part was written by one person.

The second part was tacked on.

2 sections of Denise Mark really seem so so different.

I mean, it seems like, as many practical do, that it must be taking us on a journey, seemingly a sad journey here where things quickly fall apart.

So the question is what is the journey and what happens?

It's also actually feels somewhat blasphemous.

And the reason I say that is because, you know, the Ibanezra in his introduction to this means more quotes someone anonymously who he calls a haseen, this hassam misfarad, right?

It's very pious and very wise person from Spain.

We actually know who it is because in in other places, so we we think we know it is because in other places, I mean Ivan Ezra refers to this Hassan Mizvad or this Basid Misfarad.

Sometimes he mentions it by name and it is the author of the Kuzari.

But here, of course, he knows him anonymously, but he quotes him saying, he says, well, you know, I know this wise and pious man from Spain who refused to say this Mizmoor, and not only did.

He refuse to.

Say this Mizmoor, but he refused to hear the Mizmoor.

He wouldn't let anyone say it in front of which is really, I think wild thing to say.

I don't know any other chapter in 10 off where you know, someone says, oh, no, no, I won't say that.

That's, you know, blast with it.

I.

Mean maybe in 2025, but certainly not in media perspective, definitely.

Not and even as of course he doesn't actually quote him and agree with it, but the very fact that he quotes him suggests that even as with this, it's an important point.

Things are being kind of thrown at God that are not comfortable and and maybe even seem to crossover into forbidden territory.

I mean, personally, I don't think that I think it's kind of crazy to say, oh, I'm not going to say a chapter into that, but I understand the sentiment that is behind it.

And that's just, I think a way of drawing our attention to how difficult the end of this chapter is.

But, you know, the serious provocation here or accusation here that we have is really serious.

By the way, just as an aside, that really speaks to the power and the emotional potency of the Book of Tahilam as a whole.

There's no other book of Tanas where you could say something like that about something that is so emotionally jarring.

But of course, that's that's where the power comes too.

Right?

Yeah.

I think you're right because it want to be pulled into the emotions of anger at God and accusation before God.

OK, so I'm I'm sold.

Let's get into it.

OK, So what is the first section?

I don't think it's just an abstract journey.

I think that there's something very specific that's going on in this news war from the very beginning.

What are we praising God for?

We're praising God for his loyalty and faithfulness to the family of the, to the Davidic dynasty, to the promise of eternal kingship.

And so this promise that God gives to David, he gives it to him in Schwalbett Peritzion in the 7th chapter of the second book of Shmuel.

And there it's actually in the context of actually, I think a lot of people view it as a negative context.

Right when David asks to build debate to meet Dash and Hashem rejects his offer, kind of as a consolation prize says, but I will establish your throne forever and your child, your son Shlomo.

So it's kind of like, by the way, I'm also done making this promise to you that I'll establish your Kingdom forever, even though I'm not giving you what you want.

Yeah, You know, I view it a little bit differently.

I view it not as a consolation price, but actually is the reason he's explaining to Devi.

In other words, the reason that God says Devi can't build the baits out of dash is because Demi brabin shafasa you you still too much blood.

And that seems to be a a kind of a negative consequence.

But that's actually not in his the original in small bet.

It's not mentioned at all and basically doesn't give any reason other than the fact that I don't need it.

Right.

Yeah, He says, I mean it, But then he says something.

You know, I think that is very joyous for David because if you look there, David responds to whatever it is a guy is telling to be there.

David says, wow, thank you, Katonte.

I can't believe you gave this to me.

I'm not worthy of it.

And he, he praised this wonderful prayer to God.

So I think that embedded within that refusal is both an explanation and a promise, right?

The explanation, you can't build the Beethoven dash because your kingship is still not stable enough.

I'm going to give you a forever dynasty.

And in the next generation, your son will be born into stability and he'll already build the Beethoven dash.

And David is blown away by this promise because it's part of the promise.

God says him look, even if you're even if you're descendants sin, I will punish you, but I will never take the kingship away from you like I did with.

Right.

And and that would mean quite a lot for David.

Most of his adult life was being threatened by enemies, his kingship being threatened by rebellions of one sort or another.

And that that actually would continue even after this story.

You can imagine how much those words probably continued to resonate and to be in his head and to give him courage through everything that he would continue to face.

Yeah.

So I mean, as we progressed through the MIS marks, we really see over and over and over direct references.

David very rarely appears in the body of the Miz Marie Teeley, maybe 5 or 6 Miz Marie Teeley where David appeared in the body, right in the title.

The superscription appears 73 out of 150 of them, right?

So he describes here the beginning of the Davidic dynasty starting in verse 21, Matati David FDI found my servant David, which by the way is a phrase that is also appears in in Chapter 7 God.

Refers to W as W my.

Servant, my servant.

Yeah, I anointed him with Sheman Kochi with my my holy oil I share ya deep tikkon emo afzero E Tam senu right?

My arm will strengthen him lo yashi oyevo then avla Loya nenu right?

No enemy will be successful against him.

Verse 25 the Emulatinba sasti emo my faithfulness, my loyalty will be with him Uvishmi Tarun Karnell with my name.

He will lift up his porn right with some tiva Yamiya dove and I wrote to him.

You know, and look at Pasokov Zion.

Verse 27 koi kraeni Avi ATA Eli bit sorry shwati he will call me.

You are my father, you are my God.

You are the rock of my salvation, Afani before it's Nehu.

But I will make him my eldest son, Eliyon, all right.

He is the supreme of all of the kings in the land.

Right.

I believe this is what Hashem tells David is going to happen with Shlomo, right?

But he says that Shlomo is going to carry on your legacy and is going to build the victim.

That's what you wanted to do.

He says Shlomo will call me Avi.

That's right.

He'll call me my father.

In Chapter 7, verse 14, God says I will be for him as a father and He will be for me as the Son.

In verse 29, let olam eshmargot Hasti forever.

I mean these words, let olam la ad olam meet Dora Ladora right from generation to generation forever, and ever see a true promise that God is giving.

This divinity dynasty is so emphasized here, and it's so emphasized back in Schwabe.

And the only times that we're in, the Olam forever comes up.

But yeah, it seems like that's a really key word here, this eternality editing note.

We did check afterwards and it too indeed comes up 7 times.

Yeah, and it's really going to be the key to understanding, right what goes wrong in this chapter.

And by the way, this language it uses about establishing his hand on the sea and crying with the sun and the moon, like all of these things which are forever and other pregnant.

We did one recently.

We talked about how, you know, that the sea kind of is like the first thing that God creates.

And so for David to be compared to those, it's like, you know, really this this grand statement.

Yeah, that imagery is very important in this chapter.

The the Shemesh, the Wrath, the sun, the moon and the sea become these sort of symbols of the the eternality of the Davidic dynasty.

As long as this world exists, so too will the Davidic dynasty.

In verse 31 he addresses a really important question, which is OK, what happens when the Davidic kings sin?

This is a now in verse 31, if your sons leave my instructions and they don't go in my statutes, if they violate my laws and they don't guard my commandments ulfat kadhi this shed it, I will punish them with the rod and their transgressions.

I will punish with some kind of strike.

This has seen love here, maimo, but I won't take away my loyalty to lo a shakur then will not see that word.

I will not lie about my trustworthiness.

Lo a salil driti.

I will not violate my covenant.

I will not change.

One has come out of my mouth at the end of verse 14, which we saw before, He says I will be for my father and he will be for me.

A son, a share Bahavoto right the.

Same language.

Yeah, right, he says.

Ever since talking now about the son, sons, as it were, I will punish him with Chevron and Nigahi with a rod and with some kind of plagues or strikes.

This has steel Lo yes or me menu.

And here he's specifically mentioned Shaul Kashir has the right name Shaul, but I won't think away my loyalty right.

And then in in Pasukte, Zionist uses the word emunah, the Iman baitza.

So we have here in Chapter 7, the fessed and the emunah, the loyalty and the faithfulness.

And it's within the context of the Davidic dynasty.

And, and in Shmuel the, the connection between this parent relationship between God and the Davidic dynasty, it, it makes it clear that these punishments, it's the punishment of a parent to a child.

It's out of love, right?

OK, sometimes you have to bring out the rod.

Sometimes you have to, you have to be strict, but like, it's all out of love.

I'm, I'm never going to abandon him.

I meant what I said that I'm going to be faithful to his dynasty.

His sins from the Davidic dynasty aren't enough to explain why a bad thing would happen to them, why I should would abandoned them because I made it very clear.

Some promised that he might punish them a little bit, but he's not going to bend in them.

Yeah, and the divinity dynasty won't fall.

That is being promised here.

And if you look at the end of the good part of this, this war, of this chapter of chapter 89, the end is really powerful.

It's really just hard, concrete promise.

Look in verse 36, afat Neshbati, the Kochi.

So what could go wrong?

What could possibly go wrong with this time of Providence?

To me, the context of this means more is so potent, it's so powerful, and I think captures the end of the Davidic dynasty at the end of the period of the Mugu Khan in, you know, 586 BCE, not just Jerushalayim that is captured.

It's not just the Beitaamic Dash, the temple that is burned to the ground.

It's not just the end of political autonomy in the land.

The end of the Davidic dynasty is almost incomprehensible violation of God's own promise.

And so this needs more, which is the kind of almost climax of Book 3, the last chapter of, you know, Savor T Leem, I'll say for the benefit of of the listeners, Savor T Leem is divided into 5 books, right?

And each book has its own tenor.

And I think that there's kind of almost a trajectory, almost a narrative that is going on in the book.

Book 3 is it it's a really tough book, right?

It starts in chapter 73.

It ends in 89.

It's the shortest book.

I would say thank God, because it's a book that is really filled with disaster.

It's a book of crisis.

It's a book that we have two chapters that talk about the destruction of the Baitami Dash.

We have a lot of questions that are kind of hurled towards God, Adama Thai until when Lama Wan, it seems to be the sort of crash that means dynasty of the book of king.

And here I think we have this really powerful indication of how the people must have felt when the defeated dynasty is destroyed.

I mean, you know, the cow's sons are killed.

He's blinded and taken down into chains to bubble, and there goes the end of all of God's palaces.

After 400 plus years, who would have thought?

I mean, like, it's, you look back at our time, we're like, OK, 400 years.

But like, you know, think about what, what would the world look like 400 years ago?

The colonies were just getting set up in America.

Israel was, you know, many hundreds of years from from existing as a state.

Like on the human time scale, the Davidic dynasty had been around forever.

The people and this is I think probably part of what leads to the disaster.

The people felt quite immune in in Jerusalem, right because they had the bait to me dash in their midst, right.

We have indications of this from your Yahoo where your marrow says then don't walk around saying, you know, but it's the temple of God, the temple of God.

If you bring if you turn God's God's God's holy place into a den of thieves into a Maratha carried scene, God will destroy it.

The people are very heavily relying on their conception, on their preconceptions.

And another of the sort of basic assumption of the people is that and they're not wrong, right?

God promised to be the eternal dynasty.

So it can't really end confident and that kind of sense of promise, it prevents people from really fixing themselves and from repenting and behaving properly because we have no promise.

But it turns out that be true.

The last thing we said in verse in verse 38 was that you established like the moon, a testimony in the sky forever and then all of a sudden boom out of nowhere.

Yeah, and it's very accusatory, right?

The first word of verse 39 is the atop.

We're turning to that.

It's the atop.

And you got Zanastavatim us, right?

You rejected and repelled us right about that.

He met Mishifsa, you became angry with your own anointed one.

They are the breed of death.

And you spurned the covenant of your servant.

The word Neyarta appears only into places, which is here, and the other is in where it's talking about the destruction of the Beethoven.

Yes, as a bird, right?

You spurn the covenant, you spread powder that you made see in love the all right.

It's nice, Roche.

You profaned his crown by throwing it out of the ground.

How rats that coked in Rotav.

You broke through all of his gates, all of his walls.

The word parrotsta that you broke through, it's, it's the same word that David's great, great, great great grandfather parrots was, was named after the one who is kind of considered to be the father of the Davidic dynasty.

You abandoned the children of pirates who you promised the dynasty to.

Yeah, that's part of the the story.

Maybe we'll skip ahead to verse 45.

He's got the Mitoharo.

All of this is our descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem, right?

You stopped him from his purity.

This he saw that great throne, La Aritz Garter drew it to the ground.

No longer in heaven, no longer like the heavens, right.

You cast it to the ground and now look at the next verse.

Hey, Sarta Yumei Alumov, you shortened the days of eternity with it's like little synthesism here, right?

You promised eternity.

Suddenly eternity became shorter.

The big dynasty crashed, right?

We saw this verse already, but it's worth rereading it.

Where they turn to God and say, where did the promise?

You promise?

I mean, it ends with the question, this needs more.

And that's the end of book three.

We end book three with a sense of we are confounded by what has happened.

And it's so powerful because the beginning of this, it's not written, as you know, I used to think that God was going to make this promise or it's nothing.

God, you know, Once Upon a time you made this promise.

It's talking about that promise as if it's true and it's being fulfilled right now.

Clusty Hashem olam ashira forever.

I will sing it.

And it's almost like as if it's oblivious to what's about to come.

And then when the disaster does come, and when Hashem does destroy the Davidic dynasty, it's like you feel that sense of shock as you're reading it.

It recreates that that experience of what they must have felt at the time, which is just utter shock and confusion.

It's extraordinary.

So where do we go from here?

What do?

You make of.

That what do we do with it to to a large degree I have sort of adopted today to see a kind of a movement in Saber tieling if it really was developed in academic circles and has been spreading also I think to circles of the baby drash.

Particularly I'll mention my neighbor and teacher in this regard, Dr.

Benny Gusentite, who has done tremendous work looking at safer Teeling in the way that I'm about to describe, which is to see safer Teeling not as an anthology of 150 separate instinct with right Teeling A trajectory which tells the story of Jewish history and particularly biblical history.

Book 3 seems to be, we've mentioned before the book of crisis, of everything coming crashing down, of the big time, Mcdash being destroyed, of the loss of the Divinity Dynasty, which may be the most direct kind of question that we have in the aftermath of the destruction because the promise was so explicit and that promise was so explicitly violated.

But you know, to really understand this, we need to turn to the 4th book.

Right.

So what is the fourth book?

So the first thing that we have to say is that suddenly in the 4th book we have a new player, right?

We have somebody who is not part of safe routinely even.

Who's that?

Moshe.

Moses.

Right so that look Moshev's name appears 8 times in sacred to healing until this point he appeared once OK in book four he appears a key 7 times and we have a tradition right.

Let me that Hazal tell us that the 1st 11 means Lori of book four were written by Moshev.

Why Moshev is point so.

So what I want to suggest is we have what's called Torat Moshev, the five Books of Moshev, which ends with Moshe's last words to Anisarel Ashrafka Isarel meets Hamilka.

I'm noshada Hashem fortunate.

Are you Israel, who is like you, a nation that is saved by God.

That's the end of the Five Books of Moshe.

And what sort of continues this, according to Amy Drash, Amy Drash Chalim Alif is are the five books of Davis which open with Ashrae, right.

And so and we have these.

Two praiseworthy are is the man who feels got excited.

Yeah, right.

It's the same word, right?

So that there's some kind of connection between where Moshe left off and Davi takes that.

So I want to suggest there's Torat Moshe is the Torah of movement.

It's the Torah of exile.

It's the portable Torah.

It doesn't mean we only have it in exile.

We also use it when we're not in exile, but then it's all we have when we are in flux.

It's the Torah that we can take with us wherever we go.

Torah David is the Torah of settlement.

It's the Torah of political autonomy.

It's the Torah of building a nation.

It's the Torah of building the Bata Dash.

It's the Torah of creating a dynasty and stability and establishing something.

And that's not Torah that we take with us when we go into exile.

And so as soon as Book 3 end, we turn to the Torah of Moshe.

And we've looked in Torah of Moshe to give us the tools for being able to survive in exile.

And, and I'll talk about two tools.

There's a lot to talk about, but in these first 11 means Mari Tilian, which which which has out a tribute to Moshe.

There are two major themes that I think that we have to pay attention to.

And you know, these are familiar with Mari Tilian because we say them in Kabbalah Shabbat.

Yeah, Hashem mala.

The fact that we don't have right now human kingship, the fact that we don't have political autonomy does not leave us without any recourse.

It doesn't leave us flailing.

Doesn't leave us without a king.

Doesn't leave us without a king.

So we have it over and over.

Hashem my last gate lavish.

We have Hashem, my last to Gil Harris, right.

Versus that mention God's Cajun.

And one of the things that we know about God's Cajun, but then it's mentioned over and over in these chapters is that it is definitely eternal.

Yeah.

Right.

The words that we used to talk about David's kingship, before which we thought were eternal for God's thinks of it, really is true.

Right your your throne is established from eternity.

You are from eternity.

So OK, we can wait for the re establishment of the Davidic dynasty if we know that God the king has promised us that the Davidic dynasty will be eternal and will renew itself.

So that's one really important theme that can help us through this next period.

The other one is even more amazing, I think, which is the we lost a person and we're not we've lost a sense of God's reliability, his steadfastness, the reliability of his promises, his loyalties to us.

And if you look in study bed, we're we're beginning to reacquire it right.

Togo Hashem was a nourishing file young.

It's good to praise God.

Why bullshit is teaching us to speak of God's faithfulness in the morning, his worthiness at night and if you look at the end of this series that Hazel teach us what was written by God.

The dairy last verse in chapter 100 in this marku is what we say every day.

He told Hashem, melano pastel, the ador vador and winota right?

God is good.

His royalty is forever from generation to generation.

We have his steadfastness, his reliability.

Book three, I mentioned it's a really, really hard book.

It it like it just leaves your ears ringing with these questions and this, you know, kind of theological instability.

I would call book 4A book of exile, right?

And and there are a lot of these were in here that don't even have titles, right.

Scholars call an orphaned factors, right.

There's a sense that we've been orphaned.

Right.

And it's not Even so much an answer to the questions that we just raised in our Miss Marr, but just no, no, an alternative way of of looking at things.

It's a different vantage point.

Or maybe the?

Tools.

The tools survive.

And you know, since we're talking about this, we can't really end without saying where this takes us because the very end of book 4, it ends up with a prayer where we are clearly in exile.

So if we look at the end of one O 6 which is really the end of book 14 T Lean Hoshi save us God right in verse 47 and gather us up from the nation to praise your name.

And of course, how does Book Live Open opens with the fulfillment of?

That.

And of course, Book 5 is the Book of Redemption.

That whole beginning of Book 5 is it's only say on it talks about like this amazing redemption and yeah.

When I first started seeing T leaning this way, you know, through the eyes of of of scholars, as I mentioned after Benny Gazette showed me this, this midrash and it's a midrash in means more Gimmel the 3rd chapter and Midrash says, is there any order to this, to the to this book?

And and then it goes off in a tangent and says, well, you know, can I ask the same thing about the books of the Torah?

Is the order books of the Torah?

The Majora says there is an order and God knows the order, but he's keeping that order from us because if he would show that order to us, we would be able to do great miracles, including the Atom 80, the revival of the dead.

Well.

Wild Majora.

Then it comes back to the Book of Tili and it said, how about the Book of Tili and it brings us, I think brings us the revolt, right review Chauvin Levi and it says became Chauvin Levi Leah said ETA sefer azep.

I'll see Drew.

I don't remember the exact phrasing.

Right review Chau lady wanted to find order in the book and a backhoe comes out of heavens, right.

A voice comes out of heavens and test him Unpaffiti ET ayashe.

Don't break the dead, right Do it.

You're going to wake the dead.

And then the Madrasco Zam says Rabishna al also tried to to find the order of sacred healing, but he did it at least in a Rambo, like he did it in a a safe setting.

And then he said when he finished seeing the order, he quoted chapter 110.

And he said he says everything here is juxtaposed perfectly with truth, with with with unbelievable integrity.

He did tramate him, right?

He he revived the dead.

When is the revival of the dead?

It's the ability to take this desiccated nation right, which is dry bones right, in exile, and to revive them, animate the nation as a creative nation that has political autonomy and can fulfill the purpose for which it was created.

That came to me.

Team right?

The second-half of the book itself.

We are pretty privileged today to be able to begin to see what Rabbi Ishmael, I think saw and, and, and partially because we're living in it.

And and when you live in it, you know, maybe maybe the Midrash was was trying to say even you're in a period in history where you have responsibilities and obligations.

Word that history, Yeah, like we find ourselves today in Israel.

So then, you know, I think you have the obligation also to see it.

The dead has been revived, so we're allowed to talk about it.

We're allowed to say not every aspect of family team, but the national one, the one we that we that we see every day and that's right, that God will will make you know salvation, be flourish and be reborn.

Wow, Doctor Ziegler, this has been beautiful and amazing.

It's getting me so excited to really delve more into the the second two books, especially this last book.

So that'll have to be next on the docket.

Thank you so much for coming out and joining us, enlightening us.

This has really been wonderful.

Pleasure.

Thank you for inviting me.

And that's the Hut.