Three Ways to Praise

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Learn to Daven - Day 49.

Yesterday we started the section called Hodu with Dovid HaMelech's song on the day the Aron came home to Yerushalayim. We said: real gratitude overflows - Hodu becomes Hodi'u, you feel it and then you share it. Today we get the very next line of that same song, and it tells us how to share it. And it turns out there's more than one way.

Listen to the verse: Shiru lo - sing to Him. Zamru lo - make music to Him. Sichu b'chol nifl'osav - speak, talk, of all His wonders.

Three verbs. Shiru, zamru, sichu. Sing, play, speak. And here's the one idea I want you to hold today: these are three different ways to praise Hashem - and the verse lists all three on purpose, because not every Jew praises the same way, and Hashem wants all of them.

Let's take them one at a time.

Shiru - sing. That's pure song. Pure voice. The most natural, untrained thing in the world. A person who's overflowing with feeling and just bursts into song. No instrument, no plan - just the soul making sound.

Zamru - make music, play. The word zemer means structured melody, the kind you'd play on an instrument in the Beis HaMikdash, where the Leviim had harps and lyres and trumpets. This is praise with form to it. Crafted. Composed. The difference between humming in the car and sitting down to learn a real niggun.

And then the third one - and this is the one I find the most surprising. Sichu. Speak. Talk about His wonders. Sichah in Hebrew means ordinary conversation. Not singing. Not playing. Just... talking.

Now stop and think about how remarkable that is. The verse puts talking about Hashem's wonders in the same breath as singing and making music. It's telling you: you don't need a beautiful voice. You don't need to play an instrument. You don't need to be musical at all. If all you can do is talk - sit at a table and say, "you won't believe what happened, you won't believe how Hashem set this up" - that counts. That's praise too. Conversation about God's wonders is its own form of song.

This is so freeing, because most of us tell ourselves, "I can't sing, I'm not musical, davening isn't really my thing." And the verse answers: fine. Then talk. Tell the story. Notice the wonder out loud. Sichu b'chol nifl'osav - speak of all His wonders.

Now here's the Chassidic depth in the first two words, shiru and zamru, the song words. The Alter Rebbe - the first Rebbe of Chabad, who composed some of the deepest niggunim in the Jewish world - taught that melody is the pen of the soul. Words can only take you so far. There's a level of feeling that words simply can't reach - and that's exactly where a niggun begins. A wordless melody picks up where language gives out and carries the soul somewhere speech can't go. That's why in Chabad, the niggun isn't entertainment - it's avodah, it's a way of serving Hashem with the part of you that has no words.

So look at the full range this one little verse gives you. At the top - shiru, zamru - song and melody, the soul soaring past words. At the bottom, accessible to absolutely everyone - sichu, just talk about it. From the highest niggun to the simplest conversation at your kitchen table, it all lands in the same place: praise.

So here's today's takeaway. Whatever you've got - use it. If you can sing, sing. If you can play, play. And if all you can do is talk - then talk about Hashem's wonders, out loud, where someone can hear you. There's no Jew who's left out of this verse.

Tomorrow: the next words - Hishhallelu b'shem kodsho - take pride, glory, in His holy name. We'll talk about what it means for a Jew to be proud of who he belongs to.