A Dedication Song, Every Single Morning

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Learn to Daven - Day 67.

So yesterday we finished the opening bracha, Baruch She'amar - we crowned the King - and now we step into the praises themselves. And the very first full chapter of Tehillim that many of us say, right here at the start of Psukei D'Zimrah, is Psalm 30. And it opens with this header: Mizmor shir chanukas habayis l'David - "A psalm, a song for the dedication of the House, by David."

And the moment you actually read that header, something should jump out at you. Chanukas habayis. The dedication of the Bayis - the Temple, the Beis HaMikdash. This is a Temple-dedication song. A one-time, world-historical, ribbon-cutting-on-the-Holy-Temple song.

So why on earth are we saying it on a random Tuesday in the middle of an ordinary morning? Why does a song for the grandest event in Jewish history show up in our daily davening, three hundred and some days a year, in our kitchens and on our trains and in our shuls before work?

That question is the whole teaching. Let me give you the answer.

There's a concept the Navi Yechezkel gives us. When the Jewish people are in exile, scattered, with no standing Temple, God says: va'ehi lahem l'mikdash me'at - "I have been for them a small sanctuary." And the Gemara in Megillah unpacks what that small sanctuary is. It's our shuls and our batei midrash - the places of prayer and learning. A mikdash me'at. A miniature Temple. The Beis HaMikdash didn't disappear; it shrank down and multiplied and scattered out to wherever Jews gather to connect to God.

Now the Chassidic masters take this one step further, and this is the part I want you to hold onto. The verse that commands building the Mishkan says: v'asu li mikdash v'shachanti b'socham - "make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in them." Not "in it." In them. The Mishkan was a building, but the real dwelling place God wants is inside each person. Every single one of us is a mikdash me'at - a small sanctuary, walking around with a soul that's meant to be a home for the Divine.

So follow this. If you are a sanctuary - then every morning when you wake up, your sanctuary is being re-dedicated. Yesterday it got a little dusty. Yesterday there were distractions, frustrations, things you said you didn't mean, a soul that maybe drifted. And now it's morning, the soul has been returned to you fresh - and you stand here and you say, Mizmor shir chanukas habayis. A song for the dedication of the House. My house. Me. I'm dedicating myself again, today, to being a dwelling place for God.

That's why this Temple-dedication song belongs in your ordinary Tuesday. Because your ordinary Tuesday is a dedication.

And now look at the first words David sings after the header: Aromimcha Hashem ki dilisani - "I will exalt You, Hashem, for You lifted me up." That word dilisani comes from a bucket being drawn up out of a deep well - dli, a bucket. David is saying: You reached down into the depths and You drew me up.

Isn't that exactly what waking up is? Every night you go down into sleep, into the depths, into that little taste of nothingness. And every morning God lowers the bucket and draws you back up. Dilisani - You lifted me out of the well. So the first thing this dedication song does is thank God for the lift. For the fact that I'm here at all, drawn back up, ready to be re-dedicated.

So here's your kavanah for today. When you say Mizmor shir chanukas habayis, don't picture King Solomon's Temple with the smoke and the gold. Picture you. A small sanctuary. Lifted out of the well of sleep, dusted off, and re-dedicated for one more day as a home for the Divine.

Tomorrow: David is going to say something that every one of us has lived - ba'erev yalin bechi v'laboker rinah, "weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning." We'll talk about the nights we cry, and the mornings we're promised.