In this section of the psalm, we reach its climax: a description of the nature of the future salvation. Until now, the Psalmist pleaded, "Show us, Hashem, Your kindness, and grant us Your salvation," and here he explains how this will come to pass: a salvation woven from two foundational elements - kindness and truth, from which righteousness and peace are born. We will examine the verses in sequence, presenting the straightforward interpretations of Rashi and the Radak, and then delve into the explanation of the Malbim, who reveals the inner dimension of these matters, along with the insights of our Sages regarding these verses.
חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת נִפְגָּשׁוּ צֶדֶק וְשָׁלוֹם נָשָׁקוּ׃ - Kindness and truth have met; righteousness and peace have kissed.
Rashi explains according to the straightforward meaning: when the Jewish people speak truth, kindness meets them from Heaven. A person is worthy of kindness when walking in the path of truth. "Righteousness and peace have kissed" - the charity (tzedakah) that the Jewish people perform and "peace" (shalom), which is a name of the Holy One, Blessed be He, kiss one another, as it is written, "And the work of righteousness shall be peace." A person who gives charity makes peace between human beings and the Holy One, Blessed be He. As the Midrash states: when things are hard for a person, when he is poor, he cries out to the Holy One, Blessed be He. If you give him charity, what have you done? You have reconciled him with the Holy One, Blessed be He. Until now he was bitter toward Hashem, but now he says, "Thank You, Master of the Universe!" Thus, through charity, one brings peace; and therefore righteousness and peace kiss one another, because the deed of righteousness generates peace.
The Radak explains that at the time of redemption, the Divine Glory - His Blessed Presence - will dwell in the Beit HaMikdash, and kindness and truth will prevail in the world. Then all of Israel will unite along one unified path to serve Hashem, because they will be walking in the way of truth. There will be no division where some serve in this way and others in that way, with each faction disparaging the other and claiming that what the other does is worthless - everyone will serve along one shared path, as it is written, "The remnant of Israel shall do no iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth." There will be righteousness and peace in the world, and they will live as brothers and companions. Truth and justice will abide among people, making them worthy of receiving the flow of kindness and peace from the Holy One, Blessed be He. Thus far according to the simple meaning.
The Malbim explains: know that the salvation with which Hashem will deliver us will come about through a blend and fusion of kindness together with truth, until they meet, as it were, like two companions meeting each other halfway along the road. Truth springs from the earth - this is our merit; kindness descends from above - this is the divine bounty that the Holy One, Blessed be He, bestows endlessly and without limit, far beyond what our deeds warrant. And what will emerge from this encounter of kindness and truth? Righteousness and peace.
To understand this, the Malbim first explains the difference between "righteousness" (tzedek) and "strict justice" (mishpat). When one says that you must pay precisely according to what you did, according to the strict letter of the law down to the last penny - that is called mishpat. Righteousness is different, for tzedek operates beyond the strict letter of the law, containing an element of charity (tzedakah). Tzedek is an intermediary balance between truth, which is absolute justice, and kindness, which is unadulterated mercy. Righteousness is kindness combined with justice, where kindness and justice meet together.
Why is this middle path necessary? Because it is impossible to run a world on pure kindness alone; otherwise, the world would devolve into a place where everyone does as they please. Imagine if all parking tickets were forgiven every two months - could anyone drive on the road? Could anyone get around the city? Cars would be parked on sidewalks everywhere, double-parking and blocking traffic. On the other hand, kindness is also necessary, which is why a system exists that sees fit to apply equity in certain cases: a person who faced an emergency, who had to run into a pharmacy to get medicine, and the like. That is called righteousness. Limitless kindness is unsustainable, and limitless strict justice is likewise impossible, for who could endure boundless judgment? Instead, we need righteousness - the middle path between truth, which is absolute, unbending justice where "the law pierces the mountain," and kindness, which is purely unmerited bounty.
From here the Malbim continues: the kindness that Hashem will perform will be grounded in truth, meaning that we will be worthy and fitting because of the good deeds we have performed, and therefore the Holy One, Blessed be He, will bestow upon us the quality of kindness. Through this, He will inevitably "speak peace to His people and to His pious ones" - the Holy One, Blessed be He, will ensure that whoever receives this kindness will not falter from it, so that the kindness will not be merely temporary and fleeting. For if everything depended solely on truth, then whenever a person fell short of the level of righteousness, he would receive nothing; therefore Hashem bestows kindness. Yet will He bestow kindness even when we are unworthy? For this, the Holy One, Blessed be He, bestows peace and ensures that "they do not turn back to folly" - He nullifies the power of evil in the world. And this is the outcome: from the encounter of kindness with truth, righteousness and peace are born and kiss one another. Righteousness descends from above in the wake of kindness coming down, while peace ascends from below following truth rising from beneath, and they join together. How will this be accomplished? That is explained in the following verse.
אֱמֶת מֵאֶרֶץ תִּצְמָח וְצֶדֶק מִשָּׁמַיִם נִשְׁקָף׃ - Truth shall sprout from the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
The Malbim compares this to the growth of grain. In the growth of grain, there is always a connection between human effort and Divine power: a person can place a seed in the ground, but if Hashem does not desire it, nothing will grow. Rather, man exerts his effort, and the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows rain and vitality, and from this the grain grows. The growth of grain unites Divine bounty with human effort. Do not say, 'Does the Holy One, blessed be He, need my deeds? If He willed it, He could sprout grain for me in a single moment without me doing anything at all!' It is true that He is able, but the question is whether He will do so - and the answer is no; the Holy One, blessed be He, says specifically, 'and He will bless you in all that you do.' A person must act and take initiative. Only after the earth is prepared and sown does it sprout, and through this come the rains from above and Hashem's blessing. So too, 'Truth shall sprout from the earth': the merit of those below is required, and only then are we worthy of the supernal bounty, and then 'righteousness shall look down from heaven' - the supernal kindness that pours out upon those below what they deserve according to the effort and preparation they have made.
The Malbim is precise with the wording: titzmach ('shall sprout') refers to the beginning of growth, whereas titein yevulah ('shall yield its produce') refers to the completion of growth, yielding the full harvest. Therefore, the progression is: 'Truth shall sprout from the earth,' and through this 'righteousness shall look down from heaven,' and then 'Hashem will also give what is good, and our land shall yield its produce.' At first there is sprouting, which is our arousal from below, and afterward the harvest comes through the power of supernal influence, like rain that pours down after you have begun and sown. But if rain falls and you have not sown, at most you will have puddles in the field and a bit of mud, but there will be no growth. It must begin with you causing truth to sprout from the earth through good deeds; only then will you be worthy that Hashem will also give what is good, and our land shall yield its produce: a complete harvest, and not merely the start of growth.
The Vilna Gaon explains: 'Truth shall sprout from the earth' - the earth's defining attribute is truth. The earth does not deceive. If you sow garlic, you will get garlic; if you sow roses, you will get roses. There is no situation where you sow garlic and can expect to get roses. What you sow is what you get. This is like the story told of someone who sent his son to the secular gymnasium because he wanted him to acquire knowledge and become cultured and educated. The son returned after six months, and the father saw - may Hashem have mercy! This was not the boy he had sent: he had sent him wearing a yarmulke, and suddenly he found him with nothing at all, having abandoned everything. His wife said to him: 'Do not send your son to the gymnasium in Vilna and expect him to return from Volozhin! If you sent him to Vilna, he will return from Vilna; if you had sent him to Volozhin, he would have returned from Volozhin.' The earth does not deceive; what you sow is what you will reap.
Incidentally, there is no absolute guarantee that a person who makes the very best effort in chinuch will not encounter different results, for our children also possess free will, and even great Torah leaders and tzaddikim had children who strayed from their path. Yet this does not exempt us from making the effort: we must do our part and strive to the utmost.
The Vilna Gaon continues: 'And righteousness shall look down from heaven' - rain comes from heaven, and rain is an aspect of righteousness and charity. Notice that rain falls equally upon the entire earth: it waters whether you sowed thorns and thistles or the most precious fruits, balsam oil, or anything else. The earth sprouts equally, and the rain waters equally, but the results depend on what you planted. Where you sowed wheat, you will receive wheat, and where you sowed thorns, you will receive thorns. If you sowed deadly poison, you will receive deadly poison. Even so, rain is always considered a positive blessing. One cannot come and complain: 'Look what these rains made grow for me, what terrible thorns!' No, sir - had you planted positive things, you would have received positive things. Everything depends on you, and rain is always deemed a good thing.
Based on this, the Vilna Gaon says: Torah comes from heaven; it is an aspect of charity, and it causes whatever you have planted in the heart to sprout. It is rain that falls upon the heart. If a person's heart is good and he wishes to learn Torah lishmah and fulfill Hashem's will, then more Torah and still more Torah will make that heart expand and flourish; he will grow in Torah, grow in deveikus to Hashem, blessed be He, and grow in avodas Hashem. But if, Heaven forbid, there is a root in his heart bearing poison and wormwood, and he learns Torah while his focus is turned outward, seeking ways to cast off the yoke, every halachah he learns will tell him, 'Listen, you are just being overly stringent.' There are those who open a Shulchan Aruch not to learn the halachah, but rather, as was once written in a leaflet, 'to see what the Rabbis are hiding from us.' What happens to such a person? He takes a Shulchan Aruch and emerges half-secular: 'We don't have to keep this,' 'This was only an enactment in the past,' 'In their days it was different.' Every Gemara he learns, instead of strengthening him, causes him to say: 'Look, in their day on Yom Kippur a person went out to guard his field, it says he crossed through water on Yom Kippur to guard it - yet with us they turned the whole day into prayers!' In every halachah, he searches for what is deficient, looking for ways to diminish.
Is the Torah flawed, then, that it fails to elevate him? No. The Torah is rain, and what sprouts in the heart is what you sowed there. If you increase Torah while the heart is rotten, a greater rot will sprout, and from the Torah itself you will draw all sorts of warped conclusions, until you end up with 'new mitzvos' - this one is a mitzvah to bury and that one is a mitzvah to perform. But if a person walks in an upright way, on the contrary, the Torah causes his good character traits and his upright path to blossom within him. The Torah is rain, and whatever you sow is what you will reap.
We previously cited the words of the Gemara regarding those great scholars who would count and weigh every letter of Torah, like Doeg and Achitophel, where Rav Yehudah was distressed over how such towering figures could have suffered such catastrophic downfalls, and it was said to him: 'There was mud in their hearts.' Tina means clay or mud. The Chazon Ish was once asked about people who abandoned religious observance in the wake of the Holocaust, and he answered: The Holocaust was a tremendous convulsion. Consider two barrels: at the bottom of one lies refuse, and at the bottom of the other lies sugar, while the water at the top of both is crystal clear, so you see nothing underneath. Stir them up - now you see: this one is garbage and that one is sweet. In the same way, the Holocaust was a complete convulsion that brought out whatever was inside. One whose heart held a true yearning for the service of Hashem and a desire to serve Hashem with integrity faced the trials, stood with fortitude, and sanctified the Name of Heaven to an unimaginable degree, sacrificing his life over forbidden foods and a thousand other things; the trial and suffering only developed and brought to light what was already inside. Conversely, one who had constantly sought ways to minimize requirements, to escape prayer, to cut corners in mitzvos, and viewed avodas Hashem as a burden - when the Holocaust struck, he found an opportunity to abandon it: 'Why did Hashem do such things?' - and that was it, he threw off the yoke.
This is the meaning of "there was sediment in their hearts": they had mud down below. In a place where there is a layer of mud at the bottom, if the water has not been stirred for a long time, it appears clear because the mud has settled. But begin to stir it, and everything turns to mud. A slight shaking comes, and all the sediment rises up. This teaches us that a person must work on the sediment in his heart, to remove the evil in the heart, and through this, even when trials and hardships arrive, he can cope.
Sefer Eitz Da'at Tov notes precisely: "Truth shall sprout from the earth" is phrased in the future tense, whereas "and righteousness looks down (nishkaf) from heaven" is phrased in the past tense, rather than "will look down" (yashkif). Why this difference? Will truth sprout from the earth in the future, while righteousness has already looked down from heaven in the past? He explains beautifully: it is written in Daniel, "From the day that you set your heart to afflict yourself, your words were heard" - he had not yet afflicted himself; he had merely resolved that with Hashem's help he would afflict himself, yet his words had already been heard in Heaven. So too here: you merely desire to bring forth truth from the earth, in the future tense; you have not brought it forth yet, you only aspire to do truth - and already "righteousness has looked down from heaven" in the past tense. You only thought to do it, and you already have righteousness from Heaven, and already divine benevolence is bestowed upon you in accordance with the deeds you merely aspired to do.
The Ba'al Shem Tov asks: If truth sprouts from the earth, why does no one pick it up? After all, when a person walks down the street and sees something valuable, he picks it up; he will even pick up a single coin. If "truth shall sprout from the earth," why does no one pick it up? His answer is: because people do not want to bend down. This is a profound and piercing statement. For truth, one must bend down, and it is hard for a person to bend. What does it mean to bend down? To surrender my desires, to yield my lusts. There is truth here, and one must bow to it - but a person is not willing to do that. Therefore, even when he sees that nothing is working out, that he took a wrong path and needs to retract, he refuses to admit it; instead, he digs in his heels even further.
At the time, they said to Mr. Peres: You see that all the agreements you brought caused thousands of deaths here. What should have happened at that stage? There is a truth here: lower your head, bend down, and say, "True, I was wrong." But if I admit I was wrong, I take responsibility for thousands of casualties. And so the opposite argument was made: at a certain point we did not give enough, we should have given more; if we had given more, the other side would have had motivation and a future, and because we stopped halfway they have no horizon, so the poor fellow goes and murders. Look: there is truth, and for truth one must bend down and admit an error, yet a person is unwilling to bend. Why? Because the truth is not important enough to him. What matters more to him is how he will be portrayed in the media, how he will be remembered, how he presents himself - and that matters more to him than the attribute of truth. A person refuses to bend, and these are the results.
People note that "Emet me'eretz titzmach" forms the acronym EMET (א-מ-ת), to tell you that truth indeed sprouts from the earth. I once saw someone comment on this: Darwin - may his merit protect us - one of his claims was that we do not yet possess sufficient data today, that the sciences of geology and archeology are not yet sufficiently developed, and therefore we cannot yet find the transitional species. After all, according to the theory of the evolution of species, everything began from a soup of chemicals, then the first living cell was formed, then lower organisms, and from there it gradually evolved. If so, show me the transitional species! He answered that when the science of archeology develops further, it will prove his claims. Yet today, the science of archeology is well developed, and they have not found even a single transitional species. They have not found any creature that does not exist today and is unfamiliar to us, about which one could say it is a transitional creature between an amphibian and a mammal, between a frog and a dog.
Another example: it is written that when Yehoshua entered the Land, he sent three proclamations (prostagmata), and the Girgashite evacuated before him and went to Africa - because he received a letter from Yehoshua stating that whoever wished to evacuate could evacuate and not be killed, and whoever stayed behind signaled that he wanted war. And lo and behold, there is an ancient inscription carved into rock: "We are the Girgashites; we were conquered by Joshua the great conqueror and we fled to Africa" - an inscription from thousands of years ago. People ask the scientists, who had claimed that these events never happened at all, and what do they answer? That it is a forgery, that someone forged it. Meaning, the forgers also happened to study the Midrash! How ridiculous that is: a person is willing to utter nonsense, just so long as he does not have to retract, because the truth is not truly important to him.
Similarly, when they sought to claim that certain things evolved in a specific order, yet in geological and archeological research they find higher strata of earth containing life forms that according to their theory had become extinct in earlier periods, how do they reconcile it? That entire shelves overturned, that there was an earthquake and massive layers of earth simply flipped upside down, and therefore what ought to be deeper appears higher up. There is no end to the absurdity and foolishness people are willing to say, just to avoid admitting the truth.
And so it is on the Temple Mount. To this day, they crush, grind, and pulverize any historical record of our rights in Jerusalem. And how does much of it ultimately come to light? They take whole dump trucks of earth from the excavations they carry out on the Temple Mount and dump them in a certain place, and archeologists come and begin sifting through what was discarded. And then you discover all sorts of Jewish inscriptions, inscriptions of pilgrims. They have no real story tied to the Temple Mount, no historical connection to it; we, on the other hand, have a connection spanning thousands of years, yet they claim it never happened. What can one do - "truth shall sprout from the earth." Likewise, all the names that appear in our sources appear on ancient inscriptions: Avraham Avinu appears in Charan, where there are inscriptions, hieroglyphics, and ancient texts bearing his name, along with the names of all the historical places mentioned in the Torah. Truth shall sprout from the earth.
The Alter of Kelm notes: it says "shall sprout" (titzmach). What does this teach us? There is a saying that evil is not driven away with sticks, but little by little. Similarly, darkness is not dispelled by a flash of lightning, for lightning does not truly illuminate darkness, being merely fleeting: one moment there is a flash, and then it is gone. Rather, the way is to shine more and more light. Darkness is driven away with another candle, and another candle, and yet another candle.
In a meeting between the Chazon Ish and the Satmar Rebbe - who shared a very warm relationship, and the Rebbe even consulted him on whether to move to Eretz Yisrael - there was a debate regarding how to relate to the State: whether to participate in government institutions and try to salvage whatever possible, or to disconnect completely, according to the Satmar approach, "lest you be swept away in all their sins." It is related that the Chazon Ish said to him: Know this - the way is neither through battles nor through protests. The way is another yeshivah and another yeshivah, another cheder and another cheder, another seminary and another seminary, another Torah shiur and another Torah shiur. That is how one banishes darkness; that is how one fights. And this is the truth, for all those who adopted the extremist path may have guarded their own borders, but what impact did they have? Where is Klal Yisrael? In contrast, consider those who sought how to spread goodness, establishing yeshivot and reaching out to broader audiences - who can imagine what the Sephardic community would look like, for example, without Rav Ovadia Yosef, who would travel out to the peripheral towns and work to draw people close? And so it goes.
What do we see? "Truth shall sprout from the earth." It is a process of growth, slow and steady. You do not plant a sapling expecting to have a full-grown tree the next day; it grows gradually, requiring patience. And the more truth is revealed, the more falsehood dims until it vanishes like smoke. Twenty years ago, when we spoke about the High Court of Justice (Bagatz), people thought that we, the Charedim, simply had an issue with Bagatz because it ruled against us; the idea that it was inherently distorted and that truth was overturned there had not yet registered. Today, however, it has become common consensus that truth is not what guides the High Court, and that it is politically biased. How did this happen? Little by little. Slowly, the general public also came to perceive and understand that there is political bias at play, and that these are not judges acting out of justice - that is not their concern. As someone once quipped: for them, Tzedek (justice / Jupiter) is merely the name of a planet. The rulings are consistently against the right and in favor of the left, consistently supporting those who undermine traditional values, consistently favoring the Reform movement, and consistently opposing Sabbath and mitzvah observance. Suddenly people realize: there is no justice here. Step by step falsehood is exposed, and step by step truth gains ground. That is the meaning of "shall sprout" - in a slow, gradual manner.
The Kedushat Levi offers a marvelous insight here. The Midrash relates that when the Holy One, blessed be He, was about to create the world, Truth said: "Let it not be created." Truth argued: "Master of the Universe, such a world will be conducted with falsehood; let it not be created!" What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He cast Truth down to the earth and created the world. On a simple level, it sounds as if Truth was in the way and so He banished it. Yet this is puzzling: if He cast Truth down to the earth and only afterward created the world, where did He cast it? The earth had not yet been created!
Rather, the meaning is that the Holy One, blessed be He, agreed: Truth is right; a world of falsehood cannot be created. Therefore, He "cast Truth to the ground" - meaning, He established a reality in which the world cannot endure without truth. He brought truth down into the earth, into the fabric of human existence. Thus, explains the Kedushat Levi, even a person who wishes to engage in commerce and business cannot conduct trade without truth. Why? Cheat once, cheat twice - and you are finished; no one will do business with you. There are fundamental rules of commerce: once people realize someone is dishonest and untrustworthy, they will not trade with him. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. There are basic foundations of truth built into the world. And why? Because Truth argued that the world would be run on falsehood; therefore, the Holy One, blessed be He, embedded truth into the earth, making it so that the world is compelled to operate according to truth as well.
גַּם יְהֹוָה יִתֵּן הַטּוֹב וְאַרְצֵנוּ תִּתֵּן יְבוּלָהּ׃ - Hashem too will bestow good, and our land will yield its produce.
"Hashem too will bestow good" - He will open His storehouse from heaven, as Rashi explains, to grant rain so that the earth may yield its produce. The Radak elaborates further: just as the people act with goodness, so too does the Holy One, blessed be He, bestow goodness upon them corresponding to the good they perform, as it is written: "Hashem will open for you His bountiful storehouse, the heavens, to provide rain for your land in its season." And "our land will yield its produce" - this is complete goodness, when the land also yields its harvest.
צֶדֶק לְפָנָיו יְהַלֵּךְ וְיָשֵׂם לְדֶרֶךְ פְּעָמָיו׃ - Righteousness shall walk before him, and make his footsteps into a path.
According to its plain meaning: righteousness will walk before the person, meaning righteousness will always be before him; "and make his footsteps into a path" - he directs his footsteps along the path of righteousness. The verse reiterates the theme: a person sets righteousness before his eyes, advances toward it, and strides along the path of justice.
The Malbim explains poetically: The good bestowed by the Holy One, Blessed is He, does not wish to travel the path alone without a guide before it; that is, goodness desires a guide to direct it. And who is this guide? Righteousness. Righteousness rules and serves as the guide; it is the leader that goes before the good, showing it the way and directing it, while the good follows in its wake. This is the meaning of "Righteousness shall go before Him" - righteousness walks before the good, and then goodness "shall set its footsteps on the way," preparing its strides to follow in the steps of righteousness. This means that according to the measure of righteousness present, according to the merit and charity due to them, so will the good arrive. For as we explained, it is not fitting for good to arrive without limit; rather, goodness comes in accordance with righteousness and is channeled according to justice - and righteousness, as noted, is the middle path between strict truth and boundless lovingkindness. Goodness does not arrive unbounded, but according to what is fitting, in accordance with the measure of righteousness.
In the sefer Emek HaBerachah, it is explained that here lies an allusion to the practice of giving charity before setting out on a journey: "Righteousness shall go before him" - give charity, and afterward "he shall set his footsteps on the way." This is also the underlying reason for something many people did not always understand: those who received a dollar from the Lubavitcher Rebbe and kept it as a souvenir. That was not the intent. If you received a dollar from the Rebbe, what did it mean? You came from Eretz Yisrael and were traveling back home, and he gave you a dollar to give to charity. What did he accomplish by this? He made you an emissary of a mitzvah, and the halachah establishes that emissaries on a mitzvah mission come to no harm. That was the purpose, and from here we learn the principle: righteousness walks before him - give charity, and then set your footsteps on the way.
The sefer Shaarei Simchah explains: First a person should perform acts of charity, and afterward set his footsteps on the way. And what is the long journey that every person is destined to take? It is death, when a person goes to his eternal home, for throughout his life man is in the status of journeying toward his eternal home. Therefore, as a person approaches death, he should give charity, and through this it will precede him to the place where he is going, as it is written, "And your righteousness shall go before you" - charity will go before you before you depart to the World to Come.
This is why the Torah enumerates gold, silver, and copper: Charity given when a person is still healthy is gold, the finest of all, as in the famous homiletical acronym "Z-H-B - this is one who gives while healthy." When a person is sick, it is less esteemed and does not shine as brightly, and that is silver. And when he gives instructions as to what to do with his money after his death, that is copper. In another familiar exposition, the teaching is framed slightly differently: when a person senses danger and only then gives, that is called silver - "when seeing danger he opens [his hand]," forming the acronym K-S-F; and when a person gives only out of illness, just before his final departure, and only then opens his pocket, that is copper - "the gift of a sick person who says 'give'," forming the acronym N-Ch-Sh-T. And what do we learn from this? A person should give while he is still healthy and possesses resources, rather than waiting for the final moment.
The conclusion of the psalm teaches the order of salvation: Truth ascends from below through our deeds and efforts, while lovingkindness descends from Above, and from their encounter are born righteousness and peace - righteousness being the middle path between strict judgment and boundless grace, and peace preserving the divine bounty so that it does not collapse. "Truth springs up from the earth" - the earth does not deceive, and what a person sows in his heart is what will sprout from the Torah that descends like rain. This growth does not occur in a single flash of lightning, but candle by candle, step by step, until falsehood is dimmed and truth prevails. For truth, one must bend down and acknowledge, and whoever is not ready to do so cannot lift it up. Finally, "Righteousness shall go before Him": righteousness is the guide, and goodness follows after it in proper measure. From this we learn that a person should precede his journey in this world and his journey to his eternal home with charity, giving while he is still healthy and not waiting until the last moment. With this, we conclude Psalm 85 in Tehillim.