Psalm 87 is a short psalm with immense depth, devoted entirely to the praise of Zion: the greatness of Jerusalem, the unique virtue of the Land of Israel, and the promise that in the future all nations will recognize it. In this part, we will examine the continuation of the verses, from "And of Zion it will be said" through the conclusion of the psalm.
וּלְצִיּוֹן יֵאָמַר אִישׁ וְאִישׁ יֻלַּד בָּהּ וְהוּא יְכוֹנְנֶהָ עֶלְיוֹן׃ - And of Zion it will be said, "Every man was born in her, and He, the Most High, will establish her."
Rashi explains: when the nations bring the people of Israel as an offering to Hashem in Zion, they will say of each and every one, "This is one of those who were exiled from you." Of each and every person returned here to Zion at the end of the exile, it will be said, "These are the ones who were born here."
A Midrash is cited: "I will mention" - to my people and acquaintances the greatness of Egypt and Babylon, who now witness the greatness of the people of Israel. "Philistia and Tyre, with Cush" - who border Rahav and Babylon, they themselves elevate and exalt the people of Israel. "And of Zion it will be said" - that very same praise spoken today of Rahav and Babylon will in the future be said of Zion. Those very lands - Philistia, Tyre, and Cush - who now glorify Egypt and Babylon, will glorify Zion and proclaim: Zion is superior to all of them, the Land of Israel is more exalted than all. Then they will say, "Look, so-and-so was born in her; look, such-and-such a person was born in her" - which is an honor, a sign that this is a magnificent and elevated place. And then "and He, the Most High, will establish her" - the Holy One, blessed be He, will make her higher and more exalted than all other cities.
In the sefer Tehillot Maharit, it is explained that the verse here speaks in praise of the Land of Israel and its unique virtues, unequaled in any other land. "Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God" - people continually speak of and honor this place, yearning for the moment they can cherish its dust and arrive there.
He further observes: it is human nature to praise the place one comes from. An Austrian will tell you there is nowhere like Austria; a Hungarian will say there is nowhere like Hungary; a Syrian, nowhere like Syria. Everyone praises their birthplace, just as every community praises its own unique virtues. A person is naturally bound to the place where they were born. But with the Land of Israel, it is not so: the Land of Israel is the joy of the entire earth, capturing the hearts of human beings wherever they may be, even those not born there. Everyone, stranger and native alike, is joyful and content to be in its midst and to speak its praise as though born there - praising the place as if it were their natural home. And why? Because the Shechinah rests upon it constantly, "a land upon which the eyes of Hashem your God are always set."
This is the meaning of "I will mention Rahav and Babylon to those who know Me": to speak favorably of other lands - Rahav, Egypt, Babylon - one must be a person about whom it is said, "this one was born there." Only one born there praises that place, since he is intrinsically bound to it and retains sentimental attachment to his birthplace. But with Zion - "And of Zion it will be said, 'Every man was born in her'": every single person, even if they have only just arrived, praises the place as though they were born there. One comes from Iraq, another from Yemen, another from Hungary, and another from Persia - each comes from a different land, yet feels as if he was born here, as if he has returned home. He kisses its dust and says: this is my home. But your home was there! Even so, the Land of Israel was always the aspiration. When someone steps off an airplane in any other country, they do not kiss the ground or say, "I have come home"; here - "the children have returned to their border" - here one feels as if he was born. And the reason: "and He, the Most High, will establish her" - since the Holy One, blessed be He, causes His Shechinah to dwell within her, she becomes exalted, and consequently every person feels that this is their true place.
Rav Dessler adds and explains: in no place in the world does a Jew feel true rest. The Land of Israel is not considered the safest place, and people will tell you that other places are safer (though in America, too, that sense of security has been shaken recently as antisemitism raises its head). Yet even during the years when there was quiet for Jews abroad, a Jew outside the Land never truly felt in his rightful place. In the Land of Israel, he experiences a certain quiet, a certain inner serenity - and that is reality. This reality stems from the fact that it is a "place upon which the eyes of Hashem your God are always set," a place to which a person is bound at his core: "every man was born in her" - every person feels as though born there, because "He, the Most High, will establish her," as Hashem causes His Shechinah to dwell there. Among the nations, however - "and among those nations you shall have no repose, neither shall the sole of your foot have a resting place." A person does not feel at ease; he might be in Switzerland and enjoy peaceful surroundings, yet he does not feel it to be his natural home and place of serenity - only in the Land of Israel.
יְהֹוָה יִסְפֹּר בִּכְתוֹב עַמִּים זֶה יֻלַּד שָׁם סֶלָה׃ - Hashem will count in the register of peoples: "This one was born there," Selah.
Rashi explains that this is an inverted verse (mikra mesoras), and the word "Selah" refers back to the beginning of the verse, as if it said: "Hashem will count when registering nations, Selah." In the Future to Come, when the Holy One, blessed be He, registers the idolaters for everlasting disgrace, He will count the Jews swallowed up among them and take them out, saying: This one was born of those of Zion. The Holy One, blessed be He, will take for Himself those connected to Zion.
And not only them. There is an astonishing Midrash on the verse, "And from them too I will take for Kohanim and Levi'im" - from the nations who bring them as an offering, I will take those swallowed up among them, and there will be Kohanim among them, "who are not recognizable, but before Me they are revealed," said Hashem. That is to say, the Holy One, blessed be He, will take Kohanim both from among the nations returning the Jewish people to Zion, and from the Jewish people returning to Zion. And who are these Kohanim? Kohanim and Levi'im who are not recognizable at all - if you will, Anusim (forced converts), upon whom it is no longer evident that they are Kohanim. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: Before Me they are revealed; and where is this stated? "The hidden things belong to Hashem our God." You see a non-Jew, but the Holy One, blessed be He, knows which of the nations bringing Israel back to their land is fit to be a Kohen - upright people who are actually from the people of Israel and were merely assimilated there. This idea expresses that the Holy One, blessed be He, will extract all the sparks of holiness from among the nations; all those who were assimilated will ultimately return to the Jewish people, and will even be Kohanim and Levi'im - "And from them too I will take for Kohanim and Levi'im."
The Radak explains that "yispor" here is in the sense of writing and recording. That is: when the Holy One, blessed be He, inscribed the nations - and decreed concerning them - He established that among the nations there would be few wise men, a sage here and a sage there, about whom it is said, "this one was born there," something noteworthy. But Jerusalem is the center of the wise, "every single man was born in her." It is the Holy One, blessed be He, who inscribed and decreed that the nations would have solitary wise men, while the Jewish people would have many wise men; He determined who would be born in Zion and what their number and the number of their sages would be, and He knew everything in advance.
The Ibn Ezra interprets "yispor" as counting and calculating: the wise men who will be born in Zion - Hashem counts them and knows their number. Certainly Hashem knows everything, but an expression of "knowing" with the Holy One, blessed be He, indicates something to which He is deeply attached, for knowledge denotes connection - "And Adam knew Eve his wife." Here it comes to teach that the Jewish people are known before Him and counted by Him. An insignificant item is sold in bulk; diamonds are not sold in bulk, but one by one. When Hashem counts something, it is a sign that the Jewish people are cherished and worthy of being counted individually, one by one.
There is a wonderful idea in the name of the Chortkover Rebbe on this verse. The story is told of a young married man (an avrech) who came to him and said: Rebbe, my father-in-law does not pray; for some time now he has not been going to shul. The Rebbe said to him: It seems to me that you are mistaken; probably by the time you wake up, your father-in-law has already returned from shul. He said: No, I followed him; he does not go to pray. The Rebbe told him: Let us perform a test. I will write a note asking to meet him, and you place the note inside his tefillin bag. If he comes to me - it is a sign that he opened his tefillin and saw it; but if he does not come - it means you are right, and the tefillin are simply sitting in the closet. He did so. A few days later, he returned and said: Rebbe, he did not come. The Rebbe said: It seems you are right; call him to me.
The man came to the Rebbe. The Rebbe said to him: What happened? Lately you are not seen; you do not come to pray? The man burst into tears and recounted that he had lost a great fortune in his business, and now he is constantly fleeing from his creditors. I have no peace of mind and no tranquility, he said; I am simply incapable of standing and praying. I begin to pray, and immediately all these thoughts rush into my head, and I do not even notice what is coming out of my mouth. There is no point in such a prayer. I said to myself: let me gather some strength, let me get through the crisis, and with Hashem's help I will return to praying properly. But now, to stand and recite mechanically while my thoughts are racing and nothing is "Baruch" and nothing is "Atah" and nothing is "Hashem," but only alien distractions - surely the Master of the Universe understands that in such a state, it is better not to pray at all.
The Rebbe said to him: There is a verse, "Hashem will count when registering nations, this one was born there, Selah." Can you explain to me what is written here? He felt uncomfortable admitting that he did not know the verse, so he replied: The Rebbe should explain. The Rebbe told him: Indeed, a prayer such as you describe is not considered a prayer. And what happens? A person prays Shacharit - above, they record a zero. Minchah - another zero. Arvit - another zero. As you say, one must know before Whom one stands and in what manner one prays, and this is not a prayer. But look: once, a person does pray a proper prayer. He heard a mussar discourse, or the Yamim Noraim arrived, or something good happened to him, he made a profit, his son or daughter got engaged - and suddenly he prayed from the depths of his heart. A "one" must be recorded for him. Just tell me: where does the Holy One, blessed be He, record this "one", on the right or on the left?
And this depends: does the Holy One, blessed be He, write like a gentile or like a Jew? The nations begin writing from the left, and the Jews from the right. If He writes the "one" on the right side - you would be correct: it comes out to 000001, a single prayer and all the zeros remain just as they were, worth nothing. But "Hashem will count when registering nations" - when Hashem counts, He writes in the manner that the nations write, from the left! And when the "one" is written on the left, before the entire row of zeros - you have a trillion prayers! A single prayer elevates them all.
And do not think this is merely a clever insight (a vort): the holy Zohar states this explicitly, that when a person prays a single prayer properly, he elevates and uplifts along with it all the empty prayers, all those prayers that were without heart and without focus, and a single prayer has the power to elevate them all and raise them as a crown for the King. This is what he told him: You must pray. Even if the prayer is a zero - let it be a zero, and in the end there will be a one, and that one will turn everything into millions. But if you do not pray at all, not even a zero is recorded for you, and when you want to pray in two months, they will record for you a single, lonely, orphaned "one". Thus a person must understand that in every situation, even from the depths, even when he is in the lowest place - "Out of the depths I called to You, Hashem" - the Holy One, blessed be He, will ultimately uplift and elevate even this, bringing it to the great level of prayers fit to be a crown for the King.
וְשָׁרִים כְּחֹלְלִים כָּל מַעְיָנַי בָּךְ׃ - Singers as well as flutists: all my inner wellsprings are in you.
The singers and the dancers - all of them will sing the praise of Jerusalem. And I too, says the psalmist: "All my inner wellsprings are in you" - all the fountains of my heart, the source from which the songs flow, are entirely in you; all my focus is upon you. Another explanation: as if the Holy One, blessed be He, is saying - all My contemplation and providence are upon you. "A land that the eyes of Hashem your God are always upon," and even more so Jerusalem, which stands on a higher level than all the rest of the Land of Israel, and the site of Zion is the place where the Shechinah rests.
"Like dancers/flutists" (kecholelim) is similar to the phrase "they shall eat portion for portion" - these just like those sing and praise Hashem and Jerusalem. And who are the cholelim? Radak explains: those who play flutes (chalilim). The singers like those playing flutes, all of them praise and exalt Jerusalem.
אֹהֵב יְהֹוָה שַׁעֲרֵי צִיּוֹן מִכֹּל מִשְׁכְּנוֹת יַעֲקֹב׃ - Hashem loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
The Midrash says regarding "Hashem loves the gates of Zion": The Holy One, blessed be He, said, I cherish synagogues and houses of study, but which do I cherish more? Zion, which is My royal palace - the palace of the King.
נִכְבָּדוֹת מְדֻבָּר בָּךְ עִיר הָאֱלֹהִים סֶלָה׃ - Glorious things are spoken of you, city of God, Selah.
"Glorious things are spoken of you" - this refers to the fact that they would pronounce the divine Name as written in the Beis HaMikdash. What is this special virtue and glory? That in Jerusalem the Name is pronounced as it is written. We pronounce the Name with the appellation of Adonai, whereas the Kohen Gadol in the Beis HaMikdash would pronounce the Name as written, with awe and trepidation. And why? "To fear the glorious and awesome Name" - and where is it called so? Only in the city of God.
אַזְכִּיר רַהַב וּבָבֶל לְיֹדְעָי הִנֵּה פְלֶשֶׁת וְצֹר עִם כּוּשׁ זֶה יֻלַּד שָׁם׃ - I will mention Rahab and Babylon to those who know Me; behold Philistia and Tyre with Cush: "This one was born there."
The Midrash continues: "I will mention Rahab and Babylon" - the nations of the world are destined to bring gifts to the King Messiah. And what gift will they bring? The people of Israel who were born among them, among the nations, and they will say, "This one was born there." "And of Zion it will be said" - from all the nations they will bring an offering, each and every person who was born in her, as it says, "And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to Hashem." The nations will bring the people of Israel up here, so that we may ascend to the Holy Land when the Redemption arrives. "Every man" (ish ve'ish) - this is an Israelite, this is a Kohen, this is a Levi. And as we explained, even from among the gentiles who bring them - "And from them too I will take for Kohanim and for Levi'im," referring to those who were assimilated among them. The Holy One, blessed be He, will extract them, both from among those who bring and those who are brought.
"Hashem will count in the register of peoples: 'This one was born there'" - as for those nations that brought Israel, the Holy One, blessed be He, records Israel as though they were born there, as if they were born at that very moment. And "born" here is also in the sense of a newborn child, like the halachah of a convert who has converted being considered like a newborn child - as if he has a fresh beginning and a new reality.
Radak offers an additional interpretation: "And singers as dancers" - just as the men will sing, so too will the women sing, and cholelim refers to the women. From where does he derive this? The concept of machol (dance) is consistently mentioned in connection with women: "from the dancing maidens whom they seized" - stated regarding the tribe of Binyamin after the incident of the concubine in Givah, where they were given wives by seizing dancing maidens, with mecholelot meaning those going out to dance. So too, "all the women came out from all the cities of Israel to sing and dance" in the Book of Shemuel. (It is somewhat curious that he cited Shemuel, since he could have brought a proof from the Torah itself: "and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing"). In any case, we see that dancing is predominantly associated with women, even though we do find dancing among men as well - at the sin of the Golden Calf, where women were not present, since the women did not participate in the Golden Calf (and they were also very careful not to dance in mixed company: a calf yes, mixed dancing no...). It is quite possible that those dancing there were the mixed multitude. In general, dancing is far less common among men.
Radak notes further: if this refers to women, the verse should have said ke-cholelot (feminine) rather than ke-cholelim (masculine). But do not wonder at this, for as is his way, he adduces proofs from Scripture where we find similar usage, such as: "And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven" - where it was the women who were speaking, yet the verse uses mekatterim in the masculine form rather than mekatterot.
"All my fountains are in you" - just as a well springs forth fresh water at every hour, so too, "singers as dancers, all my fountains": an ever-flowing spring of song and praise to Hashem, blessed is He, and to Yerushalayim, without pause.
Radak notes here that the Christians interpret this psalm in reference to that man, and, as is his practice, he refutes them forcefully, demonstrating their absurdity and lack of understanding, and showing how the text does not fit their claims at all. We have no interest in delving into this subject; whoever wishes may consult Radak and see his words directly.
Let us conclude with the words of the Malbim. After describing the virtues of the dwellers of Tzion, he explains: when they sing the songs of the nation with flutes and musical instruments, they will sing and proclaim, "All my fountains are in you" - the fountains of salvation are all within you, Tzion, for you are the source from which every spring flows. All abundance, spiritual elevation, and glory emanate from Tzion. This aligns with the teaching that Yerushalayim is the navel of the earth: just as the navel channels nourishment to the entire body, so Yerushalayim distributes abundance to the entire world. And as the holy Or HaChaim writes, if the nations of the world only knew how much abundance was lost to them through the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, they would have stationed armed guards to ensure it would never be destroyed. We must understand that "all my fountains are in you" - every measure of blessing and bounty we have stems from you, Yerushalayim.
Psalm 87 teaches of the uniqueness of Tzion: a place one does not need to be physically born in to feel that it is home, for "each and every person was born in her" - every Jew from across the lands of the exile feels in her as though he was born there and has returned home, because "the Most High Himself established her" and the Shechinah dwells within her. In the Future to Come, the nations will bring the Jewish people as an offering to Tzion, and the Holy One, blessed is He, will extract the sparks of holiness both from the bringers and from those brought, until "and from them too I will take for Kohanim and Levi'im." And "Hashem will count in the register of peoples" - Hashem counts Israel one by one like precious gems, recording in the manner of the nations: one worthy prayer stands on the left and elevates along with it all the empty prayers that preceded it. Finally, "and singers as dancers, all my fountains are in you" - all abundance and all the wellsprings of salvation issue forth from Tzion, the navel of the earth and the fountainhead of blessing for the entire world.