We have reached the final part of the chapter, the verses of supplication at the conclusion of "A prayer of Moshe, the man of God." Until now, the chapter dealt with the brevity of human life and its fleeting nature: "The days of our years are seventy years," "for it is quickly cut off, and we fly away," and the request: "So teach us to number our days, that we may attain a heart of wisdom." From here on, Moshe Rabbeinu turns to supplications: that Hashem relent from His fierce anger, satisfy us with His lovingkindness, gladden us corresponding to the days of our affliction, grant that we merit to see His work, and establish the work of our hands. Let us follow the order of the verses.
שׁוּבָה יְהֹוָה עַד־מָתָי וְהִנָּחֵם עַל־עֲבָדֶיךָ׃ - Turn back, Hashem! How long? Relent concerning Your servants.
The Radak notes that the accent of the word "Shuvah" is mil'el: the cantillation mark is placed beneath the bet rather than under the shin. For this reason we stress the bet - "Shuvah" - and not as we would read it if the accent were under the shin. And the meaning is: Master of the Universe, return to us! How long will You distance Yourself from us? "And relent concerning Your servants" - that the Holy One, blessed be He, should relent regarding the sins of His servants; whatever we have sinned against You, relent from it. That is to say, as it were, that the Holy One, blessed be He, would reconsider what He has brought upon us and bring us back to Him now.
The Malbim explains: "Turn back" from Your fierce anger - "until when?" Until the time when we attain a heart of wisdom. As we noted earlier, we wish to succeed in our lifetimes in acquiring a heart of wisdom, in attaining Your service, in managing to fulfill Your mitzvos. Therefore, we pray: Turn back from Your fierce anger until we manage to attain a heart of wisdom, and until that time let us progress spiritually, and do not punish us in Your anger for the sins we have stumbled in.
Furthermore, regarding "and relent concerning Your servants" - that Your wrath (evrah) should not rest upon Your righteous servants. This is what we noted earlier: as a result of the sin of Adam HaRishon, death was decreed upon the entire human race. Evrah refers to an all-encompassing wrath, an anger that extends beyond what seems deserved, in that the entire world is punished because of Adam HaRishon's sin. Therefore, we plead: Relent concerning Your servants, that we not be punished with such a dreadful punishment, and thereby remove the bitterness of death from us.
The Malbim offers an additional explanation: "Turn back" (shuvah) also denotes rest and calm, as in the phrase "in calmness (beshuvah) and rest" (Yeshayahu 30:15), and like "Return (shuvah), Hashem, to the myriad thousands of Israel" (Bemidbar 10:36), where it likewise means in calmness and rest, an expression of tranquility. According to this, "turn back" from Your anger means that the anger should settle and the fury subside, so that the wrath does not continue and intensify.
שַׂבְּעֵנוּ בַבֹּקֶר חַסְדֶּךָ וּנְרַנְּנָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בְּכָל־יָמֵינוּ׃ - Satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, and we will sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Rashi explains: "In the morning" - on the day of redemption and salvation. Night is always an expression of distress, groaning, and exile; exile is compared to night, as an aspect of concealment of the Divine countenance. In contrast, the morning is the time when Hashem shines His countenance upon us. We ask: "Satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness" - that is, we eagerly anticipate being satisfied at the time of salvation - "and we will sing for joy and be glad all our days" - and then we will sing and rejoice over all the troubles we endured.
And as we have explained several times: all the hardships over which we grieve and weep today, in the future to come, for everything over which we presently recite "Blessed is the true Judge" (Baruch Dayan HaEmes), a person will recite "He Who is good and does good" (HaTov VeHaMeitiv). This is what Chazal taught: that in the future, people will recite HaTov VeHaMeitiv even over troubles. People ask: In the future to come, there will be no troubles, so over what troubles will they recite the blessing? Rather, the meaning is regarding the troubles we experience today: in the future to come, we will truly understand them and recite HaTov VeHaMeitiv over them, for we will understand that everything was for our benefit and everything was out of Hashem's lovingkindness toward us. This is "Satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness" - morning refers to the redemption - "and we will sing for joy and be glad all our days" - not only in what will be then, but also throughout all the history we lived through, because we will understand that all the troubles that befell us in these days were for our good, to bestow abundant goodness upon us.
The Ibn Ezra explains differently: if You satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, then we will rejoice and be glad all day. That is, if we begin the day with Hashem's lovingkindness, we will have joy throughout the entire day. And the "day" here refers to a person's lifetime - for the entire chapter speaks of man's lifespan: "The days of our years are seventy years, or with strength, eighty years." Therefore: if You begin to show us kindness already in our youth, then through this, "we will sing and rejoice throughout all our days," and all the days of our lives will continue on a good path.
The words of the Ibn Ezra come to teach us that a person must dedicate his early years to spirituality. This is why we educate our children from a young age solely in Torah study. Will everyone turn out to be avreichim, dayanim, roshei yeshivah, and talmidei chachamim? No. Yet from an early age, one gives a child all the tools. That is the aspiration - that he emerge a talmid chacham and illuminate the eyes of Israel with Torah. And if, upon reaching a certain age, he decides he prefers to study law, that is fine; there is no problem with that. At a certain age a person needs a livelihood, so let him go and work in whatever field; work is neither a disgrace nor a flaw. There is no issue with it. But to sacrifice the most precious days for this, the days of youth, when a person possesses all his strength and can advance spiritually - is it for this that one should dedicate those golden years?
How many people can recall peers from their youth who lived in the same neighborhood and davened in the same shul, whose parents sent them to vocational schools. How many of them work today in the trade they learned there? One studied auto mechanics, another metalwork, another ironwork, another machining - each studied something different. They invested their best years, and what remained of it? Who among them works in that field today? Not even one! What does this prove? Is it not a tragedy to take those precious years and expend them on acquiring a vocation? Those precious years should be invested in the service of Hashem, and then the rest of life is so much easier. This is what the Ibn Ezra is saying: if You satisfy us with Your lovingkindness in the morning - performing kindness with us in our youth and guiding us on the upright path - then we will rejoice all our days, even in old age.
For even if at a certain point he enters the workforce and does not remain an avreich immersed in Torah all his days, he has acquired the foundations from a young age, and afterward his entire life is properly and fittingly structured. He has acquired the fundamentals meant to grant him spirituality for all eternity. It can never be said of him that he wasted his time. In contrast, one who studied machining and ultimately ended up in an entirely different line of work took his best years and wasted that time. But someone who learned in yeshivah, even if he eventually went out to work, possesses the foundations: he attends a shiur and understands what is being discussed; he sits before a Gemara and can follow the topic. Whereas one who lacks the foundations often cannot make up for them even many years later. He comes to a shiur, and if the rabbi has not yet arrived, he will not open the Gemara to see what is written - to him it remains a sealed book, because he lacks the foundation. But one who has the fundamentals, even if the rabbi has not arrived, will begin learning on his own; he knows how to study Gemara and how to approach the texts. Therefore, even if not everyone continues in full-time study, the foundations must be provided. Whatever happens later will happen, but the foundation was firmly laid.
Incidentally, many make a serious mistake when claiming that a person is commanded to teach his son a trade, that one must teach his son a profession. People forget: the Torah does not say, "And you shall teach your son a trade." What does the Torah say? "And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them." The Torah commands us to teach the child Torah; that is a father's duty, a positive commandment - a father is commanded to teach his son Torah. It is true that Chazal say it is proper for a person to teach his son a trade, and proper to teach him how to swim, along with several other skills that are fitting to provide a child as life training. But what is the actual commandment that the Torah mandates? "And you shall teach them diligently to your children."
This is especially true since material sustenance is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, while spirituality is placed upon us. Spirituality is our responsibility, and one cannot simply cast it upon Hashem. Saying, "God willing, he will also become a talmid chacham" has no place here; there is no "God willing" in this sense - it is your duty! It is like saying, "God willing, I will put on tefillin today" - if you choose to, you will put them on. But regarding "God willing, I will have a livelihood," sustenance is indeed up to the Holy One, blessed be He. Yet what does a person do? He takes Hashem's role upon himself: worrying incessantly that his child will have a livelihood, constantly pushing him to pursue certain secular studies, to advance in a career, to earn a degree. Yet at the same time, did he worry even a quarter as much about the child's spirituality? The Holy One, blessed be He, says: His spirituality I entrusted to you; "and you shall teach them diligently to your children" I placed upon you. Why are you worrying about My department - about livelihood? Leave that to Me, and ensure his spirituality - that is your duty. Yet man completely turns the order upside down.
There was a Jewish man, an immigrant from Germany, who came to Rav Elchanan Wasserman. In Germany, the ideal of Torah combined with secular work was strongly embraced - and this refers to the Chareidi communities there, not those distant from observance. They consistently championed learning a trade and general education, so that one would also hold an academic degree. Furthermore, the law in Germany mandated that yeshivot could not teach sacred subjects exclusively, requiring students to earn a degree as well. Even roshei yeshivah - such as the leaders of Yeshivat Kol Torah, Rav Merzbach and others - arrived from Germany holding university degrees, doctorates, and the like. They always downplayed them and never viewed them as something to boast of, yet they had been required to obtain them. In that milieu, the concept that a person needed both Torah and secular work was deeply rooted.
One day, a parent of a student in Rav Elchanan Wasserman's yeshivah came and told the Rosh Yeshivah that he wished to remove his son from the yeshivah so that he could pursue general studies and specialize in the sciences, providing him with a source of livelihood. The Rosh Yeshivah asked him, "Why is this so important to you right now? Leave that for later; right now he is in yeshivah, in the full vigor of his youth - let him invest his time in Torah study." The father replied, "Rebbe, Chazal say that Torah study is good together with derech eretz, and Chazal say that a person must teach his son a trade!"
Rav Elchanan Wasserman said to him: "I would like to ask you a question. Very well, let us follow your line of reasoning - teaching one's son a trade is a mitzvah. Tell me, is circumcising one's son a mitzvah?" The man replied, "Certainly, what kind of question is that? It is an explicit mitzvah in the Torah." Rav Elchanan asked, "And what happens if a person circumcises his first son, and Heaven forbid he dies; he circumcises his second son, and he dies as well. What is the halachah now - does he circumcise the third son or not?" The father answered, "Certainly not! His brothers died as a result of circumcision." Rav Elchanan said, "Wait, I do not understand; it is a mitzvah, and you are foregoing this mitzvah?" The father answered, "A mitzvah is a mitzvah, but should one kill the child?!" Rav Elchanan said to him: "Let your ears hear what your mouth is speaking! Today, unfortunately, reality has proven that for one who goes off to learn a trade, it is a case of 'dying on account of labor.' All those who went to university, what remained of their Judaism? What remained of their spirituality? Even if you claim it is a mitzvah to teach him a trade - fine, a mitzvah; circumcision is also a mitzvah, but if his brothers died, does one circumcise? Here too, you see how many have perished spiritually - 'numerous are all her slain.' And you are about to do such a thing?"
The father did not listen to him. And it is said that it was like an unwitting error that slips from the mouth of a ruler, and after a short time the son passed away, Heaven spare us. He had said to him, "it died on account of its work," and this was effectively decreeing death, Heaven spare us. We see from this that even if a person says, "True, one needs both" - come and see where and what. And understand, today we have no educational institutions about which you could say: I will send him there, he will study both Torah and a profession, and emerge God-fearing. We have no such educational institutions. If only one would send him to a holy yeshivah, without anything else, and he would emerge God-fearing - if only, if only; how many prayers are needed for that! And if he sends him from the outset to a compromised place that combines and merges Torah with other things - what are the chances that he will emerge from there God-fearing? Therefore, as the Ibn Ezra explains: "Satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness" - if You perform lovingkindness with us in our youth and teach us the upright path, we will rejoice all our days, and even in old age the impressions of the foundations he received in his youth will remain with him. For a person takes the Torah with him everywhere, whereas every other craft dies.
שַׂמְּחֵנוּ כִּימוֹת עִנִּיתָנוּ שְׁנוֹת רָאִינוּ רָעָה׃ - Gladden us according to the days You afflicted us, the years we saw evil.
The Malbim, in explaining the previous verse as well, says that the request is one of two things. Either immediately in the morning - and here the Malbim follows the approach of the Ibn Ezra - that is, immediately at the beginning, at the dawn of life, in the youthful years which are the morning of a person's life, satisfy us with Your lovingkindness, so that we have no troubles at all and see neither the evil of time nor its vicissitudes, and through this "we will sing and rejoice all our days" - that we will not see any trouble throughout our lives, since the beginning was proper. And if it was nevertheless decreed upon us to suffer in the "morning," in the days of youth, then at the very least, "gladden us according to the days You afflicted us" - ensure that afterward we receive joy corresponding to the days in which we suffered affliction. If it is possible from the outset - satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness; and if we do not merit that and have troubles in the morning, at least toward evening do good for us in proportion to the troubles we had in the morning, granting us good later in life corresponding to the years we were afflicted in our youth.
Rashi explains: Gladden us in the Messianic era just like the days You afflicted us in exile, corresponding to the number of years in which we saw evil.
Radak explains that this does not refer to a literal calculation of the days You afflicted us, for it is impossible that the days of salvation would equal the number of days of exile and afterward the world would be destroyed. Rather, this is the intent: Just as You afflicted us during these days and showed us evil during them, so gladden us forever. For if we were to interpret it as an exact tally of days - after all, "the world exists for six thousand years"; and the final exile alone is two thousand years of exile, which would require the Holy One, blessed be He, to extend the world's existence by another two thousand years to gladden us according to the days of our affliction, and that is certainly inconceivable. Indeed, some suggest that the days approaching the Redemption and the arrival of Mashiach will be lengthened, and then it will truly be "according to the days You afflicted us" - the number will not change, but the days themselves will be longer. Yet Radak says this is not so; rather, the request is that You gladden us forever for the days in which You afflicted us.
The Malbim notes that he already explained the distinction in the Book of Yechezkel: When speaking of "days," the reference is to the entire continuum of time, to the duration itself; while "years" are the individual components within that time. One can speak of the entire span as a single unit - these are "days"; and one can speak of the specific details within that span, which is divided into "years." This is like the verse, "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations": all the days from the creation of the world until its end are called "the days of old," forming a single unit, one continuous span; whereas when addressing the specific components within that unit, the verse speaks of "the years of many generations," the years of each generation. Furthermore, "generation after generation," as the Malbim explains in several places, always expresses the breakdown of the extended period - for in each generation there is a distinct time and reality; hence "generation after generation" refers to these specific periods.
According to this: besides gladdening us in proportion to the overall time - which is "according to the days You afflicted us," the general period viewed as a single unit - "the years we saw evil" means that You should calculate the years, addressing the specifics of each and every year in which we saw evil, and grant us good and joy corresponding to them as well. Thus, there is both a reference to the general reality and an examination of the details of each suffering and every year, that You may address them as well and grant us good to match them.
יֵרָאֶה אֶל־עֲבָדֶיךָ פָעֳלֶךָ וַהֲדָרְךָ עַל־בְּנֵיהֶם׃ - Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your splendor upon their children.
Radak explains: May the act of salvation appear to Your servants, so that both parents and children will see the salvation - and this is "and Your splendor upon their children." For we pray in every generation, and parents pray that the salvation come in their own time; we therefore ask that we merit to see the salvation in our own time and in the time of our children, that we behold the splendor of the Holy One, blessed be He, and how His work is revealed while we are yet alive, that we and our children may merit to witness this salvation.
The Malbim explains that we are asking to see and grasp Your work (po'alcha) - how You operate and engage in the world - and through this, "Your majesty upon their children." To understand this, one must distinguish between pe'ulah (operation / process) and ma'aseh (finished deed / completed act), as the Malbim explains in Shemot, chapter 15, and reiterates in several places. Ma'aseh is the culmination of something - the final finishing stroke, when the work is complete. Whereas po'al refers to what a person does along the way to bring the deed to completion. By definition: the po'al is the journey, while we are still in the midst of the process, whereas the ma'aseh is the conclusion, when the thing has emerged into actual existence, reality, and being. One works on a building until the work is finished and the structure stands on its own - that is where the ma'aseh concludes; but po'al is the active engagement throughout the process, how the structure is being built.
If so, the Malbim says: we ask to see Your work (po'alcha), how You operate and engage in the world, and through this "Your majesty will appear upon their children" - for by contemplating Hashem's operations in His world, we come to grasp the majesty of Hashem. When one observes how the Holy One, blessed be He, acts in His world - not just the end results, but how He orchestrates and weaves the chain of causes, doing everything to bring about the divine will - one perceives Hashem's providence, one sees the hand of Hashem, and through this arrives at genuine faith. One sees how the Holy One, blessed be He, guides everything step by step toward the culmination.
Just as we look at the miracles of the Megillah: not only at the final outcome, but how step by step - suddenly Mordechai observes and overhears the plot of Bigtan and Teresh, and as a result informs the king, yet the king does not reward him. Notice: all of this is po'alcha; these are still the active operations, how everything is being constructed. The culmination was Haman being hanged, Mordechai receiving Haman's estate, and the Jewish people being saved from the decree - that is the ma'aseh, the conclusion. But when you examine the details, you see the active process, and you see the hand of Hashem. It is for this that we pray: we want to grasp Your work, and through this we grasp Hashem's majesty - realizing that the Holy One, blessed be He, governs His world and seeing how He actively guides it. Through this we come to perceive how immense Hashem's mercy is throughout all the moves He makes to do good for us in our ultimate end.
וִיהִי נֹעַם אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהֵינוּ עָלֵינוּ וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ כּוֹנְנָה עָלֵינוּ וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ כּוֹנְנֵהוּ׃ - May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish the work of our hands for us, and establish the work of our hands.
Rashi explains: "May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us" - may His Shechinah and His consolations rest upon us; the Shechinah is the pleasantness of Hashem upon us. Then comes the petition: "Establish the work of our hands for us" - that the deeds we perform should be directed and established by You, from the root of being set upon its firm foundation (al mekhono), so that they endure, upright and fitting. Yet seemingly, "and establish the work of our hands" is a repetition of the exact same thing. Rashi explains that one refers to the construction of the Mishkan - Moshe Rabbeinu prayed and blessed the Jewish people that the Shechinah should rest upon the work of their hands, which is "establish the work of our hands for us," that the Divine Presence rest upon what we made with our hands; while the second is a blessing for their daily labors - "and establish the work of our hands," that blessing rest upon what we do. These are two distinct matters: blessing upon our endeavors, that we succeed in what we do and that blessing rest within it; and beyond that, when we finish, that the Shechinah should dwell among us - a further dimension. Therefore, there are two distinct requests here.
The Radak explains that this verse refers specifically to the days of redemption: then the work of our hands will be firmly established and enduring, as it is written, "They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for turmoil." This stands in contrast to what we saw earlier in the chapter, that our days are short, "toil and sorrow" - and what do we achieve? Seventy years and it is over, "for it is quickly cut off, and we fly away." But in the days of redemption, may the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us, so that we have ample time to do good deeds, and may Hashem establish the work of our hands properly and fittingly. According to the Radak, the repetition follows his standard exegetical approach - a restatement of the idea in different words, either for emphasis or for poetic beauty. This is a completely different approach from that of the Malbim, who consistently maintains that if there is a repetition, it always comes to teach something distinct, and there is no such thing as mere poetic synonymy.
The Malbim explains that "pleasantness" (ne'imut) is the satisfaction and delight a person derives from the actions he performed: when one undertakes an endeavor and achieves through it the desired outcome, he experiences this pleasantness.
Many studies have been conducted on the happiness index, looking into when a person is truly at his happiest. Throughout life, man constantly seeks happiness. One tends to imagine that true happiness means flying abroad to the Caribbean, lounging on a beach with a milkshake - but research shows that this is simply not the case. When is a person genuinely happy? When he is driven by purposeful activity, when he is building something, when he is faced with a challenge he must work to overcome. During the time of effort and achievement - that is man's greatest joy. That is why when someone establishes a business, regardless of the fact that most businesses eventually fail, the phase of founding and building - assembling the cabinets, purchasing the refrigeration units - is when a person feels most energized and happy. Human beings thrive on challenges: when one faces a hurdle that demands strength and resolve to overcome and build, that is when he experiences genuine joy. That is why even on vacation, people look for something to do: closing a deal, making a call, organizing something. A person needs a challenge; that is what infuses him with vitality, whereas just idling on a lounge chair brings no real happiness.
A person must channel this entire reality into spirituality. If one learns the Daf Yomi - finishing Masechet Yevamot brings tremendous joy and a wonderful sense of challenge, and now one sets a new challenge, Masechet Ketubot following Yevamot. Human life thrives on challenges, and this is true happiness. When a person has no challenges in life, he is the most wretched person in the world, the furthest from happiness; he has no pursuits that give him a reason to live, that give flavor to life, that drive him to do, to prepare, to establish, and to build. A person needs challenges.
This is what the Malbim explains: pleasantness is the deep satisfaction the worker derives from his accomplishment, in that he achieved through his work the desired goal. A person labored, produced, built, and now sees it functioning - what happiness overwhelms him, what joy he experiences! As Chazal taught: "A person prefers one kav of his own over nine kavim of his fellow's." Why? Because he toiled and labored over them. That is the stage of true gratification: having invested effort and toil, one now sees the fruit of his labor. He harvests the tomatoes he planted and watered for weeks on end, and when he gathers them in - that is his true joy. A person derives profound satisfaction from something he worked for and whose results he now reaps.
The Malbim explains: Through our attaining perfection, Hashem finds delight in all of creation - for He created everything for His glory. The Holy One, blessed be He, created the universe so that His Name would be magnified within His world, and when we direct our efforts toward this goal, it brings, as it were, pleasantness and delight to Hashem, Blessed be He: "May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us." How so? When the creations grasp the glory of Hashem, the Holy One, blessed be He, shines His countenance upon us, for we are fulfilling the ultimate purpose of creation; we are Hashem's desire in His world. The Holy One, blessed be He, created His world for the sake of Israel - "Bereshit", for the sake of Israel, who are called "reishit" (the first). Through this, creation fulfills its purpose, for the ultimate goal of creation is that there be the glory of Heaven in the world. We fulfill this purpose by serving Hashem and praying to Him, and through this, the glory of Heaven is reflected upon us: it is seen that the Jewish people merit favor, that the Holy One, blessed be He, returns them to their land, redeems them, and builds the Beit HaMikdash for them, and through this the Name of the Creator, blessed be He, is magnified and sanctified. Then Hashem's deeds reach their ultimate purpose, since He created everything for His glory.
"And establish the work of our hands upon us" - the Malbim explains that a person's physical, mundane endeavors are not established *upon* him. If a person builds a house: "to establish" (lechonen) means to set a foundation; the foundations of the house are established upon stones, and the stones are established upon the soil of the earth. It is not established upon you; you are the builder, but you do not lie down beneath it so that it may be built on top of you, nor are you the base and foundation for the structure. Quite the contrary - the craftsman is supported upon his house to dwell in it; you are the one who is established upon the house. You dwell inside the house and rest upon the house you built, not the house resting upon you. And so it is with all material labor, with any physical structure erected on earth and any mundane activities performed in this world.
However, good deeds in the realm of the soul are not like this. In spiritual matters - says the Malbim - man becomes the base and pedestal for the work of his hands; you are the foundation and base for your good deeds. He gives an example: when someone studies Torah, his Torah is established upon the human intellect and soul. What does the Torah rest upon? Upon the human soul. That is to say, I am the foundation, and the Torah rests upon me. When I built a physical house, the house is the foundation and I rest upon it; but when I build a spiritual edifice, that spiritual structure rests upon me, and the person himself is the foundation. And when someone performs a mitzvah lishmah (for its own sake), the mitzvah finds a pedestal and foundation in the soul of the one who performs it; the person himself is the active soul, and he is the foundation for that spirituality that rests upon him.
This is what we ask: that the work of our hands be established upon us. Not upon something external - which would mean that I labored merely for physical things - but rather, if I labor for spirituality, I am the pedestal, the foundation and the base upon which spirituality rests, into which the mitzvot and the Torah enter, and I am the base. And may Hashem establish everything we do, since these deeds are good in His eyes. Therefore we ask, "and the work of our hands, establish it" - that everything should rest upon us, that the work of our hands be established upon us, because we performed deeds that are spiritually good.
The Malbim notes: Thus far are the words of the man of God praying. This is the final verse of the chapter, and it serves as both a communal and an individual prayer. In this, there is an introduction to the next chapter: here Moshe Rabbeinu prays for himself as well, since it had been decreed that Moshe would not enter the Land, which is why it is titled, "A prayer of Moshe, the man of God." Regarding this Moshe says: I do not comprehend the power of Your anger, "and Your wrath is according to the fear of You" - why Hashem became wrathful with me. That is one aspect, and he asks that Hashem relent regarding him. In addition, he asks that Hashem's deeds be seen alongside the work of his own hands - and what is the work of his hands? The nation that I brought out of Egypt, that I may merit to bring this nation into Eretz Yisrael. In other words, may He have mercy on him and grant him the merit to enter the Land of Israel, and through this Hashem's splendor will be seen upon his sons who will succeed him, and thereby he will attain the spirituality that can only be attained by entering the Land. Furthermore, he asks that the people of Israel as well should enter the Land and not perish there in the wilderness. With this, Moshe Rabbeinu's prayer and plea concludes, and in the next chapter we will see what answer Moshe Rabbeinu receives to this request.
At the conclusion of Moshe's prayer, we make four requests: that Hashem turn back from His fierce anger and grant us the time to acquire a heart of wisdom, and that His wrath not rest upon His servants; that He sate us with His lovingkindness "in the morning" - on the day of redemption according to Rashi, and during the years of youth according to Ibn Ezra and the Malbim, which is when the foundations that sustain a person throughout his life are formed; that He gladden us corresponding to the days of affliction, both collectively and individually, commensurate with the days of our affliction and the years we saw evil; and that we merit to witness His work, the process through which He orchestrates all causes, for from seeing His work one perceives the splendor of Hashem and arrives at faith. And finally, "May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us" - that the Shechinah and blessing rest upon our deeds, and that the work of our hands be established upon us: not external edifices that we merely rest upon, but a spiritual structure of which we are the foundation, Torah and mitzvot resting upon the human soul - and through this, creation fulfills its ultimate purpose, for He created everything for His glory.