Psalm 100 is "A psalm of thanksgiving" - a psalm entirely devoted to giving thanks to Hashem, blessed be He. In this part, we will explore the continuation of the psalm: the recognition that Hashem is the Master of all powers, that He made us and we are His, the call to enter the gates of the Beit HaMikdash with thanksgiving and praise, and the concluding affirmation that the Creator's lovingkindness and faithfulness are eternal.
דְּעוּ כִּי־יְהֹוָה הוּא אֱלֹהִים הוּא־עָשָׂנוּ (ולא) [וְלוֹ] אֲנַחְנוּ עַמּוֹ וְצֹאן מַרְעִיתוֹ׃ - Know that Hashem is God; He made us, and we are His, His people and the sheep of His pasture.
"Know that Hashem is God" - He is the Almighty, He is omnipotent, He is the Master of all forces, and there is none beside Him. As noted previously, the name "Elokim" is in the plural form because "El" signifies power, as in the phrase "it is in the power of my hand" (yesh le'el yadi), or in common parlance: "the mighty of the land" (eilei ha'aretz), magnates, or tycoons - masters of power. Hashem is Elokim, meaning the Master of all forces, and all powers in creation stem from Him.
The Malbim explains: "Elokim" is the source of all powers extending throughout reality, and the One Who guides them is the Holy One, blessed be He. Consequently, if all powers belong to Him - "He made us, and not we ourselves."
It is written (ketiv) "velo" with an alef (meaning "and not"), but read (keri) "velo" with a vav (meaning "and to Him" or "and His"), and the commentators explain both meanings. Rashi interprets according to the written text: "He made us" - when we did not exist in the world; when we were still "nothing" (lo), Hashem brought us into being.
The Radak explains: Know now that Hashem is God, and it is in His power to overturn all the systems of nature and rule over the entire world, and He is the One Who brought you out of exile. "He made us and we are His (velo)" with a vav - He raised us up and elevated us. Here, "made us" does not denote physical creation, but is used in the sense of "Hashem Who made Moshe and Aharon" - meaning He elevated them and established their high stature. Similarly, it implies refinement or grooming, as in "and she shall attend to (ve'asta) her nails" - does she create them? Rather, she lets them grow or trims them, meaning she tends to them. Here too, "He made us" - He formed and perfected us, established our standing, nurtured us, and elevated us. "And we are His" - we are called by His Name; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture; we belong to Him and are devoted to Him.
And according to the written text with an alef - "and not we ourselves": no person can say, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." We did not make anything that exists here in creation; rather, everything comes from Him, blessed be He. And that we are "His people and the sheep of His pasture" is entirely due to what the Holy One, blessed be He, has done, while we created nothing in this world.
The Radak further cites an explanation in the name of Rav Saadia Gaon: "He made us, and not we ourselves" - it should be noted that in the printed editions of Radak and Ibn Ezra the text appears with a vav ("velo"), but this is certainly a misprint and should be with an alef ("vela"). That is: and we did not make ourselves. This stands in direct contrast to Pharaoh, who declared, "The Nile is mine, and I made it for myself" (or: "I made myself"); whereas David says: Not so, He made us, and we did not make ourselves.
The Malbim enumerates four relationships through which we relate to the Creator. The first: "He made us" - He brought us into being from nothingness, bringing us into reality. The second: He is unlike any other craftsman, who, once he has finished making something, no longer holds possession over his handiwork; here it is stated, "Is He not your Father Who acquired you?" - we remain the Holy One's possession even after creation.
This is a principle we have discussed before, and we learned this in the Nefesh HaChaim as well. When we say that Hashem is the place of the world, it is comparable to a homeowner who hired a contractor to build him a balcony. Once the contractor finishes his work, receives his payment, and leaves, he no longer holds onto the balcony - and if he were still holding it, that would be terrible! He finished and walked away, and from that point on the balcony stands on its own, even before he has been paid. But with the Holy One, blessed be He, this is not the case: the continuous existence of creation stems at every single moment from the will of the Creator, may He be blessed.
And if you want a modern parable: consider the inflatable bounce houses that children jump on. What happens during a single moment of a power outage? The entire castle folds up and deflates, and within half a minute nothing is left. In the very same way, the Holy One, blessed be He, is "inflating" reality all the time; all the existence you see around you continues like an air pump pushing constantly without pause. The moment He were to withdraw His will, everything would instantly revert to void and nothingness - there would be nothing at all.
Thus we find that the Creator's act of creation is not a one-time event that endures merely through inertia, but as we recite: "Who in His goodness renews the work of creation every day, continually" - not only every day, but continually, at every moment. When God said, "Let there be light," that divine utterance continues to resonate at every single second, and through its power the sun shines. If that divine utterance were to cease for a single instant, the sun would vanish into absolute nonexistence, possessing no reality whatsoever. This is the meaning of "Forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens" - the divine word stands firm and endures, as though Hashem is constantly commanding, "Let there be light, let there be light," and that is what sustains the sun. Unlike the works of man, where a person makes an object and it stands on its own, with the Holy One, blessed be He, continuous existence flows perpetually from Him, blessed be He. And this is the meaning of "He made us, and we are His" [or: "and not we ourselves"] - not like an ordinary maker who produces something and retains no ownership over it, or who can sell it off because he has no ongoing need for you. Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, created us, and we are His continuous acquisition, belonging to Him just as much after our creation.
The third aspect: "His people" - in that Hashem guides and leads us; He did not choose another nation to be His people, but us. And the fourth aspect: "and the sheep of His pasture" - that the Holy One, blessed be He, shepherds and guides us. Just as a shepherd watches over his flock and tends to all their needs, so He continuously feeds, sustains, and provides for us at all times.
The Gemara teaches that the survival of Israel among the nations is like that of a single sheep among seventy wolves. As the Ya'avetz wrote: As my soul lives, greater in my eyes than all the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt - greater than the Ten Plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea - is the survival of the Jewish people over thousands of years! Historians find no parallel to it and have no rational explanation; they stand completely open-mouthed. Thinkers and historians who explored this subject, such as Arnold Toynbee and Mark Twain, tried to understand the secret of the Jewish people's survival, unable to grasp how it could be: a nation so small, so persecuted everywhere, so scattered - yet still enduring.
And not merely surviving as some marginal nation or a remote tribe in Nicaragua, but as a people that the global media never stops discussing; as a nation that is a military and economic powerhouse, impossible to ignore, whose influence touches nearly everything happening in the world, and from whom countless global innovations originate. Observers look on in utter astonishment: how can this be? The answer given to you is: this is the greatest of all miracles, that the Holy One, blessed be He, preserves a single sheep among seventy wolves, and you witness this with your own eyes to this very day.
How many forces desire to eradicate us, to erase us, to throw us into the sea, even developing nuclear weapons specifically aimed at our destruction! There is no other nation on earth that has been targeted as a collective project where the entire aim of those around it is total annihilation. An ordinary nation might fight to conquer a piece of land, but here the entire objective is our destruction. And this does not refer only to those who state it explicitly: across Europe, too, this remains part of their underlying mindset, except that political correctness prevents them from saying so openly. What do they do? They legitimize terrorist organizations like Hamas and remove them from terror lists, hoping that they will do the work for them; they initiate investigations against us in The Hague and similar forums to tie our hands. In the past, they did this openly and built crematoria; today, they ensure someone else does the work in their place - but we must not deceive ourselves for a moment into thinking they have become our friends.
How, then, do we survive despite it all? To this we proclaim: "He made us, and we are His, His people and the sheep of His pasture." There is One Who watches over us and One Who guides us, and this Shepherd will never allow the sheep among the seventy wolves to be devoured by them.
The Chiddushei HaRim explains: The read version (Keri) is v'lo with a vav ("and we are His"), while the written text (Ketiv) is v'lo with an alef ("and not we ourselves"), and both convey the exact same truth. The more a person feels within himself "not we" - recognizing that on his own he is nothing - the more he truly attains the state of "and we are His." The more you recognize that you are nothing of your own power, the more completely you belong to Him, blessed be He. Man's fundamental obstacle is that he feels accomplished, refined, and complete, viewing himself not through the lens of "no" but as "yes, Baruch Hashem" - and in that self-sufficient state, he does not truly belong to Hashem, blessed be He. But if one genuinely feels that sense of "no" (with an alef) - realizing that on his own he has nothing and is nothing - he merits to become truly "His" (with a vav) and draw close to the Holy One, blessed be He.
The Gerrer Rebbe added: This is hinted at in the word "Elul" (אלול), which contains two words - "lo" (לא - not/nothing) and "lo" (לו - to Him). This is the inner work of the month of Elul: the more a person senses within himself that he is "lo" (nothing of his own), the more he merits to be in the aspect of "lo" (belonging to Him), drawing close to Him, blessed be He.
בֹּאוּ שְׁעָרָיו בְּתוֹדָה חֲצֵרֹתָיו בִּתְהִלָּה הוֹדוּ־לוֹ בָּרְכוּ שְׁמוֹ׃ - Enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courtyards with praise; give thanks to Him, bless His Name.
We will enter His gates with thanksgiving, and in His courtyards we will sing His praise. Radak explains: the thanksgiving is for the lovingkindness He bestows upon us.
Midrash Shocher Tov cites: Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Menachem of Gallia - in the future to come, all prayers will cease, but thanksgiving will never cease; all sacrifices will cease, but the thanksgiving offering (Korban Todah) will never cease. The commentators raise a difficulty with this: how can it be said that all sacrifices will cease? The offerings are explicitly written in the Torah, and the Torah will never be replaced. A sin offering (chatat) is understandable, as there will no longer be sins; but could the daily tamid offering be abolished? And what of the Shabbat offerings, the Mussaf offerings, and the Yom Kippur sacrifices - how could they ever cease?
Therefore, many explain that this should not be taken literally. The Torah will never be altered, and if the Torah commands, "And on the Sabbath day two year-old lambs without blemish," this will never be abolished and will certainly be fulfilled when the Beit HaMikdash is rebuilt. Rather, the Midrash refers primarily to sin-related offerings: all the sacrifices a person brings that are not fixed communal duties will cease, for there will be no sins, guilt offerings, or iniquities; yet the thanksgiving offering, which one brings of his own accord, will never cease.
Radak clarifies the meaning of these words: prayers of petition will cease because people will no longer need to ask for their worldly needs. We will dwell in ultimate goodness, with no requests left to make - everything will be good and there will be nothing left to ask for, leaving only praise and thanksgiving to God. Prayer will consist entirely of gratitude: no longer "Forgive us" or "Heal us," for one will need neither forgiveness nor healing; instead, "Thank You, Master of the Universe, that I am healthy," "Thank You, Master of the Universe, that You guide us" - all prayers will be expressions of thanks. Likewise, there will be no sinners needing a sin offering or a guilt offering.
"Give thanks to Him, for His lovingkindness endures forever" - throughout all the days of the world, Hashem's kindness remains with us. "And His faithfulness to all generations" - Radak explains that this refers to the promise He made to us regarding the future goodness, which will endure for all generations. The meaning is rooted in the teaching, "Six thousand years the world exists, and one [thousand] it is desolate" - the world exists in its present state for six thousand years, after which there will be an outpouring of bounty upon all who proved worthy and fitting through their good deeds in this world, and that state is eternal. The goodness of Hashem, blessed be He, is not like the benevolence of flesh and blood, which is fleeting and transient; rather, it is an eternal goodness.
The holy Alshich explains: after all this worthy preparation, when we enter His gates - the gates of Jerusalem and the gates of Zion - we must not come away feeling that Hashem owes us gratitude for having brought an offering. Sometimes a person finishes praying with such an attitude: "Master of the Universe, what a prayer that was!" - as though the Holy One, blessed be He, ought to thank him for praying, for learning, or for performing a mitzvah. The Alshich says: never let such a thought cross your mind, that after troubling yourself to come and offer Him a thanksgiving sacrifice, Hashem should thank you. On the contrary: "Enter His gates with thanksgiving" - thank Hashem for having granted you the merit to enter His gates; thank You, Master of the Universe, for granting me the privilege to thank You. Furthermore, when you enter His courtyards, add praise and adoration to your thanksgiving - this is the meaning of "His courtyards with praise." What is more, for the very fact that He granted you the merit to thank Him, deeming you worthy enough to desire gratitude from your lips - Hashem has bestowed value upon me, saying, as it were: "I desire your thanks, I receive it from you" - for this alone, we owe Him our deepest gratitude.
Notice that we say this every day in the chazzan's repetition of the Shemoneh Esrei, in Modim DeRabbanan: "We give thanks to You... for allowing us to thank You; blessed is the God of thanksgivings." That is to say, I thank You for the very fact that I am thanking You - for enabling me to thank You. Imagine a person who wants to come before the king to say thank you, and the king says, "Leave it, I have no time for this" - he does not even give him the opportunity to say thank you! Yet here we say: I thank You, Master of the Universe, for giving me the opportunity to say thank you to You, and for accepting it willingly.
The Gemara brings an example of this: a woman who can become betrothed to a man by giving him a gift. Yet normally the man must give to her - "Behold, you are betrothed to me with this ring," or "with this coin" - so how can she give and thereby become betrothed? The Gemara explains: this applies to an important person (adam chashuv) who agreed to accept a gift from her. The very fact that he is willing to receive from her - this is considered of great significance and value.
If someone were told, "Sir, you can now purchase a tallis for the gadol hador (the leading Torah sage of the generation); he is looking for someone to buy it for him" - who would not run immediately to buy it? For the gadol hador to pray wearing a tallis that I had the privilege to give him! There is an enormous merit for the giver in the fact that the gadol hador was willing to accept from him. And this is not a simple matter at all, because when one wants to give something to the gadol hador, that is the hardest thing of all, as he does not want to take from anyone, so as not to be indebted to anyone.
By the way, this is a sign by which to recognize who is truly great and who is not. Those who are constantly looking only for how to take, all kinds of self-styled charismatics, this reveals how small they really are, since their entire objective is how to bring in more money and enrich their coffers. With a true gadol hador, it is the exact opposite. If you come to give him money, he tells you, "What is this? What are you doing? Take it back!" People would come to Rav Chaim Kanievsky and offer him money, and he would say, "Downstairs there is a Kupat Ha'Ir branch; go donate it there. You are bringing me money? Do I need money from you? I do not want it" - and even if you insisted, he refused.
And we have already related the story about Rav Elyashiv, when a meeting of the leading sages of the generation was held at his home. One of his close attendees saw that he was very uneasy and asked what was troubling him. Rav Elyashiv told him, "I do not know where I should sit. There is the head of the table, and there are the places where everyone else sits." The man said to him, "The Rav should sit in his usual place, at the head of the table." Rav Elyashiv replied, "That is not appropriate. Am I their head? I should sit at the head and everyone else sit around as if waiting for my word? On the other hand, seating someone else there is also not appropriate, and changing my regular seat is also difficult... What should we do?" The man related: "I saw that this was deeply troubling the Rav, so I had an idea. I said to him, 'Perhaps I could bring a round table?' He said, 'Do you have a round table?' I said, 'Yes, I can bring one.' He said, 'Excellent, I would be very glad.' I went specially and brought a round table, and his joy knew no bounds. Immediately, the Rav took out his wallet and said, 'How much should I pay you?' I said, 'Heaven forbid, of course not!' He said, 'It will do you no good; you will receive money from me in any case, just tell me how much.'" That is: to accept a favor without paying for it - absolutely not.
Now, one would be overjoyed to give and do a favor for the gadol hador, but the sage truly does not want to receive anything. Yet if someone of stature is willing to accept from me, how happy I am! If so, says the Alshich, for this very thing we must thank Hashem, may He be blessed: that the Holy One, blessed be He, says, "I desire your thanks; I am willing to accept a korban (offering) from you; I am willing to accept thanks from you." "We give thanks to You... for allowing us to thank You" - for the very fact that You are willing to accept thanks from us, for that I thank You. This is the thanksgiving we offer You for granting us the privilege of thanking You.
And this is the meaning of "give thanks to Him, bless His Name": for the very ability to enter His gates with thanksgiving - for that itself we give thanks to Him, that He desires our thanksgiving. What are we before Him, blessed be He, that He should value the thanksgiving of our mouths, or listen to us at all? Yet nonetheless, Hashem listens to your thanksgiving and desires it, and for that we thank Him.
The Malbim explains: when approaching flesh and blood, one enters the gates with praises and compliments, and only after he grants the request does one depart with thanks, thanking him for fulfilling the request and doing one's will. With the Holy One, blessed be He, the order is reversed: "Enter His gates with thanksgiving" - Hashem grants His goodness in advance from the start, so when I enter His gates, I am already coming simply to give thanks, for He has already bestowed the benevolence beforehand. And inside the courtyard - "His courtyards with praise" - there we attain an appreciation of His mighty acts and His praises, and we come with tehillah (praise) to laud and extol Him.
And why specifically in this way? The Malbim explains: it is impossible to praise Hashem in terms of His very Essence, for we cannot comprehend Hashem in His Essence, but only through His acts of goodness and bounty. Through the thanksgiving offering that we bring for the Creator's benevolence, we arrive at praise - I recognize the Creator by virtue of the good He has done for me, and the goodness He bestowed upon me leads me to laud and praise Him. This is the meaning of "give thanks to Him" - and through that, "bless His Name," for from His benevolent influence upon us, we come to recognize His praises.
כִּי־טוֹב יְהֹוָה לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ וְעַד־דֹּר וָדֹר אֱמוּנָתוֹ׃ - "For the Lord is good, His kindness endures forever, and His faithfulness unto all generations."
David concludes the psalm: "His lovingkindness is forever" - Hashem's kindness endures forever, writes the Metzudat David. Unlike the kindness of flesh and blood, which performs a favor for a limited time, the Creator's lovingkindness - "Yet My lovingkindness shall not depart from you" - is eternal. "And His faithfulness" - Rashi explains that this denotes reliability and promise, as in the phrase "true and faithful," meaning that His promise stands forever: Hashem promises, and He is faithful to fulfill His promise eternally. And the Ibn Ezra explains that the thanksgiving, praise, and blessing - the entire acknowledgment is for the fact that "Hashem is good; His lovingkindness is forever." I give thanks for the good, for this goodness and lovingkindness are eternal.
The Malbim explains based on the foundation discussed throughout the recent psalms: there are two modes of providence - natural providence and miraculous providence, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is faithful in both. "His lovingkindness" - this refers to the miraculous providence, which Hashem does not owe us; rather, He acts with lovingkindness and guides us above nature. "His faithfulness" - as explained earlier, that Hashem is faithful to grant us what is due to us; He undertook to sustain us and is faithful to fulfill what He undertook. This is the aspect of faithfulness: guidance according to nature is the fixed, reliable, constant providence, considered a governance of faith and truth - for "truth" denotes something enduring and steadfast that does not change. And we thank Hashem both for His lovingkindness and for "His faithfulness from generation to generation," which is the natural providence through which He guides us from generation to generation.
The holy Alshich explains that the psalm speaks of the goodness that the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows upon man, and how man brings thanksgiving before Him. Come and see how King David guides us in how to conduct ourselves in this.
First, what kinds of thanksgiving do we owe? "Give thanks to Hashem, for He is good" - to thank Him for the miracle that the Holy One, blessed be He, performed for us and to recite a blessing to Him, just as we see that four who experience a miracle recite, "Who bestows good things upon the culpable, for He has bestowed all good upon me." Second, one must give thanks because one is not worthy of the miracle: I am not worthy of Hashem performing miracles for me, yet He performed one nonetheless - and for that I must give thanks. And third, the Holy One, blessed be He, performs lovingkindness with us, and regarding this we say "Who bestows good things upon the culpable": I am not worthy of a miracle because I am culpable, and if I am culpable, I do not deserve that He perform kindness for me; nevertheless, even though I am culpable, He did good for me.
Furthermore, the Gemara states that a person who walked on the road and experienced a miraculous rescue recites, whenever reaching that spot, "Blessed is He Who performed a miracle for me in this place." If his son comes there, he recites, "Blessed is He Who performed a miracle for my father in this place"; and if his grandson comes there, "Blessed is He Who performed a miracle for my grandfather in this place." He, his son, and his grandson are obligated to recite this. However, this was stated regarding very extraordinary miracles - a miracle that transcends nature and is uncommon - and therefore, in practice, people do not commonly recite this blessing today.
Now, says the Alshich, understand the progression of the verse: After "give thanks to Him" - we thank Hashem for granting us the privilege to thank Him. Then "bless His Name" - this is the blessing, "Blessed are You, Hashem... Who bestows good things upon the culpable," where one blesses Hashem for the miracle He performed, acknowledging that it was not by one's own merit, as it states "upon the culpable"; one does not truly deserve that Hashem perform miracles for him, except through lovingkindness. And regarding this the verse continues, "For Hashem is good" - not because it is coming to me, but because Hashem is inherently good, and out of His goodness He performed this kindness with me, bestowing good upon the culpable.
And if a person should say: "Wait, do I not have merits? Did I not perform good deeds? Am I not righteous enough? Why should I attribute the benefit solely to the Holy One, blessed be He, rather than to my merits, my mitzvot, and my good deeds?" To this, Scripture states: "His lovingkindness is forever." For even for a righteous person, and even for someone who performed a tremendous mitzvah - like the daughter of Rabbi Akiva, who performed the mitzvah of charity on her wedding day, when a snake came to bite her, and she happened to remove the pin from her hair and insert it between the stones of the wall, inadvertently piercing the snake's skull, discovering it only in the morning - ostensibly she had merit that brought about her rescue, and yet there is kindness here.
And what is lovingkindness? That I give you more than what you did. You gave me one hundred and I give you two hundred: the one hundred I returned is by right, and the additional hundred (without entering into halachic issues of interest) is lovingkindness beyond what is due to you. Thus Rabbi Akiva went out and expounded: "'And charity saves from death' - and not only from an unnatural death, but even from death itself." That the mitzvah of charity she performed should save from an unnatural death would suffice; but that it should save from natural, ordinary death, where does that come from? Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: "From this too I rescue you." Thus you learn: even if you performed a good deed, the Holy One, blessed be He, gives you far beyond - not only sparing you from an unnatural death, which is rare, but also from ordinary death. If so, no person can say, "Everything I have is deserved and guaranteed to me"; nothing is owed to you and nothing is guaranteed to you, but rather everything contains Hashem's lovingkindness.
And the third point: "And His faithfulness from generation to generation" - in addition to the person for whom the miracle was performed, subsequent generations are included as well. The son who walks there and the grandson who walks there must thank Hashem, blessed be He, for the miracle He performed for the father or grandfather, for Hashem is faithful to perform lovingkindness for those who love Him.
The psalm teaches us the fundamental realization: Hashem is God, the Source of all powers, and He made us - bringing us from nothingness into existence; and we remain His possession even after creation, His people and the flock of His pasture whom He guides and sustains constantly, like a single sheep surviving among seventy wolves. And through the realization of "and not we ourselves" - that I am nothing on my own - one merits to be "and we are His," belonging to Him, blessed be He, which is the essential work of the month of Elul. From this stems the call to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courtyards with praise: to thank Him even for the very privilege of giving thanks, and to recognize that every goodness we have received is not due to our own merit, but to His lovingkindness. Therefore David concludes: "For Hashem is good; His lovingkindness is forever, and His faithfulness from generation to generation" - He is faithful in both of His modes of governance, in the lovingkindness that transcends nature and in the faithfulness of His constant order, throughout all generations.