Introduction: Hashem's Compassion for Those Who Fear Him
In this part of the psalm, King David continues to elaborate on the Holy One, Blessed be He's attribute of mercy toward His creations. After describing how Hashem has distanced our transgressions from us, he comes to explain the root of this: the Holy One, Blessed be He, relates to us as a father to his children, knows our inclination, and recognizes our frailty and the brevity of our days. Let us proceed in the order of the verses, presenting the explanations of the Malbim and the Radak, along with the moral lessons derived from them.
As a Father Has Compassion on Children - Two Reasons for Mercy
כְּרַחֵם אָב עַל בָּנִים רִחַם יְהֹוָה עַל יְרֵאָיו׃ - As a father has compassion on his children, so Hashem has compassion on those who fear Him.
The Radak explains: There is no compassion greater than a father's compassion for his child. And the Malbim elaborates that a father's mercy for his children stems from two sources. The first is natural closeness: he is your father, and therefore he loves you, just as we naturally love our children. The second is that a father knows the nature and character traits of his children, and consequently judges them favorably. When you understand that the child is less at fault, that he faces a difficult test, you find reasons to defend him.
A mother was once told that it is difficult for a mother to see her children's faults. She replied: "I do not think that is true; if my children had faults, I would certainly see them. Baruch Hashem, the children are perfect." And that is truly how it is: the very closeness to our children causes us to always see their positive side. We tell teachers, "Keep him away from that boy, he is a bad influence on him." It might very well be that our own child is leading half the class astray, but we do not see that. "My child is a good soul; it is only the bad friends who are corrupting him." It could be that our child is the driving force behind the whole episode, yet we do not see things that way, because it is comforting for us to view our children in a favorable light. Moreover, if our child is not doing well, it turns a spotlight onto us - suggesting that we were not good enough, and therefore the child is falling short. Consequently, we always seek merit for our children.
In this way, the Holy One, Blessed be He, has compassion on those who fear Him from both perspectives. First, from the standpoint of the natural closeness our soul has to Hashem, may He be blessed, for the soul is a portion of God from Above, and Hashem feels a natural closeness to us. Second, Hashem searches the heart and kidneys and knows our inclination; He knows how much the physical body, the "yeast in the dough," and the yetzer hara prevent us from walking in Hashem's path - and this serves as an additional reason for His mercy toward us.
Why a Father's Compassion and Not a Mother's
The commentary Tehillot Maharit raises a question that many ask: In everyday reality, does a mother not display even greater compassion for a child than a father? A father sometimes wants to discipline or punish, while the mother says, "Leave him alone, let it go, he is a good boy now." The mother is consistently the compassionate one. It has even been quipped: "When Av enters, joy is diminished" - the father enters the home, and the children immediately worry that he will lay down the law. There are also mothers who say, "Wait until your father gets home, see what he does to you" - an approach that is completely misguided, casting the mother as the good cop and the father as the bad cop. This is certainly wrong. Yet there is no doubt that a father inspires more awe and discipline than a mother. Today, stories are even told of an actual case where a child called the police on his parents and filed a complaint claiming they threatened him and once did not let him into the house. May Hashem have mercy.
Tehillot Maharit explains: It is true that women are inherently compassionate and cannot bear to see a child suffer. However, sometimes that suffering is precisely for his own good and is what brings about his correction. If a mother takes a child to have a tooth extracted, the child cries out in pain and the mother cannot bear to hear it: "Leave him alone, stop!" But the father says: "There is no choice, this must be done, because I know what damage he will suffer in the future and how much pain he will endure. It is for his own good that they extract the tooth causing him such agony."
Based on this, commentators explain the verse, "The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children": sometimes it is precisely the mother's intense, unchecked compassion that leads to the child's ruin. If one had not been so overly lenient, if one had set firm boundaries when necessary, rather than granting every request and yielding to every plea, the child would not have deteriorated to the point he did. Often, parents must stand firm and say no, even when it is extremely difficult for us as parents. It turns out that such misplaced mercy can sometimes cause harm.
This is what King Solomon meant when he said: "He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him early." One who spares his rod imagines that he is being compassionate, but the reality is precisely the opposite - the one who truly loves him seeks his discipline. Mussar implies correction and distress, but in our day, this does not have to mean distress in the sense of physical hitting. That is something not recommended at all; anyone who wishes to alienate their children quickly should strike them - it is a surefire way to quickly find the child out on the street corners. Already from the age of four or five, one must discontinue this practice. A child already possesses self-respect; he is deeply wounded by physical blows and remembers them for years. Furthermore, this generation is a rebellious one, and when one hits a child, he acts out in defiance, yielding no benefit whatsoever. At times discipline is necessary, but there are other forms of consequences: withholding permission to play outside with a friend, or limiting screen time or games for a set period. There are many effective forms of discipline without resorting to physical punishment. Each generation has its own appropriate form of guidance, and it does not need to be with a rod or a stick.
What have we learned? That when a father deals with his son with a rod - that is, in a less pleasant manner, putting him in his place - King Solomon tells us: know that he is the one who truly loves him. And this is what is said here, "As a father has compassion on his children." Does the Holy One, Blessed be He, not bring suffering upon us? Of course He brings it. But this is suffering like a father brings upon his children, out of love, thinking, "In this way I will correct him and put him in his place." But to pity the child and say, "I will not discipline him; I will let him do whatever he wants, act impudently, and misbehave because I do not want to cause him pain" - that is the trait of "compassionate women," who ended up cooking their own children. The right path is that if one needs to put him in his place, he must put him in his place. And this is the measure of the Holy One, Blessed be He's mercy toward us: He disciplines us when necessary, but certainly out of the attribute of mercy - "as a father has compassion on his children."
"For He Knows Our Inclination" - How Far Can One Advocate Merit?
כִּי הוּא יָדַע יִצְרֵנוּ זָכוּר כִּי עָפָר אֲנָחְנוּ׃ - For He knows our inclination; He is mindful that we are dust.
Radak explains: this verse provides the reason for what was said earlier, that Hashem has removed our transgressions from us. Why does the Holy One, Blessed be He, have compassion on us and remove our transgressions from us? "For He knows our inclination," as it is written, "for the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth." The Holy One, Blessed be He, knows that by nature a person has an attraction to sin, and beastly desires are fixed within him - as Radak phrases it - and if he is not a hero who subdues his inclination, he will not be able to escape sin. Even so, no person escapes sin entirely; one will inevitably stumble once or twice, for "there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin." The Holy One, Blessed be He, knows this, and therefore He removes our transgressions from us and treats us with the attribute of mercy, even though we have sinned and gone astray, because He knows our inclination and man's difficult struggle.
However, we must pay attention: all of this applies specifically to a sin that stems from physical desire. This does not mean that a person will face no suffering or punishment for it, for anyone who says that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overlooks sins - his life will be overlooked (forfeited), and the Holy One, Blessed be He, certainly exacts payment from every person. Rather, the Holy One, Blessed be He, takes into account that a person has an evil inclination. But this is only when he committed a transgression because of that inclination. If he committed a transgression out of spite, or with utter disdain - woe to him and woe to his soul, for here there is no way to advocate merit for his deeds, since you had no temptation at all.
When Rabbi Yisrael Salanter arrived in the city of Memel, which was a port city, there were many Jews there who were forced to work on Shabbat. And what did Rabbi Yisrael Salanter teach them - that same Rabbi Yisrael Salanter of whom the Rav of Brisk said that he was the Gaon of the generation? He would teach them: when you write on Shabbat, do not write anything that is not strictly necessary, and minimize what you write. If you have half an hour of free time - do not solve crossword puzzles; it is Shabbat today. And even when you must write, write the bare minimum, and do so with a shinui (an unusual manner) - and thereby you reduce the prohibition to a Rabbinic one. And when they had to lift loads, he taught them how it could be done by "two who perform it together," who are exempt, and several ways in which one does not become liable under Torah law. And it is recorded that step by step, he succeeded in bringing them to full Shabbat observance.
But when a person finishes smoking a cigarette on Shabbat and then goes ahead and extinguishes it - tell me, why that? Did you have an evil inclination to extinguish it as well? Did you have an evil inclination to play with the match? Was that also a craving? For that, everything will be held against him. Therefore, a person must understand: all that is said here, that He "has removed our transgressions from us" because "He knows our inclination," applies when the sin stems from desire, in which case there is some defense for the person - not that he is let off freely, but there is some advocacy of merit. But if a person did something in which he had no desire, but acted purely out of spite, he will certainly pay the full price for it, and then they will collect everything from him with compounded interest, even for the other sins. Should he claim, "I was under duress" - look, you commit sins even without duress. Should he claim, "My inclination overcame me" - look, you committed sins even without your inclination overcoming you. It turns out that you simply despise Hashem's commandments.
And even if it is not strictly out of spite, nevertheless by such an action a person is saying: "Master of the Universe, Your commandments genuinely do not interest me." After all, I am not forced to extinguish the cigarette, yet I extinguish it because it makes no difference to me what You said. Call it shameful contempt for Hashem's commandments without any physical desire - however you look at it, this is far more severe than a person who says, "What could I do? My inclination overwhelmed me." For an act in which the inclination overwhelmed him, there is still some defense; for an act done out of utter disdain and complete apathy, a person deserves to be punished accordingly. For had you known who the Holy One, Blessed be He, is, and what He does for you at every moment, and how much He cares for you and how great He is - you would not go and defy His word. But this is simply not important to the person; if it were important to him, he would sit, learn, and delve deeply to know. And sometimes it is precisely the opposite: "If I learn - it will obligate me, so I do not want to learn. It is better to remain ignorant, because if you know, you will have to act accordingly."
"Mindful That We Are Dust"
Radak explains that there is a parallel phrasing here: "mindful" (zachur) is like "knows" (yada). He knows our inclination, and Hashem is mindful that we are dust, meaning that this matter is constantly remembered before Him. Many point out that when we recite this in the Selichot, one should not say "Zechor (remember) that we are dust," but rather "Zachur (He is mindful) that we are dust," as that is the exact biblical wording.
And what does "we are dust" mean? The evil inclination comes and clothes itself in the earthy elements within us. Where is the inclination located? In the body, in the physical part. The spiritual part of us is drawn to spirituality; the soul is drawn to the upper realms, the source from which it was hewn, whereas the evil inclination cloaks itself in the cravings of the body and material pleasures. This is the aspect of earthiness, the coarse animalistic dust, as the masters of Mussar phrase it, wherein man resembles a beast that is entirely from the dust. But on the other hand, you possess an elevation beyond dust: you also have an exalted spiritual component, the soul, which belongs to the realm of the angels. And when a person walks in the path of the soul, Radak says, his face is the face of a man; but when he walks in the path of degradation and does not walk in the spiritual path required of him, his face is the face of a lion, an ox, and an eagle - in short, a kind of beast, wild animal, and bird, and this suffices for the discerning.
Radak continues and asks: there are four basic elements in the human body - fire, wind (air), water, and earth. Why then is it stated specifically, "mindful that we are dust (earth)"? After all, water is the largest component of the human body - seventy percent of a person's body is water - so it would have been appropriate to say, "mindful that we are water." Rather, a person's bones, which are the foundation of the body, are from the element of earth, cold and dry like earth, as it is written: "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return."
Furthermore, from where were we formed? From the dust. And the earth went astray; it was the first in creation to sin. And if something lacking an evil inclination went astray, do not judge us harshly because of it. The Keli Yakar explains that all sin in creation began with the sin of the earth: the earth transgressed by not fulfilling Hashem's will, being the first to sin in creation. And from what was man created? Dust from the earth. Thus he was already created flawed, created with sin built into him. Therefore, the Keli Yakar cites many verses where atonement is mentioned in relation to the earth: "Then shall the land appease its Sabbaths" - meaning the land requires appeasement, and "the land cannot be atoned for the blood shed upon it," because sin and corruption are rooted in the earth. Therefore, when Adam sinned, it was said, "Cursed is the ground because of you" - what does Hashem want from the earth? Rather, the sin of Adam HaRishon stemmed from the sin of the earth: because he was formed from something that was already inherently flawed and tainted by sin, this caused him to be drawn closer to sin.
The Malbim explains here two things the Holy One, blessed be He, knows about us. First, He knows the velocity of the compulsive drive toward sin - this is the aspect of the yetzer hara that rushes us toward sin contrary to our slow natural rotation, as we explained that our natural orbit is like a 365-day rotation. The yetzer drives the soul contrary to the ways of Hashem, and its power is so mighty that it dominates a person's inner faculties: desires and passions enslave the powers of the soul. And our mental and spiritual faculties, which were meant to resist and not act on the counsel of the yetzer, not only become subordinates of the yetzer, but in the next stage become its defense attorneys - whatever a person desires, the intellect steps in and justifies, providing logic, rationale, and justification.
The second thing is that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows our natural sluggishness, the lethargy of the soul, "for we are dust." The dust weighs down the soul, and the soul cannot move freely when clothed in dust, which is a physical reality. Hashem knows our heaviness, for even our natural course from west to east is a long 365-day journey. Thus, from both perspectives, the service of Hashem is difficult for us: both from our innate nature, being like dust and seeking rest, and from the yetzer hara rushing us toward sin - where we do not seek rest, but run eagerly. Hashem knows all of this, and "remembered" means that all this is constantly before Him.
Enosh, His Days Are Like Grass - The Brevity and Emptiness of Days
אֱנוֹשׁ כֶּחָצִיר יָמָיו כְּצִיץ הַשָּׂדֶה כֵּן יָצִיץ׃ - As for man, his days are like grass; like a blossom of the field, so he blossoms.
Enosh refers to man, whose days are short and pass swiftly, explains the Radak, like grass that withers quickly. Had his life been longer, he would have had the opportunity to mend his ways if he sinned in his youth; but now, even if he grows old and begins to improve his deeds, how much can he accomplish? "Like a blossom of the field, so he blossoms" - just as a blossom blooms rapidly and withers immediately, such is the reality of man. And this is a continuation of what we said: Master of the Universe, see that no matter how much we may want to rectify our ways, it will be very difficult for us, because life's days are so fleeting.
The Malbim likewise explains that this verse teaches that man's brief days prevent him from attaining his perfection, due to two factors. The first is "as for man, his days are like grass": grass dries up before all other greenery, being the first to wither, and so too man's life is too short to attain spiritual perfection within it. It is enough to look at the early generations who lived for hundreds of years - Noach only began to father children at age five hundred! They lived seven hundred and nine hundred years, whereas we live seventy years, or eighty with strength - barely ten percent of their lifespan. A person simply does not have enough time to acquire perfection.
The second factor is "like a blossom of the field, so he blossoms": just as a blossom has no substance, so man's life is vanity. With what does a person occupy himself in his life? With futility. If one looks from a spiritual, celestial perspective, most of man's pursuits are fleeting: earning a profit here, bringing in income there, this pleasure and that craving. How much of a person's life is genuinely dedicated to attaining his perfection, acquiring spirituality, gaining eternity? This is "like a blossom of the field, so he blossoms" - having no real substance even while it exists; not only does it vanish quickly, but even during its existence, most of man's affairs and endeavors are spent on vanity and emptiness.
It is told of the Vilna Gaon that a relative of his from a distant city once came to visit him. The Gra asked him what brought him to Vilna, and the relative replied that back in his hometown, his house had been broken into and a significant sum of money had been stolen; having learned that the thieves were in Vilna, he had come there to try to recover his money. The Gra looked at him with astonishment and said: "I would never have believed that someone from my family would squander his days traveling to another city just to look for what - money? The most precious thing he has, his very life, he goes and wastes on this?" The Gra could not fathom it. You have life, and for its sake you travel there to look for money? Money comes and money goes, but if your life passes, it is gone forever. If a day passes without being utilized, nothing remains of it.
Come and see, then, that man's days, even the days he is alive, are "like a blossom of the field, so he blossoms": like a blossom that sprouts in the field that has no real substance, provides no food and yields no lasting benefit, a mere weed that pops up and nothing more - so too with man, most of his days are not utilized for spiritual matters. It turns out that man's days in and of themselves, both because of their brevity and because of the content with which he fills them, lack true substance.
For a Wind Passes Over It, and It Is Gone
כִּי רוּחַ עָבְרָה בּוֹ וְאֵינֶנּוּ וְלֹא יַכִּירֶנּוּ עוֹד מְקוֹמוֹ׃ - For a wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place recognizes it no more.
The Malbim explains: "For the wind passes over it, and it is gone" corresponds to "As for man, his days are like grass" - just as grass withers quickly, the wind passes over it, dries it up, and it is finished, so too man's death comes swiftly. And "its place knows it no more" corresponds to "like a flower of the field, so he blossoms," meaning that even while alive, he does not properly utilize his life. For grass, even if you pluck it, still has utility and substance; but a withered flower has no substance at all. "Its place knows it no more" - something was here, yet no one recognizes it; where did it go? It has vanished.
The Radak states: Such is man. One moment people see him, and the next moment they say so-and-so has died and is gone. One moment he exists, and a moment later he is no longer among the living, and his place knows him no more.
And the Midrash expounds the verse as referring to the evil inclination (the yetzer): "'And it is gone' - this refers to the yetzer, which goes with him but does not return with him; 'and its place knows it no more' - for it was in him while he was alive, but will know him no more." The Midrash touches here on the reality of the yetzer hara. As long as a person lives, the yetzer hara is an intensely real force: vanities, cravings, and desires speak powerfully to him. Most of the time, a person follows his inclinations, and only a minority of the time is he drawn to holiness and spirituality; most of the time, the yetzer hara is what directs him. But know that all of this is only here in this world. When a person passes away, in a single instant "its place knows it no more." The chief director of this entire enterprise is suddenly gone.
Not that it is truly gone, but rather that it has relocated: suddenly, you recognize it there in the Heavenly Court, standing on the side of the prosecution. That same entity that caused me to sin down here - as Chazal say - he is the yetzer hara, he is Satan, he is the Angel of Death, and he is also the prosecuting accuser. A seamless job from start to finish: he descends and incites, ascends and accuses, and he himself prosecutes the person after having caused him to sin down here. But as for the person himself, he no longer has desires or drives.
In summary:
In these verses, David HaMelech teaches us the root of Hashem's compassion toward us: as a father has compassion on his children - both by virtue of the natural closeness of our soul to Him, and because He knows our nature and traits and judges us favorably. Furthermore, this mercy is not a mercy born of weakness: just as a father disciplines his son out of love, so too Hashem disciplines us for our own good, and "he who loves him seeks him with discipline." "For He knows our inclination" - He knows the power of the yetzer that dominates our soul's faculties and the heaviness of the dust within us, and therefore He advocates on our behalf; yet this applies to sin born of desire, not to acts of disdain and indifference. And "as for man, his days are like grass" - both the brevity of days and the emptiness of the content with which man fills them arouse compassion, for "the wind passes over it, and it is gone." From here we draw the lesson: days are short, and the yetzer is strong; fortunate is one who uses his days for eternity, for when a person departs from this world, the yetzer will transition into the role of prosecutor, while the person will stand alone to account for his deeds.