Psalm 104 is very familiar to us. We recite it at least once or twice a month: Sephardim recite it on the night of Rosh Chodesh and during the day, and Ashkenazim recite it during the day. The Radak writes that this psalm recounts the work of creation - how the Holy One, blessed be He, makes everything with wisdom, for the perfection of His creations and to bestow good upon them.
בָּרְכִי נַפְשִׁי אֶת־יְהֹוָה, יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהַי גָּדַלְתָּ מְּאֹד, הוֹד וְהָדָר לָבָשְׁתָּ׃ - Bless Hashem, O my soul; Hashem my God, You are very great; You are clothed in splendor and majesty.
Why specifically "my soul"? The Radak explains that among earthly creatures there is truly none capable of blessing - not domestic animals, not wild beasts, and not birds - but only the rational soul of man. A person who contemplates nature and creation and perceives within them Hashem's loving-kindness toward him is the only one who can properly bless the Holy One, blessed be He. And then my soul blesses and says: "Hashem my God, You are very great."
From Your deeds we understand that You are very great. We have already discussed this several times, and we have learned it both in the Kuzari and in Da'as Tevunos: we have no grasp of the Divine essence whatsoever. We cannot understand what God is or comprehend His reality; we can learn only from His actions. From the actions we observe, we deduce that there is One who created the world, One who gave the Torah, that the Torah is binding, and so forth. About this it is said: "You are very great" - through His deeds we recognize Your greatness, for we see how the Holy One, blessed be He, created His entire world, and how He alters the systems of nature according to His will.
The Radak explains that "splendor and majesty" refers to the celestial spheres that the Holy One, blessed be He, created at the beginning, which serve as a garment and majesty for Hashem, blessed be He. The spheres, as we have explained, were conceived as an axis upon which the sun, moon, and stars revolve, as though each celestial body were set within its own sphere. Today we know that these are not spheres but gravity, yet in their time they held that there was a sphere within which they revolved, and therefore they termed this the "world of the spheres." They are considered a garment and majesty, and from their majesty, man recognizes the sheer magnitude of Your greatness within nature.
To what can this be compared? To a king dressed in royal robes. Someone is asked, "Who is the king?" and he replies, "I do not know." But he sees the one dressed in royal garments and says, "Ah, from the clothing I understand that this is the king." Have you ever seen him before? Have you seen a picture of him? No. Then how do you know? His garment testifies to who he is. In the same way, the Radak explains in our context: from the splendor and majesty of the celestial spheres that we observe, from the immense power of the sun, moon, and stars - from this we grasp the greatness of Hashem.
The Rambam says likewise: a person who wishes to attain awe should go out, gaze at the heavens, and behold the greatness of God's handiwork - the sun, the moon, and the stars - and see what immense power the Holy One, blessed be He, created. Through this, he will recognize His greatness, and awe will fall upon him. Thus, the garment of the Holy One, blessed be He, is the proof: "Hashem my God, You are very great" - how do I know? "You are clothed in splendor and majesty."
Rabbi Eliezer said: What is the meaning of "very" (me'od)? Before You created Your world, You were great; once You created Your world, You became exceedingly great. This does not mean, Heaven forbid, that any change occurred in the Holy One, blessed be He - for "I, Hashem, have not changed" - but rather that now there are creations that recognize Your greatness, and through this, "You became exceedingly great."
And regarding "You are clothed in glory and majesty" (Hod ve-Hadar lavashta), the Midrash says: Flesh and blood - if a man is mighty, he is not handsome, and if he is handsome, he is not mighty; one does not possess both qualities at once. We do not find many individuals of immense strength who are also remarkably handsome, and we certainly do not find a distinguished scientist who is also a muscular boxer. A muscular man, a man of deep intellect, books, and scholarship, and handsome as well - such things rarely converge in a single human being. But with the Holy One, blessed be He, both exist as one: glory and majesty, both beautiful and mighty. And He is destined to grant both to the King Messiah, as it says, "Glory and majesty You bestow upon him" (Tehillim 21:6). Notice the phrasing: not by nature, but "You bestow upon him" - the Holy One, blessed be He, will place glory and majesty upon him from Himself.
The Malbim explains that our psalm is a continuation of the previous one. There, it concluded with "Bless Hashem, O my soul" regarding the guidance of the soul and the Divine providence with which the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over His world, while here it comes to bless Him for the entirety of Creation: that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the macrocosm ("the great person") - which is the universe - and within it the microcosm ("the small person"), which is man living in His world. Man is called a microcosm, and the universe is called a macrocosm.
And we see that the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged everything with wisdom, such that each level serves as the purpose of the one below it, until the ultimate purpose is reached in man, the crown of creation. The soil serves the plant kingdom and is the cause of its growth; the plant thereby reaches its purpose, yet it is not an end in itself, but rather food for the animal; the animal is nourished through it, and its purpose is for the need of man, who eats from it; and man himself is also not the ultimate end, but his destiny is that through the strength derived from his food - both plant and animal - he will serve Hashem. Then everything is returned to the supreme purpose: "Everyone who is called by My Name, and whom I have created for My glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him" (Yeshayahu 43:7) - everything was created to glorify and exalt His blessed Name.
From this emerges a fascinating insight: those who claim that ritual slaughter should be outlawed and that eating animals is akin to cannibalism do not realize how right they are. For them, indeed, eating animals ought to be forbidden. Unwittingly, they spoke a truth without realizing it. For what permission does one zoological species have to consume another zoological species? Who permitted this to you? Why should you slaughter it simply because you are higher on the food chain and rule over it?
Only if you direct all of this toward the honor of the Creator, saying: there is a Creator to the world, the Holy One, blessed be He, created everything, man is the purpose, and man elevates everything to the service of Hashem - then, on the contrary, eat meat, for in doing so you fulfill the role of all creation. But when you take everything merely for personal pleasure, lusts, prohibitions, and sins - who permitted you to eat meat? Until now, the cow, simply by grazing in the pasture and producing milk, fulfilled the will of the Creator; whereas you slaughtered and ate it to commit transgressions, using it as fuel to act against the Creator's will. Therefore, an unlearned, non-observant person (am ha-aretz) is forbidden to eat meat.
In contrast, with a God-fearing, wholesome person, on the contrary, the animal is glad and yearns for the merit of ascending Hashem's altar. As the Midrash depicts, the bull asks: why was I taken as an offering for idolatry, while Eliyahu took the other bull as an offering to Hashem? The animal aspires to reach its ultimate fulfillment, and its fulfillment comes specifically when it is slaughtered with holiness and a blessing, and a righteous person partakes of it, bringing about the complete rectification of all creation.
The Malbim explains: "Hashem, my God, You are exceedingly great" - You in Your very Essence, as Hashem is in the hidden recesses of His power. As explained, we have no grasp of Hashem's Essence; no thought can comprehend Him at all, and it is not even applicable to give a name to Hashem. The Four-Letter Name (Havayah), blessed be He, exists only after the tzimtzum (constriction), but prior to the tzimtzum He does not even have a name. We will not delve here into explaining the concept of tzimtzum - an extensive topic explored at length in Michtav Me-Eliyahu and elsewhere - but for our purposes: there is no name for His blessed Essence, because a name expresses a defined essence, and who can know the essence of the Creator? Only when the Holy One, blessed be He, constricted His light and wished to establish a relationship with His creations so that we might have some grasp of Him, is He referred to by the Name Havayah, and we perceive Him through His deeds.
Even though we have no grasp or comprehension of Him, all of reality from beginning to end is included within Hashem, and this is what is meant by "great" (gadol). We have already explained the difference between "great" (gadol) and "exalted" (ram): among Israel Hashem is "gadol," whereas He is "ram above all nations." The Eiffel Tower is great (gadol); a hot air balloon or an airplane is exalted (ram). "Great" means spanning from the bottom all the way to the top, while "exalted" merely means high up. Among the nations, the Holy One, blessed be He, is viewed as "ram" - He is on high, but He is not here; He does not involve Himself in what happens down below, occupying Himself only with lofty matters above. For us, we declare that Hashem is "gadol" - from the very bottom to the very top, watching over even the tiniest of living creatures, feeding and sustaining everything from the eggs of lice to the horns of the re'em. This is the dimension of "gadol": Divine providence reaching from the lowest realms to the highest.
And when the Holy One, blessed be He, desired in His hidden will to bring forth the worlds from His concealed Essence - "You have clothed Yourself in splendor and majesty." Here the Malbim enters into Kabbalistic concepts, which we will attempt to simplify. He explains: this refers to the revelation of the Sefirot and the supernal lights that serve as the cloak of His garment, which comes and clothes Himself "like the grasshopper whose garment is of itself and from itself," to bring forth existence from nothingness (yesh me'ayin).
Let us explain briefly. When the Holy One, blessed be He, desired to create His world, bringing a world into existence was seemingly impossible, for anything created would immediately dissolve back into Godliness, since everything is His absolute, simple unity and there is nothing besides Him - the Holy One, blessed be He, is the entirety of reality. Therefore, to bring anything into existence, an empty space first had to be made, and this is the tzimtzum (contraction/withdrawal): clearing a space of His light, blessed be He, where it would become possible to begin creating a reality that is not part of His Essence. There is a dispute among the Kabbalists as to whether the tzimtzum is literal or non-literal, a matter discussed at length in Michtav Me-Eliyahu. Here we will explain it according to the literal view: Hashem constricted His light and withdrew, as it were, creating a circular void from which He had, so to speak, withdrawn Himself.
To create worlds there - since everything that is created must ultimately stem from Him, blessed be He - Hashem extended a thin ray of light (the kav) from above to below, light from Him, blessed be He. This ray does not reach all the way to the very bottom, for then everything would once again dissolve into His light; rather, it reaches almost to the bottom. And upon this thin ray of light, all the Sefirot were enclothed. The Sefirot, to use a somewhat corporeal metaphor, are a kind of filter, screens that enable us to receive His light, blessed be He. The more internal a Sefirah is, the higher its spiritual level and the closer it is to His light; and the more external it is, the lower and less sublime it is. The Sefirot exist as garments upon garments: Atik and Arich are the innermost, Abba and Imma enclothe them, and Zeir Anpin and Nukva enclothe them. Thus, in order to create His world - "You have clothed Yourself in splendor and majesty," garments upon His light, blessed be He.
There is also a difference between hod (splendor) and hadar (majesty), says the Malbim: hod is more internal than hadar. The Kabbalists describe at length how the lights initially emerged - the lights of Achap (ears, nose, mouth) - how they descended into the vessels, how the shattering of the vessels (shevirat hakelim) occurred, and how the partzufim (divine personas) were later formed when they ascended once again. There are lights and there are vessels: the light is always internal and the vessel is external, and when the light is greater than the vessel can contain, that is the shattering of the vessels. So too with hod and hadar: hod is internal and hadar is external, in the manner of lights and vessels, or surrounding light (or makif) and inner light (or pnimi), or soul (neshamah) and the soul of the soul (neshamah laneshamah) - for the internal dimension is always higher than the external.
עֹטֶה־אוֹר כַּשַּׂלְמָה, נוֹטֶה שָׁמַיִם כַּיְרִיעָה׃ - Enwrapping Himself in light like a garment, stretching out the heavens like a curtain.
The Malbim explains that from the concealed light "which is not known and cannot be known" (d'la yedia v'lo ityada), He brought forth another light, and from there began the chain of descent (hishtalshelut): the light of the intellect and the spiritual intellects, until it materialized into tangible light. As we explained, the constriction of the light created an empty space in which a reality outside of Him could be created, yet the world itself must be created from Him, blessed be He - and therefore a thin ray of light was extended from His Essence, upon which the Sefirot are enclothed. The Sefirot enwrap and envelop the inner light, serving as filters that enable us to receive the light without being harmed, for it is the infinite light (Or Ein Sof), blessed be He, which we cannot withstand. The Sefirot impose contractions and limits upon the light, enabling us in the lower realm to receive the divine flow.
And everything discussed thus far is still in the higher realms, long before physical materialization: Adam Kadmon (the Primordial Man), followed by the four worlds of Atzilut (Emanation), Beriah (Creation), Yetzirah (Formation), and Asiyah (Action). Within each world are the ten Sefirot: Keter, Chokhmah, Binah, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkhut. This entire chain of descent continues down to the lowest world, the world of Asiyah, at the bottom edge of which lies the Sefirah of Malkhut, below which the physical, corporeal world begins. We see how many constrictions and filters the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, undergoes before it reaches us in this lower world.
The Malbim offers an analogy: just as a person conceals himself beneath clothing, so, as it were, the Supreme Emanator conceals Himself beneath the garment of light. Light shining through fabric - passing only through the "apertures of the weave" - is unlike light shining through a window. Through a window, one receives the light almost at full strength, whereas from behind clothing, one receives only a fraction of the original light. So it is with the light that the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows: it is as if behind clothing, behind constrictions and filters that prevent us from receiving the light in its full intensity.
Yet there is a difference: a fitted garment still allows one to discern something of the one wearing it, as it conforms to the contours of the body. By contrast, when someone enwraps themselves in an outer cloak, one cannot discern anything about the person beneath - whether it is a man or a woman, elderly or young - because the cloak envelops the entire body as a single sheath. That is why it says here, "enwrapping Himself in light like a garment" (oteh or kasalmah), rather than "clothing Himself": the term atiyah (enwrapping) denotes a cover upon a cover, in which even the form of the wearer cannot be recognized, and the light is concealed in utter concealment.
The Malbim further notes what he already explained in his commentary on the Creation narrative: the light created on the first day was not placed inside a sheath - that is, within the sun - until the fourth day, when the luminaries were established. This is the difference between "light" (or) and a "luminary" (ma'or). The primordial light was created encircling the entire globe at once, so that there were twelve hours of light over the whole Earth - unlike today, where it is daylight here and night on the other side.
And should you ask: perhaps this light encircled the entire globe continuously, twenty-four hours a day, until the fourth day? The answer is stated explicitly in the verses: "And there was evening and there was morning, one day." There had to be a period of light and a period without light, for otherwise what would constitute the evening and what would constitute the morning? Rather, that light enveloped the globe for twelve hours, which was the aspect of day; "and there was evening" - the light receded and faded, bringing evening to the entire globe; "and there was morning" - the light returned and encircled the entire globe for twelve hours. This cycle repeated until the fourth day, when the light was placed within a sheath and the sun became the luminary. This is the meaning of "He wraps Himself in light like a garment": the light enveloped and surrounded the entire earth like a garment, wrapping all existence and all reality.
After "Let there be light" came the utterance "Let there be a firmament," and "God called the firmament heaven." The Malbim notes that he already explained in the Creation narrative, following the view of the commentators, that the firmament (raki'a) is the sphere into which vapors rise within the breathable atmosphere, where clouds and rain form. He explained this in several places, including in our study of the Book of Iyov.
The "sphere of respiration" is what we call the atmosphere today - the region where breathing is still possible. It is commonly noted that above twelve kilometers the air begins to thin significantly, and some speak of the atmosphere extending up to a hundred kilometers, but in any case the atmosphere is an accumulation of gases forming a protective mantle and garment for the earth, and it is the realm in which we can breathe without aids - as seen with mountain climbers, who find the air thin and breathing difficult once they reach a certain altitude.
Within this expanse, vapors ascend and gather in cooler regions, where clouds condense and rain forms. The clouds themselves are generally located at an altitude of between two and six kilometers - that is, lower down, yet still within that same sphere. This region is called the firmament, and this is the meaning of "He stretches out the heavens like a curtain": the Holy One, blessed be He, spreads out the heavens that envelop the earth like a tent fabric spread above it.
King David opened with "Bless Hashem, O my soul" - for only the rational human soul, contemplating creation, can bless its Creator. "You are exceedingly great" - we have no grasp of His Essence; rather, we recognize His greatness through His deeds. "Splendor and majesty You have donned" - just as a king's royal robes reveal his station, so from the splendor of creation and the celestial spheres we recognize the greatness of the Creator; and according to the Malbim, these are the Sefirot and spiritual lights that serve as His garment, inner splendor and outer majesty. "He wraps Himself in light like a garment" - the primordial light that enveloped the entire globe until it was placed into its sheath on the fourth day, as well as the Supreme Light entirely concealed behind its contractions; and "He stretches out the heavens like a curtain" - the firmament and the atmosphere spread across the face of the earth. The whole of creation forms a single chain of purposes, from the dust of the ground up to man, all directed back toward the ultimate purpose: "Everyone who is called by My Name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made."