Psalm 106 is a psalm of historical confession: the Psalmist surveys the chain of sins committed by the Jewish people from the Exodus from Egypt onward, and from that perspective pleads for mercy upon himself and upon his generation. In this lesson, we will focus on the opening verses of personal supplication ("Remember me, Hashem"), the confession of "We have sinned along with our ancestors," and the beginning of the chronicle of transgressions - in Egypt and at the Red Sea.
"Remember Me, Hashem, When Favoring Your People" - Remembrance and Visitation
זָכְרֵנִי יְהֹוָה בִּרְצוֹן עַמֶּךָ, פׇּקְדֵנִי בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ. - Remember me, Hashem, when You favor Your people; visit me with Your salvation.
Rashi explains "when You favor Your people" (*birtzon amecha*) as when You show favor to Your people; that is to say, when You become reconciled with Your people, he asks that Hashem remember him as well. Ibn Ezra explains that the Psalmist prays to be worthy of being present at the time of salvation: when the Holy One, blessed be He, desires us and salvation arrives - then remember me as well, so that I may be counted among that salvation. The Radak likewise applies the verse to the Psalmist himself, though according to him the plea is that at the time of the Resurrection of the Dead, the Holy One, blessed be He, will resurrect him as well, and likewise the continuation, "to see the goodness of Your chosen ones" - that he will merit rising and beholding the good. This verse can also be interpreted in a general sense, in the words of those in exile: each and every person pleads, Master of the Universe, remember me so that I merit experiencing the redemption and taking part in it; "visit me with Your salvation" - that I too will merit being remembered when You bring salvation.
The Malbim explains that this supplication is uttered specifically here, at the opening of a chapter devoted to recounting the sins of the Jewish people and their being delivered into the hands of their adversaries: the Psalmist pleads not to be remembered among the sinners nor among those who are punished. The Malbim notes a precise distinction in Lashon HaKodesh between *zechirah* (remembrance) and *pekidah* (visitation/action). *Zechirah* is abstract - simply remembering, nothing more. *Pekidah* is an arousal to take concrete action toward that matter, as in "And Hashem visited Sarah as He had said" - where an actual deed took place. According to this: "Remember me, Hashem, when You favor Your people" - do not remember me at a time when You are wrathful with the Jewish people, but rather at a time of favor, when You are pleased with them and their deeds are good. "Visit me with Your salvation" - do not visit me with punishment among the penalized, but rather at a time when You bestow grace and lovingkindness and bring salvation, visit me as well, that I may share in that salvation. In other words: let me neither be remembered with the sinners nor visited with them; rather, remember to visit only good things upon me.
"To See the Goodness of Your Chosen Ones" - Three Requests or One?
לִרְאוֹת בְּטוֹבַת בְּחִירֶיךָ, לִשְׂמֹחַ בְּשִׂמְחַת גּוֹיֶךָ, לְהִתְהַלֵּל עִם נַחֲלָתֶךָ. - To see the goodness of Your chosen ones, to rejoice in the joy of Your nation, to glory with Your inheritance.
"To see the goodness of Your chosen ones" - that I may merit beholding the goodness of the chosen people, the nation of Israel, at the time You bestow good upon them and bring them redemption. The Radak, as is his custom, interprets this as poetic parallelism (*kefel inyan be-milim shonot*): it is the manner of the Psalmist to double and triple his expressions, and the three phrases are variations on a single theme. We already know that the Malbim departs entirely from this approach: in his view, there is no such thing as mere repetition using different words; rather, every expression carries distinct meaning and was not written in vain.
"Your inheritance" - this refers to Israel, who are His people and His inheritance. In explaining "to glory" (*lehithallel*), the Radak presents two possibilities. Some interpret it as an expression of joy, as in "a sound of celebration" (*kol hilulim*), and "his maidens were not praised in song" (*u-vetulotav lo hulalu*) - meaning they did not rejoice; likewise, a wedding celebration in the language of Chazal is called a *hilula* (*azil le-vei hilula* - he went to a wedding), showing that *hilula* is an expression of joy. But the Radak says: there is no need to remove them from the connotation of praise. There is no need for a novel interpretation; rather, it is in its plain sense - an expression of praise and commendation (*hallel*), and all the examples align well with this approach too: at the wedding celebration (*hilula*) under the chuppah, one praises the groom and bride, "a beautiful and graceful bride," so they are praised (*mehalelim*) - which is why it is called a *hilula*; and "his maidens were not praised" means there was no one to praise them at the time of their wedding. According to this, "to glory with Your inheritance" means that when we emerge from exile in joy, we will be praised in the mouths of all the nations; they will behold the stature and greatness of Israel, they will see that Hashem is our God and our Redeemer, and through this we will achieve renown and praise.
The Malbim aligns each phrase against a corresponding earlier request. "To see the goodness of Your chosen ones" corresponds to "Remember me, Hashem, when You favor Your people": remember me along with the chosen of Hashem, with the righteous, so that I may behold their goodness which stems from their good deeds. "To rejoice in the joy of Your nation" corresponds to "visit me with Your salvation": that I may rejoice with them in the happiness and success that salvation will bring them ("Your nation" [*goyecha*] here does not mean gentiles, but is equivalent to "Your people" [*amecha*]). And from both of these aspects combined - "to glory with Your inheritance": in that the people of Israel are Your inheritance, by virtue of the sanctity and attachment between them and the Holy One, blessed be He, I will merit glorying with them - whether in their good deeds or in their success and joy - and this will serve as renown and praise for me.
"We Have Sinned Along with Our Ancestors" - Three Degrees of Transgression
חָטָאנוּ עִם אֲבוֹתֵינוּ, הֶעֱוִינוּ הִרְשָׁעְנוּ. - We have sinned along with our ancestors; we have acted iniquitously, we have done wickedly.
The Radak explains that here the verse speaks in the language of the exiles, who confess and say: Just as our fathers sinned, so too have we sinned. And as Scripture states, "And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers" - confessing our iniquity and the iniquity of our fathers. The holy Ari explains why one must confess the iniquity of the fathers: because the third generation suffers for the sin of the fathers, for the third generation is already the soul of the grandfathers; or if you will, the same soul-root or spark of the soul. Thus, when we "hold the deeds of their fathers in their hands" and pay the price, that original soul that initiated the chain of flaw is the one that reincarnates and now receives the punishment. According to this, "We have sinned with our fathers" - we also deserve the punishment of our fathers, for we are their reincarnation.
The Malbim explains: "We have sinned with our fathers" - we took hold of the deeds of our fathers in our hands; just as they corrupted, so too have we corrupted. And "our fathers" does not necessarily mean one's individual biological father, but previous generations - even a hundred or two hundred years ago. However, we went beyond them: they sinned through unintentional error (shegagah), out of physical desire - and this is the definition of chet, which is always unintentional. We, however, "committed iniquity, acted wickedly": we committed iniquity (he'evinu) through distortion of the intellect, heresy; we acted wickedly (hirshanu) - willfully.
We have explained this matter numerous times, and the Malbim explains it in many places: avon (iniquity) is related to distortion (ivut). Initially, a person sins, but because it is difficult for him to live with the feeling that he is doing wrong, he clears his conscience by constructing an ideology: "Not at all, this is not a sin, this is how it ought to be. Look at nature: a male dog is not restricted to one female, a bull is not restricted to one cow - evidently the Creator made the world this way, and therefore man is not restricted either." He constructs an entire worldview that a person should live freely, flow with reality, and consequently everything is permitted. And this is the far greater sin: as long as it stems from lust and the evil inclination overpowering him, it is still called a chet (sin), a form of unintentional lapse. But the moment you build an ideology around it and declare, "This is the right thing to do" - that is already an avon, for you have distorted the intellect and created a perversion decreeing that this is how things ought to be.
And so people say: Who decided that the classic, traditional family is the only model? There are other types of families, and everyone should establish a family as they see fit. It sounds pluralistic and liberal - why coerce anyone? But what happened here? You created an ideology. And distortion is the most terrible thing of all, because it locks a person into his position. One can see this broadly in a difference discussed previously between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. Among Sephardim, even when there was sin, it was a sin born of desire: they brought them to the Land of Israel, stripped them of Judaism, placed them into secular schools, some into kibbutzim, stripping them bare of the Torah of their fathers. Therefore, it is very easy for them to return, as they never built an ideology around it. In contrast, among Ashkenazim, around everything done an ideology is built: one founds a movement, establishes a political party, creates an organized group. Notice how locked in they become, so that "one from a city and two from a family" return in repentance. When a person merely stumbles, he says: "Oops, I made a mistake, I stumbled" - and there is a chance for him to rectify it. But when he has constructed an ideology, creating an intellectual distortion that this is the proper path, try taking him out of it - it runs contrary to his entire worldview. This is "we committed iniquity, we acted wickedly": our wickedness is already anchored in the distortion of the intellect, and therefore our situation is far graver than that of our fathers, who merely sinned.
Blaming the Parents - The Explanation of the Tehilot Maharitz
The book Tehilot Maharitz offers a wonderful explanation here. Many people, when asked how they could commit such acts, begin by saying: "Don't ask what kind of father I had, don't ask what kind of parents I had, don't ask how they abused and tormented me." In short - they blame everything on their parents, always having someone else to hold responsible. Already in the Talmudic era there was a man who blamed his parents: Elisha ben Avuyah, known as Acher. He recounted that at his circumcision, his father saw the Sages surrounded by flames of Torah study and said, "How wonderful! I dedicate my son to become a Torah scholar" - meaning, out of ulterior motives (shelo lishmah), merely impressed by the fire (and had he thought politicians produced a different kind of fire, he would have wanted him to become a politician or a member of parliament). And not only his father, but his mother too, when she passed by a house of idolatry and inhaled its scent while pregnant with him. Thus, he had someone onto whom to shift the blame - it was his father, it was his mother. In doing so, people add sin to transgression: not only do they fail to regret and admit their guilt, but they deflect responsibility onto others.
According to this, the author explains, we can understand the verses in the Tochachah (admonition) in Parashat Bechukotai, which many commentators questioned and which we too have addressed: "And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their treachery that they committed against Me... I also will walk contrary to them, and bring them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart will be humbled, and they will then make amends for their iniquity." But are they not already confessing, speaking of a people repenting - and in the view of the Rambam, the essence of repentance is confession - so why does God say, "I also will walk contrary to them"? Rather, they confess their iniquity alongside the iniquity of their fathers: they tie their own guilt to their fathers' guilt and say, "I am not to blame; it is my father, it is my parents, they did not raise me properly." It turns out that he is not one who confesses and forsakes his sin, but rather covers his transgressions with the iniquities of his parents, and this cannot be called confession at all. Therefore, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: "I also will walk contrary to them," until "their uncircumcised heart will be humbled" and realize that one must not blame others.
It may indeed be true that the home was not perfect, but the Holy One, blessed be He, placed you in a reality from which you can rise. The home of Avraham Avinu was not spiritually perfect either - yet from it emerged Avraham Avinu. A person can choose the good even if he is the son of Lavan; if you are Lavan's daughter, you can decide to become Rachel Imenu. There is no predetermined rule that if a person's parents are flawed, he must turn out flawed; the Holy One, blessed be He, placed you here, and you are expected to make the effort, emerge from that place, and flourish. Thus, one who pins his iniquity on the iniquity of his ancestors - not only is there no true confession here, but it is an evasion of responsibility. And this is what is meant when we say, "We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly" - the primary sin is that they deflect responsibility, saying: We sinned because of our fathers, and consequently we committed iniquity and acted wickedly; our sins stem from our parents, and therefore, Master of the Universe, Your complaint is not against us, but against our fathers.
Our Fathers in Egypt Did Not Understand Your Wonders
אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בְמִצְרַיִם לֹא הִשְׂכִּילוּ נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ, לֹא זָכְרוּ אֶת רֹב חֲסָדֶיךָ, וַיַּמְרוּ עַל יָם בְּיַם סוּף. - Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders; they did not remember Your abundant kindnesses, and rebelled at the sea, by the Reed Sea.
The Radak explains: When our fathers left Egypt, they did not contemplate the wonders You performed in Egypt, nor did they remember Your abundant kindnesses. Consider: in all the plagues, the Holy One, blessed be He, distinguished Israel - the plague struck throughout the land, yet Israel was unaffected. In the plague of hail: "Only in the land of Goshen, where the Children of Israel were, there was no hail." In pestilence: "And of the livestock of the Children of Israel not one died." In darkness: "And for all the Children of Israel there was light in their dwellings." In the mixture of wild beasts: "And I will set a distinction between My people and your people." And the Radak states: and so it was with the remaining plagues, even though it was not explicitly written. It should be noted that the opinion of the Ibn Ezra differs - in his view, only during the plagues where a distinction was explicitly mentioned was there a distinction, while where it was not written, Israel suffered alongside the Egyptians. However, all the other commentators disagree with him on this and learn in accordance with the Radak, that in all the plagues only the Egyptians suffered and not Israel, even where unwritten.
Yet after all these signs and wonders, when Egypt pursued them, they raised a grievance: "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt?" The Holy One, blessed be He, had performed such signs and such wonders for you - did you manage to forget so quickly? They did not remember that the One who performed those wonders for them could perform wonders for them now as well; they ought to have prayed and cried out to Him, rather than burdening Him with complaints.
This is the meaning of "they rebelled by the sea, at the Yam Suf": when the Egyptians overtook them while they were encamped by the sea, they rebelled there - they were unwilling to enter out of fear for their lives. The Gemara in Sotah cites two opinions on this: whether they argued among themselves over who would enter first, or whether they argued over who would not enter first - one saying, "You go in first," and the other saying, "No, you." And Rashi explains that there were people of little faith among them, who said: "Just as we are coming up on this side, so too the Egyptians are coming up on another side and will pursue us." Hashem performs miracles for them, splits the sea for them, dries up the seabed - yet while inside the sea, they are filled with thoughts of doubt and disbelief! Haven't you seen until now what wondrous miracles the Holy One, blessed be He, performed for you to save you from Egypt? What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He signaled to the sea, and it cast out the Egyptians onto the dry land. When they saw them lying before them as dead corpses - only then did they calm down. This is the meaning of "And Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore," which is why "and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant" - as Rashi notes: but initially, they did not believe.
Radak cites Midrash Shocher Tov here: What is the meaning of "they rebelled by the sea"? Once Moshe split the sea for them, the seabed turned to mud - mire, as it says, "You trod through the sea with Your horses, the mire of mighty waters," and "mire" (chomer) is mud, as in "and they embittered their lives with hard labor, in mortar (chomer) and bricks." Once they descended into the sea, they began saying to one another: "Kicking your kicks and treading your tread - from mud and bricks we departed, and to mud and bricks we have come!" They enter the sea, their shoes sink into the mud, and they say: "That is it, we are back in Egypt; things are no better for us here than they were there." This is "they rebelled by the sea, at the Yam Suf" - they enter the sea and defy the word of Hashem, and even speak disparagingly. However, Radak wonders at this Midrash: after all, Scripture states, "and He turned the sea into dry land," and here in the psalm it says, "He led them through the depths as through a desert" - implying there was no mud there, but rather that it was dry as a desert! Yet there is no necessary contradiction here: one can distinguish between the initial state and what followed. At first, when they entered the water and were required to display faith and devotion, there was mud - as the Midrash states; whereas "and He turned the sea into dry land" and "He led them through the depths as through a desert," when everything dried completely, occurred in the second stage.
The Malbim explains here the sin of the ancestors while they were still in Egypt. They ought to have comprehended the greatness of Hashem through the wonders He performed for them, and served Him out of exalted awe (yirat haromemut) - yet "they did not comprehend Your wonders": there were those among them who still harbored doubts, lacking complete faith, saying that while there were indeed signs and wonders, who knows, perhaps - in the words of the Rambam - they were performed through secret arts and sorcery. A person sees the wonders in Egypt and says: Perhaps this is sorcery, for that is what was claimed in the Pharaohs' propaganda, that Moshe was a great sorcerer. Alternatively, they should have remembered Hashem's kindnesses and served Him out of gratitude and fear of retribution - yet "they did not remember Your abundant kindnesses." This is what is stated in Yechezkel: "And I said to them: Cast away, every one of you, the abominations of his eyes... but they would not listen," referring to the time just before the redemption - they still clung to idolatry. Likewise, on the eve of redemption, Moshe says to them, "Draw out and take for yourselves lambs" - draw your hands away from idolatry. Thus, on the very eve of redemption they still clung to it, and it was difficult to part them from it. Even at the Yam Suf, the Malbim notes, they still doubted Hashem's ability and denied His favors, as they said: "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness? What is this that you have done to us, to take us out of Egypt? Is this not the very word we spoke to you in Egypt, saying: Leave us alone, that we may serve Egypt!" And even inside the sea - as Chazal taught, the idol of Michah passed through the sea with them, "and distress passed through the sea." Thus, even inside the sea, they continued to rebel.
The Mechilta teaches: It is written, "And Moshe led Israel forward from the Yam Suf" - he moved them away from the rebellion they staged at the Yam Suf, as though he took them and removed them from the place where they had rebelled. This is what Moshe Rabbeinu hints at in the beginning of Sefer Devarim when recounting their sins: "opposite Suf" refers to their rebelling by the sea at the Yam Suf; "and Di-Zahav" alludes to the sin of the Golden Calf; "Chatzerot" alludes to the incident of Korach, and so on. And the holy Shelah makes a precise observation: It says, "they rebelled by the sea, at the Yam Suf," and it is written, "And Hashem saved (vayyosha) Israel" - vayyosha (ויושע) is an acronym for Vayishman Yeshurun Vayyibat ("And Yeshurun grew fat and kicked"), "you grew fat, you grew thick." Behold: Hashem performs signs and wonders for them, and they grow plump from them; yet instead of clinging closer to Him - "and he kicked," they voice complaints and cast doubt on His ability.
And He Saved Them for the Sake of His Name
וַיּוֹשִׁיעֵם לְמַעַן שְׁמוֹ, לְהוֹדִיעַ אֶת גְּבוּרָתוֹ. - "And He saved them for His name's sake, to make His might known."
Ibn Ezra explains: "For His name's sake" - because the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, was associated with them as the "God of the Hebrews"; consequently, if harm were to befall the Hebrews, Heaven forbid, it would constitute, as it were, a desecration of His blessed Name. Radak adds that even though they were not worthy of salvation on their own merit - having rebelled against God's word and failed to trust in Him - the Holy One, blessed be He, who did not wish His Name to be profaned among the nations, saved them for His name's sake. Indeed, the Torah states explicitly regarding that very salvation: "and I will be glorified through Pharaoh, through his chariots, and through his horsemen"; and how does the verse continue? "And Egypt shall know that I am Hashem." Clearly, the central theme here is the sanctification of His Name. On their own merit they were undeserving - to the point that even the sea did not want to split before them, saying, "These are idol worshippers and these are idol worshippers!" Rather, it was all for the sake of His Name, so that His Name would be magnified and sanctified in the world, and through this the nations would come to recognize His might.
The Malbim explains that there were two reasons for this salvation. First - to prevent a desecration of Hashem's Name (chilul Hashem), as it is written in Yechezkel: "And I acted for the sake of My Name, that it should not be profaned." Second - so that Israel themselves would be strengthened in faith and recognize the might of Hashem: at that moment they were doubting, but when they would witness this, they would acknowledge His power.
"He Rebuked the Yam Suf" - Two Miracles on the Seabed
וַיִּגְעַר בְּיַם סוּף וַיֶּחֱרָב, וַיּוֹלִיכֵם בַּתְּהֹמוֹת כַּמִּדְבָּר. - "He rebuked the Yam Suf and it dried up, and He led them through the depths as through a desert."
Radak explains that the "rebuke" refers to the wind that the Holy One, blessed be He, directed over the sea, by which He turned it into dry land, as in the verse, "He rebukes the sea and dries it up" - Hashem's rebuke is, as it were, that very wind drying the sea. "And He led them through the depths as through a desert" - He led Israel through the depths on dry ground, just like someone walking through a desert; the sea split, and according to Radak's approach mentioned above, there was no mud there, but completely dry ground. And as we suggested, it is possible that initially there was mud and only afterward did it dry; nonetheless, here it states explicitly that He led them through the depths as through a desert and "He made the sea into dry land" - the seabed was completely dry.
Rashi interprets "through the depths as through a desert" differently: the Yam Suf was situated in the wilderness, as it is said, "The wilderness has closed in on them," and similarly, "Let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness." In other words, the verse does not mean that the seabed they walked upon was as dry as a desert, but rather that the entire event occurred in the desert - the wilderness had hemmed them in, and He split the sea for them.
The Malbim adds another miracle here, as he explained in his commentary on the Torah. First, the seabed of the deep dried up - as we said, into dry land. But there is another problem here: had the sea merely dried up, they would have had to make a steep descent and then a steep ascent, even without factoring in the rocks and boulders across the seabed - for the sea floor is not a flat, cleared ground. Therefore, says the Malbim, the Holy One, blessed be He, leveled the way for them and made it a smooth road, for the chasm of the sea is a massive valley where descending and ascending would be impossible. This is the meaning of "He led them through the depths, as through a desert": just as a person walks across flat terrain in the desert, so He turned the depths into a plain for them, and they did not need to descend into a deep abyss and climb back out. And as it is written in Yeshayahu, "He led them through the depths, like a horse in the desert" - just as a horse gallops across the open desert on level ground without steep dips and climbs, so Hashem leveled the seabed for them, and they walked on elevated, even ground.
In summary: The Psalmist opened with a personal plea - "Remember me, Hashem, with the favor of Your people; visit me with Your salvation" - that he should not be remembered among the sinners nor visited among the punished, but rather merit to behold the goodness of the righteous, to rejoice in the salvation of the nation, and to glory with Hashem's heritage. Immediately thereafter, he begins a confession: "We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly" - and we learned that *chet* stems from inadvertence and lust, whereas *avon* and *resha* are far more severe, for they involve a distortion of the mind, building an ideology around wrongdoing, and evading responsibility by shifting the blame onto one's parents and prior generations. From there, he turned to the sins of the generation in Egypt and at the Sea: they did not contemplate the wonders, did not remember the abundance of kindnesses, and rebelled even right at the Sea. Yet despite all this, the Holy One, blessed be He, delivered them - for the sake of His Name and so that they would know His might; He rebuked the sea and it dried up, and moreover, He leveled the depths before them and led them through as through a desert.