Chapter 115 is a psalm of prayer in a time of distress, in which Keneset Yisrael turns to the Holy One, blessed be He, pleading for rescue - not on the strength of its merits, but for the sake of His blessed Name, His lovingkindness, and the truth of His promise. On the other side stand the nations taunting: "Where now is their God?" To this comes the great reply: "And our God is in the heavens, whatever He pleases He does." Let us proceed through the verses in order.
לֹא לָנוּ יְהֹוָה לֹא לָנוּ כִּי לְשִׁמְךָ תֵּן כָּבוֹד עַל חַסְדְּךָ עַל אֲמִתֶּךָ׃ - Not for us, Hashem, not for us, but to Your Name give glory, for Your kindness, for Your truth.
Radak notes at the outset that in some manuscripts, this is not the beginning of the psalm. How the psalm begins according to those texts is not mentioned, yet this is what he records. As for the meaning itself, he explains: Just as You performed lovingkindness with our forefathers and brought them out of Egypt, so too perform lovingkindness with us, redeeming and rescuing us in every generation. And if it be said that we are unworthy - nevertheless act kindly with us for the sake of Your Name. "Not for us" - not because of our merits, but "to Your Name give glory," for whenever the Jewish people suffer harm, there is a desecration of God's Name (Chillul Hashem), and people say their God lacks the power to save them. Therefore: act so that Your Name will be magnified and sanctified in the world.
"For Your kindness, for Your truth" - it is as though the conjunction "vav" ("and") is missing here, meaning: for Your kindness and for Your truth. Radak characteristically brings examples of this, such as "sun moon stood still in its abode" (Chavakuk 3:11), meaning sun and moon, as well as other verses where the "vav" is omitted. The plea is twofold: give glory to Your Name so that it is not profaned among the nations, and do so out of the lovingkindness You bestow upon all creations, and specifically out of "Your truth." Wherever "Your truth" is mentioned, it refers to something the Holy One, blessed be He, validates and upholds: He made a promise, and to confirm the truth of His word, He must fulfill His pledge. Thus, there are two facets here: one of pure kindness, and the other of truth - namely, that You promised the Jewish people will never perish and will endure eternally, and by virtue of that truth, the Master of the Universe is, as it were, bound to save us.
The Gemara in Pesachim 117a records a dispute regarding whom this psalm was composed about, as it describes: "Why should the nations say: 'Where now is their God?'" One opinion holds that it was said concerning the subjugation to foreign powers (shibud malchuyot) - praying that Hashem rescue us from the empires under which we are subjugated. And if anyone imagines that we have already emerged from foreign subjugation, events quickly remind us who is calling the shots. They arrive here with an aircraft carrier, and woe to anyone who fails to coordinate every move. There is a well-known cartoon depicting the American president hugging an Israeli soldier and saying, "I love you so much," while virtually suffocating him in the embrace, with the soldier flailing his arms and crying out, "Let go, let go!" Such is this embrace - a bear hug meant to dictate what is good and what is bad, and to halt the campaign midway. Relying on foreign powers is always problematic. Can anyone even build a balcony in Judea and Samaria without receiving rebuke? Can anything be done without them offering their opinion and subjecting it to their scrutiny? We are still under the subjugation of foreign empires, and this is what we pray against.
Others say that Moshe and the people of Israel recited it as they stood by the Red Sea; others say that Chananyah, Mishael, and Azaryah recited it in the fiery furnace; and others say that Mordechai and Esther recited it when Haman the wicked rose against them. As is known, in Aggadah there is no contradiction - every opinion is true, and the psalm was recited in all of these eras.
The Malbim explains that our psalm is the direct continuation of the preceding chapter, "Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His dominion." There, Hashem's dominion - His mastery over nature - was entrusted to Israel; they were given the keys, they are "His dominion," ruling, as it were, over the Holy One, blessed be He. As Chazal say, the Holy One, blessed be He, declares: "I rule over nature, but who rules over Me? The righteous person who fears God" - God decrees, and the tzaddik annuls it. Regarding this, the verse now states: "Not for us" - this divine dominion should not be exercised on our own account, for we are not worthy of it. That exalted level belonged to the generation of "Judah became His sanctuary," men of supreme stature who gave their lives and cleaved to Hashem, who had the power to decree and have it fulfilled.
Nevertheless, the Malbim continues, even though we do not stand on that level and do not qualify as "Israel His dominion," we are still worthy of having miracles performed for us - not for our own sake, but because "to Your Name give glory." Since Your Name is already associated with us, meaning that You watch over us and perform miracles on our behalf, if You were suddenly to cease, people would say: It is over; Hashem has lost His power. This is precisely what Haman told Ahasuerus when the king asked whether their God does not perform miracles for them: "He has grown old" - He has retired. Once He was young and moved mountains in the world, but old age has overtaken Him; you have nothing to worry about, rest easy. Therefore we say: Master of the Universe, Your Name will be profaned - act on our behalf so that no desecration of Your Name occurs!
And as noted: "For Your kindness" - act with us out of kindness even if we have no promise at all, just as the Exodus from Egypt was purely Hashem's kindness. We possessed no merits and were undeserving of redemption, as the ministering angels said, "These are idol worshippers and these are idol worshippers," yet You nonetheless showed us lovingkindness - and upon that same kindness we rely. "For Your truth" - by virtue of the promise You made to be our God, which You must validate and fulfill.
What is the reason for this repetition? The Radak, in his usual approach, explains that "Not to us" is stated twice for emphasis. The Radak is generally unbothered by repetitions, frequently noting that it is "a repetition of the idea in different words" - that is, one should not be surprised if a verse repeats itself, for such is the poetic style of the verses.
For the Malbim, however, a verse never repeats itself without purpose, nor is any word written twice unnecessarily; every repetition comes to teach something new. He therefore explains: the first "Not to us, Hashem" means that Hashem's dominion is not ours - we are not worthy of that high level of "Judah became His sanctuary," where the tzaddik decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills. And "Not to us, but to Your Name give glory" is the second "not to us": even in today's reality, when we are not on that lofty level, we should still be granted salvation. By virtue of what? "For to Your Name give glory" - Your Name is called upon us, You watch over us and perform miracles for us, and You must bring honor to Your Name so that it is not desecrated. And all this is "for the sake of Your steadfast love" - through chessed alone, even without a promise, and "for the sake of Your truth" - through the truth of Your pledge to be our God.
By way of homiletic hint (remez), one might suggest: the word lanu ("to us") has a gematria of eighty-six, the numerical value of Elokim, the Divine Name that denotes the Attribute of Justice (Middat HaDin). Strict justice dictates that if one deserves something, he receives it, and if he does not deserve it, he does not. Thus we come and plead: Master of the Universe, "not lanu" - do not deal with us through the aspect of Elokim, through the conduct of strict justice, but rather through the Name of Havayah, the Attribute of Mercy and Lovingkindness. For if our guidance were governed by strict justice, we would be found unworthy and would not be redeemed. But if it is "not lanu," not through the measure of Elokim but through Havayah, then "to Your Name give glory," and we will merit salvation through other considerations: Your kindness, Your truth, and the prevention of the desecration of Heaven's Name. All of these ensure that even without the standard of Elokim - that is, even if we do not strictly deserve it under justice - we will still receive it.
A witty insight may also be suggested: the nations say, "There is (yeshno) a certain people scattered and dispersed" - which the Sages homiletically interpret as, "Do not read yeshno, but yashenu: they have fallen asleep from the mitzvot." In other words, you have nothing to fear; the Jewish people have fallen asleep and no longer perform mitzvot properly. And how do we refute their claim? By saying, "Lo lanu, Hashem, lo lanu" - playing on the word lanu as in mayim shelanu (water that stayed overnight), meaning: we did not sleep (lo lannu)! Master of the Universe, has the Jewish people fallen asleep? Heaven forbid! We are awake and diligently fulfilling Your mitzvot. Why, then, should the nations say, "Where is their God?"
לָמָּה יֹאמְרוּ הַגּוֹיִם אַיֵּה נָא אֱלֹהֵיהֶם׃ - Why should the nations say, "Where is their God now?"
The Radak explains: if You do not perform lovingkindness with us and do not bring glory to Your Name, the nations will taunt, "Where is their God?" - where is their Deity, when we rule over them? This is akin to what Nebuchadnezzar said to Chizkiyahu: Why do you think you can withstand me? Samaria could not withstand me, and your God will not be able to rescue you from my hands - will He suddenly have the power to do so now? Go explain to a gentile monarch that it was not that our God lacked the power to save us from you, but that He Himself brought you to punish Samaria for their idolatry. In his eyes, he believed he had defeated the God of Israel, having conquered His children and exiled the Ten Tribes. Thus the nations declare, "Where is their God? Behold, we rule over them" - and witnessing our downfall results, Heaven forbid, in a desecration of the Divine Name.
It is cited in the name of the Rebbe Reb Heshel regarding "Why should the nations say": the nations of the world argue that it is impossible for the Holy One, blessed be He, to take us back after having banished us. This is, of course, the foundation of Christian supersessionist theology - that the Jewish people were exiled from their land, Hashem rejected them, and He chose the Christians instead. There are many refutations to these baseless and embarrassing claims, which demonstrate that their proponents have not even begun to read the verses of the Torah and Tanach to comprehend the eternal bond between us and Hashem; yet, in any case, this is their argument.
They compare this to a man who divorced his wife and she went and married another man - can he return and marry her again? So too, according to their argument, after the Holy One, blessed be He, divorced the Jewish people and they went and attached themselves to other "masters" (Ba'alim, a play on words referring to pagan deities) - what possibility is there of returning to Hashem, blessed be He? Incidentally, this was once the argument of Israel itself in exile, to which the prophet responded: "Where is the bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away?" You claim that I divorced you? Where is the bill of divorce, where is the get? Moreover, He cannot dismiss us permanently, for we accepted the Torah under coercion, and regarding one who takes a woman under coercion, the Torah dictates: "He cannot send her away all his days."
To this argument, the Rebbe Reb Heshel provides two answers drawn directly from the psalm. The first: the Holy One, blessed be He, can do whatever He wills. Man is bound by the laws of the Torah, but "a king may breach boundaries." There is the Divine conduct of Justice (Hanhagat HaMishpat) and the Divine conduct of Absolute Unity (Hanhagat HaYichud). Under the conduct of Justice, Hashem is, as it were, bound by rules, whereas under the conduct of Absolute Unity, He acts purely according to His sovereign will. The Exodus from Egypt took place under the conduct of Absolute Unity, for under the strict rules of Justice, our redemption would not have been possible. The conduct of Absolute Unity reflects the reality that "there is none else besides Him" - Hashem is singular in the world and does whatever He pleases. This is the meaning of the verse: "Our God is in the heavens; whatever He pleases, He has done." If He wills to take us back, even after sending us away and even if we strayed after others, He has the absolute power to do so.
And the second answer: What is the halakhic ruling regarding a divorced woman who went and married a deaf-mute, and afterward wishes to return to her first husband? She certainly can return, for the marriage of a deaf-mute does not carry halakhic validity, meaning she was never betrothed to another man at all. And if you ask, but did she not live with him intimately? There is no prohibition against taking back one's divorced wife if she had relations with another man while divorced; the entire prohibition applies only when she was legally married to another man. Thus, if a deaf-mute married her, there is no impediment to the first husband taking her back.
פֶּה לָהֶם וְלֹא יְדַבֵּרוּ עֵינַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִרְאוּ׃ אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִשְׁמָעוּ אַף לָהֶם וְלֹא יְרִיחוּן׃ - They have a mouth, but do not speak; eyes have they, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; a nose have they, but do not smell.
And this is precisely the deeper meaning of the parable, says the Rebbe Reb Heshel: With whom did Israel "marry"? With the Ba'alim, with idolatry - "They have a mouth, but do not speak; ears have they, but do not hear; eyes have they, but do not see." This is a deaf, mute, blind, incapacitated entity - nothing at all. Can such a being effect betrothal? There is no marriage here whatsoever; it is entirely illusory. Thus, the Congregation of Israel was never married to another - and there is no impediment preventing the Holy One, blessed be He, from taking us back. Truly wondrous! And as is well known: when hearing an insight from the Rebbe Reb Heshel, one must listen with utmost attentiveness. He authored a work titled Chanukat HaTorah, containing brief thoughts on each parashah, a thought or two, each razor-sharp and sweeter than honey.
In the path of Mussar and Chassidut, it is taught regarding "Why should the nations say": Who is it that asks "Why"? It is the gentile who asks questions. Why was there a Holocaust? Why did such and such occur? "Why" - let the nations say. But we know that "Our God is in the heavens; whatever He desires, He does": one trusts in the Holy One, blessed be He, Who is in Heaven, for from Above one sees what cannot be seen from down here, and He acts according to His will - and His will is surely the absolute best thing for us.
And as has been aptly said, faith does not necessarily provide a person with answers, but it certainly helps him live even when he has questions. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not submit an accounting of everything He does, and the fact that you believe does not mean you will receive answers. But when one knows that he is in the best possible hands, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the perfection of goodness, that the nature of good is to bestow good, and that everything Hashem does is for one's benefit - that already dispels the questions. It turns out that a person can live even amidst hardship; he may not necessarily have answers, but he will no longer have questions.
וֵאלֹהֵינוּ בַשָּׁמָיִם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר חָפֵץ עָשָׂה׃ - But our God is in the heavens; whatever He desired, He has done.
Ibn Ezra explains "in the heavens" as referring to the celestial realms, meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, chose the upper realms for Himself, as it were. Alternatively, it is because all decrees descend from heaven to the earth: decrees cascade down from the upper realms through the celestial bodies and stars, namely the twelve constellations, and therefore we say "our God is in the heavens" - Hashem is above the heavens, as it were, and from there everything descends to the constellations and subsequently down to this world.
Radak explains: "But our God is in the heavens," while they are foolish, failing to understand or recognize the difference between our God and their gods. Your god is down here, an idol, blind and deaf, and you fail to understand the difference between the living God and the vanity you worship. Our God is in the heavens, ruling over the upper and lower realms, "whatever He desired, He has done" - whereas your god certainly cannot do whatever he pleases, especially since they believed in multiple deities, meaning each one's power was inherently limited: one is the god of the sea, one the god of the land, one the god of war, one the god of love, each having a distinct role and limited power. Thus, our God is One and rules over all, unlike your gods who are many and whose power is limited even according to your own view - while according to our understanding, they possess no power whatsoever.
Metzudat David explains, based on the words of Chazal, that even if the weak is above and the mighty is below, the weak one holds an advantage - the high ground. Whoever stands above finds it far easier to prevail over the one below: throwing catapult stones, pouring boiling water or boiling oil as was customary during the defense of a wall, shooting arrows, and repelling whoever approaches. This is the meaning of "But our God is in the heavens" - even a weak person who is elevated holds power over the one below, all the more so the Holy One, blessed be He, for "whatever He desired, He has done."
The Malbim explains that here begins the third section of the psalm, extending until "The dead do not praise God," the theme of which is that the Divine Providence of the Holy One, blessed be He, is constant: Hashem watches over us unceasingly, each person according to his stature and his role in His world. Regarding this we say, "But our God is in the heavens" - your claim, "Where is their God?", is utterly baseless. You mistakenly suppose that Hashem withdrew His Presence to heaven and that His glory is only above the heavens, leaving Him unaware of what happens down here. To this we reply: our God, though He is in the heavens, nevertheless "whatever He desired, He has done" - He continuously governs everything down here, and all occurs according to His will, not as you imagine, that He is in heaven and oblivious to what takes place on earth.
עֲצַבֵּיהֶם כֶּסֶף וְזָהָב מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵי אָדָם׃ - Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
After mentioning the greatness of Hashem, says the Ibn Ezra, the verse comes to show that all the gods of the nations have no validity whatsoever. "Their idols [atzabeihem]" - meaning they bring sorrow [itzavon] to their worshippers and do not benefit them; furthermore, they are "the work of human hands", and it is a disgrace for them to worship the work of their own hands. As the prophet describes: a person takes a block of wood, puts half of it into the oven to bake his bread, and from the other half carves himself a god. How low can one sink - from that very piece of wood that will soon be coals, with which you baked bread, from the other part you make yourself a god. How ridiculous it is. And so it is here, to their shame: their god is the work of human hands. You take a god that you made yourself and call it "You are my god"?
Yet we have already explained in the past that one must not think they were completely feebleminded. Even when they worshipped images, they did not worship them for their own sake; rather, they drew into them spiritual forces that became embodied in them. A person who truly believes that a piece of wood is a god does not deserve punishment - he needs hospitalization, perhaps even involuntary commitment! Here, however, we are speaking of people who knew very well what they were doing. They would draw down spiritual forces that adhered to those images they made, producing various powers and effects - either through forces of impurity, or through specific actions, such as slaughtering a firstborn at night during a certain lunar phase, thereby drawing down spiritual powers to aid them. And these are real forces in creation: just as there are forces in holiness, angels, so too there are stars and celestial constellations, and there are forces within the kelipot (forces of impurity) as well, which they activated through the sacrifices they offered and the like.
This is what the Radak writes: the sages of the nations of the world fashioned the images corresponding to the supernal powers, directing them toward celestial matters in order to draw down force from Above through them, and they shaped the forms as tangible representations for the masses who followed them - except that eventually people began to consider the forms themselves to be gods. This is similar to what the Rambam writes regarding the error of the generation of Enosh: they believed that one ought to honor the servants of Hashem, not in their own right, but as intermediaries - turning to the sun, which is close to the Holy One, Blessed is He, so that it would convey the request to the supernal realms. But the subsequent generations already forgot that they were serving the sun merely as an attendant, and began worshipping the sun itself, becoming worshippers of sun-images and bowing to the sun as an independent power. Therefore this is termed "the error of the generation of Enosh": they began with a premise that seemed positive - even though it is forbidden to worship His attendants or even approach them as intermediaries, as devotion belongs to Hashem alone - yet this misconception ultimately led to a colossal error. And this is "the work of human hands": that which was initially intended only to draw down spiritual forces into an image turned into the masses worshipping the physical idol itself.
The Malbim explains: the idols of the nations, even though they are not in heaven but are right next to them and visible - unlike our God, of Whom we say "is in the heavens" - nonetheless do not help them at all. And in terms of their material, they are "silver and gold", which is worse even than wood. Now, silver and gold would seem to be superior to wood, so why is it worse? Because in wood there is a vegetative soul. If we divide creation into inanimate, vegetative, animal, and speaking - the vegetative is certainly on a higher plane than the inanimate. The inanimate is static, and even if it is gold, it remains static; whereas in plant life there is a degree of vitality and growth, and in the animal realm there is also the power of movement. Consider this, then: they worship silver and gold, which are not even on the level of wood! And in terms of their maker - they are "the work of human hands". From this you can see the utter degradation of those idols you serve.
In the sefer Ohr Yesharim, it is explained that a person's sorrow [atzvuto] stems from the anxieties he has over his livelihood day and night. "Their idols [atzabeihem] are silver and gold, the work of human hands" - people think that silver and gold are merely the work of human hands: work more, and you will have more; invest more, and you will earn more. But one who knows believes with complete faith that the Holy One, Blessed is He, is the One Who bestows abundance, and He is "the One Who gives you strength to achieve wealth" - and as the Targum renders it, even giving the counsel to acquire possessions. Not only the physical strength and not only your labor, but even an idea that pops into your head, some startup idea - the Holy One, Blessed is He, says: "This too is from Me; I am the One Who gives you the counsel to acquire wealth, and no person touches that which is designated for another by even a hairsbreadth." But when a person does not live this way, but rather "their idols are silver and gold" - his god is silver and gold, and he is convinced that the work of his own hands brings him wealth - that person inevitably falls into anxiety and depression.
And in the sefer Matayim Tzofim, it says: "Their idols are silver and gold" - over what is all of a person's sorrow and anxiety throughout the day, and for what does he exert himself? Over silver and gold. The craving for money lies deep within him and drives him. One of the main forces driving man - perhaps the primary one - is the pursuit of money; most of the day, a person chases after money. Granted, he may even pursue it for spiritual purposes - so that he can sit and learn Torah serenely, so that he can send his children to cheder - but nonetheless, this is his pursuit for most of the day, and this is what brings him his "sorrows" [atzabim, anxieties]. A person becomes fraught chasing after silver and gold, fretting all day long about how to amass more.
And he continues: When a person has an idol, the Holy One, Blessed is He, exacts punishment from the idol first. Why, then, was the Nile struck first in Egypt? Because it was their god. Therefore it is said, "The son of David will not come until the perutah ceases from the pocket" - meaning until the lust for money ceases, which is their "idol" [atzabeihem], their foreign worship, and the Holy One, Blessed is He, exacts punishment from the deities first. And one could say that today the time has already arrived for the son of David to come: there is Bitcoin, there is crypto - the physical coin [perutah] has ceased from the pocket! Soon people will not carry cash at all. Does a wealthy person walk around with a coin in his pocket? He has plastic cards that he swipes everywhere, and today he does not even need that - he walks around with his smartphone and taps it wherever needed.
A poignant thought was once shared on this: regarding the Jubilee year, the Torah states, "And you shall return, each man to his ancestral holding, and each man to his family shall you return." One may ask: why "to his family" - had he abandoned his family? It was his ancestral holding that he left behind when he sold his field, and in the Jubilee the field returns; why, then, does the family suddenly return as well? Rather, when a person has no money, no one knows him and no one remembers him. But when his fields return to him and he suddenly becomes wealthy, the phone calls begin immediately: "Who is this?" - "Your third cousin." I never knew I had such family! "And each man to his family shall you return" - you return, and your family returns to you, and suddenly you discover that you have a very large family.