{"id":8364,"date":"2016-02-15T03:00:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T01:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/?p=8364"},"modified":"2018-05-24T12:55:32","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T09:55:32","slug":"03-15-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/03-15-03\/","title":{"rendered":"03. The Reason for the Recitation of Pesukei De-zimra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The proper order of prayer is to begin by praising God and only then to petition Him. We learn this from Moshe, who opened his prayer with words of praise, saying (Devarim 3:24), \u201cLord, God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand. What force is there in heaven or earth that can perform deeds and mighty acts as You do?\u201d Only afterwards did Moshe plead, \u201cPlease let me cross [the Jordan] so that I may see the good land\u2026\u201d Based on this, Rav Simlai interprets, \u201cOne should always praise God first and afterwards pray\u201d (<em>Berakhot<\/em> 32a). The primary application of putting praise before request is found in the <em>berakhot<\/em> of the <em>Amida<\/em>, for as previously mentioned (12:9), the first three <em>berakhot<\/em> open with words of praise and only later continue to the petitionary <em>berakhot<\/em>. However, even in the rest of one\u2019s prayer, it is proper to open with words of praise, and that is the purpose of <em>Pesukei De-zimra<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>By reciting <em>Pesukei De-zimra<\/em>, the person praying reflects upon God\u2019s greatness, and thus when he subsequently stands in prayer, he knows before Whom he stands. Were he not to pray this way, there would be concern that he might come to request his needs like idol worshipers, whose whole aim is their personal success in their lowly matters and who are not interested at all in devoting themselves to God, the Source of life. However, one who purifies his heart through meditation on God\u2019s greatness knows how to pray; even his requests for health and sustenance are so that he may devote himself to God and to rectify the world under the Almighty\u2019s sovereignty. His prayers are thus more genuine and worthy of being accepted (see <em>Olat Rei\u2019yah<\/em> vol. 1, p.14).<\/p>\n<p>The name \u201c<em>Pesukei De-zimra<\/em>\u201d (\u201cVerses of Song\u201d) alludes to exactly that, as the word \u201c<em>zemer<\/em>\u201d can mean song or poem and also pruning or cutting. Just like one who prunes his vineyard cuts off the extra branches in order to strengthen the growth of the branches that will produce good fruit in the future, by saying <em>Pesukei De-zimra<\/em> the person praying destroys his flawed thoughts and bad feelings, and diminishes the laziness that accumulated as a result of sleep, so that he can pray with <em>kavana<\/em>. This cleansing in advance of prayer is pleasing and enjoyable for within it there is song and praise; therefore, it is called \u201c<em>Pesukei De-zimra<\/em>\u201d (see <em>Peninei Halakha: Prayer<\/em>, ch. 14 n. 2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The proper order of prayer is to begin by praising God and only then to petition Him. We learn this from Moshe, who opened his prayer with words of praise, saying (Devarim 3:24), \u201cLord, God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand. What force is there in heaven or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-15"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>03. The Reason for the Recitation of Pesukei De-zimra - Peninei Halakha<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/03-15-03\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"03. 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