Commentary on beginning of the Book of Tehilim by Dovid Eidensohn

The Book of Tehilim

Bold italic is the passage in the Book of Tehilim. Regular text is commentary of Dovid Eidensohn.

Chapter One

1A. אשרי האיש אשר לא הלך בעצת רשעים  - Happy is he [the man] who did not walk with the advice of wicked people. I do not know the perfect English translation for the Hebrew word of ASHREI אשרי . I tried “secure” and “successful” but these according to the Roget’s Super Thesaurus connote “secure from fear” and “successful defeating others”. Happiness also fails in the Thesaurus because it indicates “joy, gladness, contentment, bliss, delight, jubilation, pleasure, cheer, high spirits, peace of mind, elation, rapture, euphoria, exuberance, felicity, ecstasy.” In truth, ASHREI connotes all of these, but secure is involved with a negative “fear” and successful is involved with “defeating others”. Happiness has no negative quality so I chose it, although it fails to go beyond the good feeling one has when happiness happens. But happiness can be a fleeting thing, and who is happy in the sense of joy and rapture for long moments?

Thus, the correct translation of ASHREI must be an explanation perhaps with some words of exactly what the Psalmist intended. The Psalmist intended to convey happiness, secure and successful, but not in their transitory states and not in their relation to fear and defeating others. It is a deeper word than all three. It is a word that conveys a sense much deeper than joy and vastly superior to the kind of happiness that comes along for a ride and then leaves. It is a word much stronger than secure and much more positive than successful. When we use joy to define ASHREI but only by stretching it into a lifetime feeling; when we use “secure” not just as security from fear of failure and such negative things, but security in locking our souls to heaven and our minds to Torah; if we also combine “successful” as defeating others who are wicked, who defy the Torah, and include in successful the constant war with the Satan and defeating it, we are approaching the meaning of Ashrei. But I left it as “happy” so as not to create many words to explain one word. Precisely because the many words won’t do the job either. ASHREI is a word that conveys a Jew who has a soul linked to heaven and a mind that knows this world. It is a word that warns us about evil and encourages us to stay righteous.  Until we have a word that unites this world and the next, and G‑d with our struggles to understand Torah, we are left with ASHREI!

1B.     “who did not walk with the advice of wicked people” is a past tense. It might seem more correct and more powerful to say “who does not walk with the advice of wicked people.” If “did not walk” is a past tense, it allows an understanding that as of now he no longer refuses to walk with the advice of the wicked, which is surely not want the Psalmist meant. But the Psalmist realizes that people who believe in Torah and two worlds and good and evil are constantly struggling with the Evil Inclination.  There are times when such people who are typical Jewish people win the fight with the Satan and sometimes they fail. When a Jew fails he repents. Maybe today he is repenting about what he did yesterday but tomorrow he may go back to his old ways. This is not ASHREI. This is a sad failure that is not the glory of the book of Tehilim. The glory of the Book of Tehilim is when the old evil is completely washed away so that “who did not walk with the advice of wicked people” connotes a very long period of piety. A sin here or there that is a rarity in one’s long piety is one thing. But if the sins are frequent, that is not ASHREI.

1C. “who did not walk with the advice of wicked people.” What is this about “walking”? And what is this about “advice”? Let it just say “who did not go in the ways of wicked people’?

The Talmud says, “That which proceeds from an impure thing is impure. And that which proceeds from a pure thing is pure.” )Bechorose 5b)The advice of the wicked people does not mean that they are wicked in the sense that they want to harm the righteous. We are talking about people who are wicked but they are not intent on harming religious people nor do they want them to do sins. Their advice here can be good advice. Otherwise, the Psalmist would be talking about double trouble, walking with wicked people and getting bad advice from them. No, the advice was good advice. Even an evil person, can, if he so wishes, tell somebody good advice. Many people would say, look, he is a smart man. His advice is usually sound. Let’s do what he suggests. But the pious knows that “that which proceeds from the impure is impure.” He doesn’t want good advice form a wicked person.

Now what is this about “walking”? This means we know somebody who is not so religious, but he is very smart. He tells us how to go about something, and we have no fear that he hates us and wants to cause us harm. Probably, we assume, the advice is solid. On the other hand, he is not so religious. To go and just accept his advice may be a step away from Torah. So, the person makes a compromise with the wicked man. He will “walk” doing the advice of the wicked man. But walking doesn’t mean that he swallows the man along with his advice. No, his head, his heart, his intellect, have nothing to do with the wicked. On the other hand, he does follow the advice of the wicked men, and he convinces himself that he is far removed from the wicked and their wickedness. He is only “walking” with his feet in the advice of the wicked, but his head, his soul, his heart, his true self, is not swallowing evil and wickedness. Only the feet are walking along in the path suggested by the wicked person. And the wicked person himself did not indicate in any way that he wants to contaminate the righteous person, who may be a close relative. But that walk can be the process of “that which proceeds from the impure is impure.” Somehow, this effects the piety of the good person.

We find in the beginning of the Torah reading called AIKEV a lengthy discussion by one of the great commentators, the Or HaChaim HaKodosh. AIKEV means “heel.” The Torah reading of AIKEV begins “and it will be AIKEV” meaning according to the Or HaChaim when the person’s spirituality is so perfect that it goes from the head to the heels, a complete tsaddik whose entire essence is for Torah.

The Book of Tehilim begins with a similar idea. A righteous person who “walks” according to the “advice” of the wicked, is not completely connected to HaShem. The feet are impure and that impurity damages the entire essence of the person who otherwise is righteous. Now he is impure and damaged because the “heel” or “walking” element in him follows the advice of the wicked, even if the wicked had no intention of causing him any evil or impurity. “That which proceeds from the impure is impure.”