Letter from Shoshanna - About the Psalms (C6)
Shalom! (That means hello, goodbye and peace in Hebrew – the language of the Jewish people.)
Thank you very much for your letter. It’s wonderful to hear that you’re learning about the Psalms, and that you’re learning that Jews and Christians both share the Psalms.
You wanted to know about how the Psalms are used in Jewish liturgy.
Perhaps the best thing to start with is the Sabbath!
Some of you might know that, for Jewish people, Saturday is the special day of the week, instead of Sunday (which is the special day of worship for Christians). In Hebrew, Saturday is called Shabbat. It is a special day, different from every other day of the week, and we stop what we normally do so that we can honour God.
What you might not know is that Jewish days start in the evening, so Shabbat actually starts on Friday evening and goes through until Saturday evening.
On Shabbat, Jews have special services to attend. Just like Christians go to church on a Sunday, Jews go to synagogue on a Friday evening or Saturday morning – or both!
Lots of Jews ‘welcome’ Shabbat on Friday evening by singing psalms. It is a mystical service called Kabbalat Shabbat, which means ‘receiving the Sabbath’. We begin Kabbalat Shabbat by reciting six psalms (Psalms 95-99 as well as Psalm 29), which represent the six weekdays that have led us to Shabbat. These Psalms remind Jews of the days of creation and the importance of resting (like God did) on the seventh day, after six days of hard work. Next comes the poem, Lekha Dodi, (which is based on the words ‘Come, let us go out to meet the Sabbath Queen’). The welcoming of Shabbat is concluded with Psalm 92 and 93.
After welcoming Shabbat, the evening Shabbat service starts. This includes ‘VeShameru’, which is a sung version of Exodus 31:16-17, a reading from the Torah (which, for you are the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and the Haftarah (reading from the Prophets), and Kiddush (the bread and wine)!
As well as Shabbat, Jews use the Psalms on other days, too. Psalms are used in morning, afternoon and evening Jewish prayer services on the other days of the week. For example, Psalms 100, 145 and 150 are used in the weekday morning services.
Psalms are also used at other times in Jewish life: like when people are ill, before meals, and at funerals. The psalms help us to explain our feelings when words can’t explain them.
Because of this, the most important thing about the Psalms is the person who reads them! It is our thoughts and feelings that make them really special.
I hope this explains a bit about how Jewish people use the Psalms.
If you have more questions, please write to me again!
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