Teachings
Music - Songs - Dances
Praise
How to praise God?
Yaakov, Béla Orbán
Several terms are used in Hebrew to appoint the act of praising in the book of Psalms and which all caracterize the way it is carried out. Nevertheless it is not the way of doing it which is important (let us never use anything as a method), but rather the Work of God, the thing why we can be grateful and praise Him:
TEHILLAH
"But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises Tehillah of Israel."
Psalms 22:3
TODAH
To praise through the offering
Whoso offereth praise Todah glorifieth me...
Psalms 50:23
SHABAH
Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Shabah thee.
Psalms 63:3
BARAK
"O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel Barak before the LORD our maker!"
Psalms 95:6
ZAMAR – with musical instruments
"O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise Zamar, even with my glory!"
Psalms 108:1
YADAH
I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise Yadah thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth.
Psalms 138:2
HALLEL
"Praise Hallel ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power!"
Psalms 150
As we can see it, the Hebrew use many terms to define praise:
- The most frequent and perhaps the most famous is Hallel (Praise).
Its verbal form is "hilel", factitive verb whose meaning is: to congratulate, to praise, to shine, se rejoice.
(We can find the hallels in the liturgy of Jewish feasts under the shape of Psalms of Praise).
- The Hebrew also use the word Shabad which is synonymous of congratulate and calm.
- And we also find the word Haadara which means: to make huge.
These three different approaches can make us think :
- the joy coming from the release, the Redemption, the law and Grace, etc... is source of praise. This joy shines out from my being.
- only a calmed, ordened and quite heart is able to praise.
- and only a heart like that is able to make huge the One who changed its life…
We often associate the word Praise to a beautiful show, to a professional or amateur orchestral performance. From classical to modern style through jazz, the range of our conception of Praise is quite wide.
But is it only possible to praise the Lord with voice and music? Is it necessary that our Praises are done in this form? Prayers and graces pronounced in prose are they not praises too?
Of course they are! And even more... These words pronounced in spirit to the God of the Armies are even more sincere, purer and deeper than the loud ones. Since then, it is not important anymore that these words were pronounced in verses, in stanzas or in simple recited words, but they are coming in silence without saying a word. Because human language is so poor compared to the dialogue in spirit.
This is the way how praise in spirit can be done without any sound or lyric…
Translated from hungarian by Richard (Zeev Shlomo)
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