The Psalm of Redemption X: Rabbi Samson R Hirsch

“How great are your works O God how infinitely profound Your thoughts!” (Verse 6) The scope of all that God has done in both nature and history reaches far beyond any existing human conception of wisdom and might. But surpassing even this in grandeur is the profoundness of God’s thoughts which are at the basis of all the phenomena of nature and of all the events of history.

This is always true, even in those instances where we think ourselves capable of surmising the thoughts of God. These “thoughts” are the consequences, the aims, purposes and intentions which God seeks to fulfill through everything that He has created or has brought to pass and which represent the results of the combined impact of everything that happens in the world.

And as for the ability to understand and regard both the realm of nature and the events of history as a world of Divine thoughts and aims that are real and turned into living actualities, this is a gift given us by Shabbat. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch – The Psalms

Machberes Avodas Hashem
How interesting it is to compare the 19th Century historical perspective of Rav Hirsch to ours, as we live in the 21st Century, after the huge shifts in history and science in the more than 100 years since Rav Hirsch passed away!

How much more interesting it is to compare Rav Hirsch’s perspective “after” so much history, to that of Moshe when he taught these words to slaves in Egypt who lived, from our perspective, at the beginning of history!

The only constant between Moshe, Rav Hirsch and us, in terms of historical perspective, is Shabbat.

Perhaps Moshe used this Psalm to give to his generation, and to us, a gift they could share with all the generations of the past and future; the gift of Shabbat – Our connection with the direct lives of all generations of Jews.