Rav Hirsch offers us a beautiful insight learned from the natural world.  In Psalm 147, the psalmist uses the natural wonder of water to illustrate how G-D's law guides and governs nature.  Water is also used to demonstrate how nature responds unquestioningly and obediently to the G-D's dominion. "For He who sends out His command to the earth -- His word runs very swiftly -- Who gives snow like flakes of wool, Who scatters hoarfrost like ashes, Who casts forth His ice like lumps – who can stand before His cold?  Who then sends forth His word and melts them, Who causes His wind to blow, and they flow like water; He declares His word, so varied and yet one, to Jacob and His statutes and ordinances to Israel (v. 15-19)."   In order for us to perceive the speed with which water submits to the will of its Creator, the psalm cites the changes that water undergoes to fulfill Hashem's dictates.  It changes in form from snow to hoarfrost, to ice, and then back to its original liquid state.  The psalmist then concludes by stating that the G-D who bends nature to His will is the same G-D who declared His word to Jacob, a word that is one despite all its ostensible variety.  Our G-D has communicated His one word, the Torah, which contains His statutes and ordinances.

Copyright, Rachel Lerner 2008