22^nd of Cheshvan, November 9, 2009

Fifteen psalms, Psalms 120-134, are grouped together under the common heading: “A song of ascents.”   What is this “song of ascents?”   Some explain that this refers to the fifteen steps that separated the courtyards of the men and women in the Beit HaMikdash.  On these steps, the Levites would stand and sing.  Others comment that these were songs sung by the exiles as they ascended from Babylon to the Holy Land.  The Meiri teaches that the phrase refers to a musical direction, alluding to a song begun softly and then increasing in volume.  Yet others suggest that this may refer to the particular poetic form of these psalms, in which the repeated phrase brings the poem to its culmination- its theme.

Copyright, 2009 Rachel Lerner