ASHREI
T Psalm 145, w knownas Ashreiis the most often recited Psalm in our liturgy. It is totally universal;it contains no reference to Israel or to Torah.The word that appears most oftenin this Psalm is kol, meaning “all”.
RE: Ashrei andtheodicy: The psalm contains six verses (8, 9, 14, 16, 17, and 18) that assert,using present- tense formulations, that God is kind and merciful to everyone.One example: Tov Hashem lakol… [“God is good to everyone, and His mercy is upon all His creations”]. How are weto relate to these verses in light of the immense human suffering that oftencharacterizes the human condition?
On the other hand,we should also note the Ashrei’s generous use of imperfect tense verbs. For example, R’tzon y’ray’av ya’aseh…[“He will fulfill the will of thosewho fear Him, and He will listen totheir cries and He will rescuethem”]. In Biblical Hebrew,imperfect-tense verbs may refer to any time frame; nevertheless, in thiscontext they may actually possess a futuristic connotation only. As such, wemay be dealing here with statements of faith - to the effect that, ultimately,the goodness in all of God’s actions willbe revealed. This may present a more reasonable reading than one who sees theseverses as articulating present-tense claims which appear to contradict theintense suffering associated with empirical reality.
I am referring tothe simple, straightforward meaning only. A deliberate ambiguity may be at playhere, so that on a secondary level, the psalmist may be asserting his faithassumption that, from an ultimate, Divine perspective (to which we are not privy) , allof God’s actions are for the good, even in time-present.
Verses added toAshrei: The three verses which are traditionally added - two which precede thePsalm and one which follows it - may serve to neutralize, in a deliberatelyoblique manner, the purely universalistic focus of this psalm. The three addedverses refer to Israel, without naming it. The added particularistic allusions,therefore, do not explicitly violate the universal concern of the Psalm.