We are now in Perek Shira. Today's pasuk is the song of Gehenom. It comes from a perek in Tehilim 107,9, where it says,
כִּֽי־הִ֭שְׂבִּיעַ נֶ֣פֶשׁ שֹׁקֵקָ֑ה וְנֶ֥פֶשׁ רְ֝עֵבָ֗ה מִלֵּא־טֽוֹב׃ /You satisfied a thirsty soul, and a hungry soul you filled with goodness.
Simply speaking, this pasuk is in the chapter of Tehilim that talks about the four people that need to say HaGomel.
It starts with words Hodu L’Hashem Ki Tov, Ki L’Olam Hasdo. The first of the four groups of people are those that are in the desert. They're hungry, they're thirsty, they cry out to God, Please save us, and God puts them on the right path and gets them to the Ir Moshav. Hodu L’Hashem Ki Tov, we say, and we praise Him for His kindness, and the wonders he does to people. And here we say, כִּֽי־הִ֭שְׂבִּיעַ נֶ֣פֶשׁ שֹׁקֵקָ֑ה וְנֶ֥פֶשׁ רְ֝עֵבָ֗ה מִלֵּא־טֽוֹב because He took this thirsty, hungry soul and fulfilled it.
That's the simple meaning. Alittle further on it talks about the people of Mitzrayim, because the four events that happened at Gomel happened to our forefathers as they left Mitzrayim. The sefer Bigdei Srad, in his commentary on the Haggadah shel Pesach, offers a deeper explanation. He says this refers to the lost souls that want to come closer to God, who have made mistakes and are crying out to God, ‘Please purify us, put us in the right place.’And these were the souls of the generation that left Mitzrayim, that they had reached the 49th level of Tumah, crying out to God. God took them out, put them on the right path, and got them to the final end goal of dwelling in the right place and getting to Olam Haba. That's why the sefarim say that this is the pasuk of Gehenom. The Chatam Sofer, in his Likutim, says that the pure soul is yearning for water. What water? The spiritual waters from Above. It's yearning for Olam Haba but it has sinned, and now it needs to purify itself in Gehenom. Gehenom sings the song, “I did my job. I took these souls that were yearning for God and I purified them and got them to their final destination.” So, although Gehenom is not something we like, it's an understanding. Gehenom is singing because it's a part of the cleansing process. We yearn to come closer to God and Gehenom is part of that.
The sefer Sifsei Sadik, in Parashat Vaera, says similarly: Why wait until Gehenom? Cry tears in this world. Purify yourself here and understand that the world's challenges here are going to get us purified.
There's a famous story where the Gaon Vilna was teaching his students from a tractate brought down in the sefer Reshit Chochma called the Masechet Gehenom, which describes all of the horrors of Gehenom. One of his students was so moved by it that he became depressed. He couldn't get out of bed. It got back to the Gaon of Vilna that the student was not learning, because he was so down and out from the descriptions of the horrors of Gehenom. So he went and told him, “I left one thing out. I forgot to tell you that suffering in this world is a powerful cleanser that prevent you from all that.”
That's the song of Gehenom- it’s the song of all suffering, to understand that ultimately, the goal of the suffering is really to give water and food to the starving soul, to get us to Olam Haba, to get us to those delicious foods that we're yearning and so thirsty for.
The Mabit, in his commentary to Perek Shira takes a slightly different approach. The pasuk says the word Nefesh twice, and he says there are two souls. There's the Nefesh Shokekah, which he explains as the soul that was yearning and filled its yearnings up from the worldly pleasures. That's the השְבִּיעַ נֶ֣פֶשׁ שֹׁקֵקָ֑ה which refers to the wicked person that fulfilled all his desires in this world in a sinful matter. And there's also the וְנֶ֥פֶשׁ רְ֝עֵבָ֗ה, the Sadik is called the hungry soul because he did not fulfill his desires in this world. He held back, and because he held back in this world, he's going to end up in the next world. So Gehenom is singing the song of self-control.
Those people that did not control themselves in this world have to purify themselves in the next world. And those that do control themselves in this world are eventually the וְנֶ֥פֶשׁ רְ֝עֵבָ֗ה, that hungry soul that did not partake of all the forbidden delicacies in this world, and will be filled with the delicious goodness and delicacies of the next world.
