We are now in the first pasuk of Perek Shira,
Shamayim Omrim/What do the Heavens say? They say a pasuk in Tehilim, 19,2:
הַשָּׁמַיִם מְסַפְּרִים כְּבוֹד אֵל וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדָיו מַגִּיד הָרָקִיעַ: (תהילים יט ב)/The Heavens tell of the glory of God and the rest of God's handiwork is said over by the Rakia
Rashi says that David Hamelech explains in a following pasuk,
אֵֽין־אֹ֭מֶר וְאֵ֣ין דְּבָרִ֑ים /There are no words, meaning that when we say Hashamayim Misaprim/The Heavens tell-it’s speaking without words. This means that when we, the creation, see what's going on in the Heavens, we will speak about it. הַשָּׁמַיִם מְסַפְּרִים כְּבוֹד/The wonders of the heavens will cause us, down here, to speak about the heavens. Rashi says every day we make the Beracha of Yotzer Hameorot/ God Who creates the luminaries.
Rav Wolbe says that Rav Yerucham Levovitz once asked his students, If the sun is so great, why don't we make a Baracha on the sun? Good question! And he explained that we do! Yotzer Hameorot- every morning, we make a blessing on the sun. That is the Shamayim Misaprim Kavod El/ The heavens tell of the glory of God
And וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדָיו מַגִּיד הָרָקִיעַ /the stars and the mazalot which are the handiwork of God are also going to speak and praise God.
So, according to this simple approach, we, down here are praising God, and the song of the heavens is our song due to the heavens.
But others explain based on a pasuk in Yehoshua 10,12, where it says,
אָ֣ז יְדַבֵּ֤ר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה /Yehoshua spoke on that day when he won the war…
שֶׁ֚מֶשׁ בְּגִבְע֣וֹן דּ֔וֹם לה׳/Let the sun in Givon ( be)Dom to Hashem” Rashi says dom,’ means simply to wait for Hashem.So basically, the sun stopped, but the word dom also means to be quiet like Vayidom Aharon- so it can also mean that Yehoshua told the sun to stop singing. And once the sun stopped singing, that caused it to stop moving. The Chida says on our pasuk that the sun and all the celestial beings can only move through the song that they sing, and the proof is from Yehoshua. This is actually a Midrash Tanhuma, quoted by the Reshit Chochma, which says, מִמִּזְרַח־שֶׁ֥מֶשׁ עַד־מְבוֹא֑וֹ מְ֝הֻלָּ֗ל שֵׁ֣ם יְהֹוָֽה׃/from the East, where the sun rises as it goes. God's name is praised.
The Midrash explains that from the time the sun rises, until the sun sets, the sun is singing songs. That is what it means that Yehoshua told the sun to be silent, because what charges the sun is its Shira.
That's a mussar for us. The human being also is like the sun. The Midrash says, when it talks about man being an Olam Katan/A miniature world, that our two eyes are referred to as the sun, the light of our eyes. That means a person’s ability to shine comes from the songs that he sings, like the sun.
There are two important lessons from this pasuk, based on the two ways to read it. One is that we, down here, must appreciate the songs of the sky. We have to look up into the heavens. It says in the pasuk, “שְׂאוּ־מָר֨וֹם עֵינֵיכֶ֤ם/lift up to the heavens, your eyes…. and see Who created this.” The first letter of each word spells out Shema שמע And it says, when you say Shema you're supposed to first look into creation.
Most people don't realize this, but every single morning, in our praise of Shaharit, we first talk about the sun and moon and the celestial beings, and then we say, Shema Yisrael. We have to make God King over all the heavens. But in order to do that, we first have to appreciate that there are heavens, that there is a sun, there is a moon, there are stars, and they are singing the songs of God, the precision of all those celestial beings. That's the הַשָּׁמַיִם מְסַפְּרִים כְּבוֹד אֵל וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדָיו מַגִּיד הָרָקִיעַ:
This is the first of our daily dose of Perek Shira, and we have just fulfilled the concept of, Whoever involves themself in Perek Shira/ every day is zoche…to all kinds of wonderful things.
