Today we will study perek 130, pasuk ה, a famous pasuk:
קִוִּיתִי ה׳ קִוְּתָה נַפְשִׁי וְלִדְבָרוֹ הוֹחָלְתִּי
I hope to Hashem, My soul hopes, And to His word, I hope
The concept of קוי/KivoyHope is stressed through Tehilim.
The Midrash says on this pasuk, “Everything comes about through hope,”
And it says, “We get out of suffering through hope, a miracle or Kiddush Hashem comes out through hope, we arouse the merit of our forefathers through hope, and our desire for Olam Haba comes about through hope.”
Hope is something that is necessary to bring about all types of salvation.
This pursuit of Kivoy comes as a precursor to the next pasuk, which says,
נַפְשִׁי לַאדֹנָי מִשֹּׁמְרִים לַבֹּקֶר שֹׁמְרִים לַבֹּקֶר
My soul that is hoping to God, waits even more eagerly than those watchmen that wait for the morning.
The Sefer Ikarim says a beautiful thought on this pasuk. What does it mean that David HaMelech is comparing his hope to the watchmen that are hoping and waiting for morning?
The word for watch- Shomer, also means “to wait, or look forward to something.” Like when Rashi explains the pasuk,
ואביו שמר את הדבר
Yaakov was looking forward to Yosef’s dreams coming true
A Shomer/ watchman is called Shomer because he’s waiting for his watch to be over.
Night watchman is a very boring, difficult job. He’s just waiting for it to be over. Anyone who has ever stayed up on Shavuot or Hoshana Raba night knows that you are looking for the night to be over.
The pasuk say,
נַפְשִׁי לַאדֹנָי מִשֹּׁמְרִים לַבֹּקֶר שֹׁמְרִים לַבֹּקֶר
My soul is to God, like those that are waiting for the night to be over.
Because there is a benefit to the night watchman, which is that the morning will definitely come. There is no question about it. Shavuot night will be over. There is no doubt about it.
David HaMelech says, “My soul is looking forward and hoping for Your salvation more than that night watchman. I have more conviction than him. And I know for sure that it is going to happen more than he does. Because I know that there is going to be a redemption. And this refers to both the general redemption of the Jewish people at large, with Mashiach coming, and also to an individual’s redemption. I know it is going to happen, even more than they do.”
In the words of the Sefer Ikarim, he knows, “With a great reliance, more than they’re hoping for the morning to come.”
This means that Mashiach is certainly going to come. The Yeshua/salvation will come. We are going to get out of this Galut.
But there is one additional difference, which is that we are hoping that our salvation will happen in the middle of the night…
It says that Mashiach will come, “in its time,” but it also says that Hashem says, “I will make it happen fast.” So which is it?
The Gemara says that if there is merit, Hashem will make it happen fast, and if there is no merit, it will happen at its time.
So that means, “I know that it is going to happen, and I am even hoping that it happens before that final time.”
If we merit, it can happen even earlier. A person must always be hoping.
Someone recently asked me about a person who is deathly ill, whether they can really hope and rely with guarantee that the person will get better. I told them that I once heard from Rabbi Nosson Wachtfogel, a’h the saintly Mashgiach of Lakewood, that he used to strengthen people that were deathly ill by talking to them about Mashiach, because Mashiach can come now, or at any moment, and that will take anybody out of even the biggest problems that exist.
So there is always hope, even in a situation that is most dire, when it seems like we can give up hope. There will always be hope, and we can never totally despair, because we know that the redemption will come.
Have a wonderful day.