Tehillim 119:5 achalai yikonu derachai lishmor chukeicha
My hopes: that my ways be directed to observe Your statutes!
"[These are] my [fervent] prayers (hopes)," I desire nothing else but this. (Ibn Ezra)
Because the reasons for the statutes are not known, ha-satan and the other peoples condemn us. But I say: "My hopes" and pleas are "that my ways be directed to observe Your statues" as well.
The mitzvah must be made possessions of the soul. Therefore, I plead and petition that "my ways be directed to observe Your statutes." Let none of my mundane affairs beset me. I implore You to protect me from the diversions of the world, so that my heart and being are free "to observe Your statutes."
Let "my ways be directed to observe Your statutes." Let them not be directed towards bodily needs or towards any other diversion.
R’ Shmuel Shmelke Güntzler z”l (1838-1911; rabbi of Oyber-Visheve, Hungary for 45 years) writes: We read in Tehilim (119:5-6), “My prayer is: ‘May my ways be firmly guided to keep Your decrees; then I will not be ashamed when I gaze at all your commandments’.” In these verses, King David is noting the tension between our obligation to try to understand G-d’s Will, on the one hand, and our duty to serve Him as subjects, i.e., not because we understand or approve of His mitzvot but simply because they are His commandments. How can a person evaluate whether he is serving Hashem for the right reason (as a subject) or the wrong reason (because the person has evaluated the mitzvot and decided they make sense to him, in which case he is serving himself, not G-d)?
The answer is that one should look at how he performs those mitzvot that do not seem to be logical. If a person performs the decrees with the same enthusiasm with which he performs the “logical” mitzvot, then he knows that he is behaving as a subject. This is what King David meant: If I am firm in my commitment to Your decrees, then I will not be ashamed when I perform the “logical” commandments. Rather, I will know that those mitzvot, as well, I am performing as a subject and not because they make sense to me. (Meishiv Nefesh)
Tehillim 119:4
Tehillim 119:3
Tehillim 119:2
Tehillim 119:1
MeAm Lo'ez
Chazal
