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Posted on July 10, 2014 By Rabbi David Sykes | Series: | Level:

There is a bone in a person that is called “Luz.” This bone is preserved and does not decay even after a person dies. The Rabbis have told us that the Resurrection of the Dead will begin from this bone; from it “will awaken and sing the dwellers in the earth” at the End of Days. This bone is not nourished by any of the meals of this world – not even from the holy meals of the Sabbath Queen – but only from the meal that “escorts the Sabbath Queen” as she leaves the Jewish People, the Melave Malka meal, the meal of David, King of Israel. (David had asked God to reveal to him when he would leave this world. God informed King David that he would die on the Sabbath, but He did not specify when this would occur. Hence, every week, after the Sabbath, David conducted a special meal to thank God for his survival. Thus, there is a special connection between King David, author of Tehillim, and the Luz bone.) It follows that the Luz bone was not nourished when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge either, and it was not a partner to that terrible sin, which brought death to the world. Therefore, the “teeth of time” are not able to defeat this bone, and maggots and worms cannot harm it. From this comes its great strength to bring forth salvation, to revitalize the masses of Jews who looked to and hoped for the Messiah, who believed that the longed-for day of the complete Redemption would surely come.

This bone is the pure seed of faith that beats in the heart of the nation of Israel, and like it is the little Book of Tehillim that is soaked with the tears of all the generations, tears of those who believe and hope. Faith is the “hard bone”, the strength of the Jewish soul, and from the Book of Tehillim is drawn the pure faith, simple but strong, that the “Eternal One of Israel does not lie.”

The study and commandments of the Torah have been the centers of strength, the breath of life of the nation of Israel in its exile, in the few years of relative ease. But Tehillim was and is the “little bit of brandy” that mainly vitalized the soul between these periods of ease, in the darkness of life.