"I will exalt you, my Sovereign, and I will bless Your name forever." (Ashrei Prayer)
After proclaiming our joy and blissful state from being in God's House(this world), we declare another way to stay in the awareness of where we live. We exalt God through our works. We exalt God through our prayers and words. We exalt God through the ways we embrace all of God's Creations. It is so hard to be in this state 24/7. We are, after all, fallible humans. The verbs used in this Psalm are in the future tense. As I have said many times, future tense in Biblical Hebrew denotes something that we have started and haven't yet completed. Whew, I realize that my life with God and others is a work in progress
Exalting and Blessing are ways of being in the world that honors our soul, the soul of another, and the Will of The Infinite One. King David, who the Psalms are attributed to, was an imperfect person who continually made progress in his own humanity and how he treated others- one grain of sand at a time. This Psalm reflects his and our yearning and commitment to God and to honoring, exalting and Blessing God, Creation, humanity and ourselves. To do this, we have to "surrender" our false self to God. We have to allow ourselves to be confronted and defeated by a Higher and Truer Being (Higher Truth), to paraphrase Rav Soleivetchik. This, I believe is the path to Blessing God's Name forever, our continued growth and continued "surrender".
1) What are the actions I take that exalt God?
2) How am I acknowledging my yearning and commitment to God and God's Will?
3) When am I aware of my surrender to God and when I am still fighting God?