9/14/2026 - Yehuda Zelmanovitz / The Song that never ends

There's an incredible Gemara in Sanhedrin tatzadik beis mabeis, where Nebuchadnezzar takes Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah and throws them into the fiery furnace because they refuse to bow down to his idol.

At the same time, Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells Yechezkel Hanavi to go to the valley of Dura and to perform techias hameisim and bring the dead back to life.

The Gemara says that bones come flying over and smack Nebuchadnezzar in the face.

Nebuchadnezzar asks in amazement, "What was that?" And they tell him, "The friend of those three men you threw into the furnace is now in the valley of Dura bringing the dead back to life." Think about what Nebuchadnezzar is experiencing.

He has just seen Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah survive the fiery furnace, and now he hears that Yechezkel is performing techias hameisim.

He's completely overwhelmed and begins singing incredible praises to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

And then the Gemara says something unbelievable.

Reb Yitzchak says that they should have poured molten gold into the mouth of that rasha, because had a malach not come and struck Nebuchadnezzar on the mouth, his praises would have put to shame all of the songs and praises of David HaMelech in Tehillim.

Nebuchadnezzar and compared to David HaMelech? And there's another obvious question.

Why stop him? If Nebuchadnezzar is recognizing Hashem and singing perhaps the greatest shira ever sung, let him sing.

So the Katzka Rebbe gives an incredible answer.

The malach didn't stop Nebuchadnezzar from singing.

He just gave him a slap.

Nebuchadnezzar stopped singing on his own.

That was the test.

Nebuchadnezzar could sing when everything was going his way.

He had wealth, power, an empire.

He had just witnessed incredible miracles.

Of course he could sing.

But give him one slap and the song is over.

David HaMelech was different.

David was chased by Shaul, forced to run for his life, experienced betrayal, war, terrible tragedy within his own family.

And through everything, David kept singing.

So Nebuchadnezzar might have been able to compete with the words of Tehillim, but he can never compete with Tehillim itself.

Because the greatness of Tehillim isn't only what David HaMelech sang, it's when he sang it.