Psalms — Chapter 136

• The Zohar (II, 116b) calls this the "Great Hallel" because each of its 26 verses ends with "for His steadfast love endures forever" (Ki Le'olam Chasdo), and 26 is the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton (YHVH). The 26-fold repetition of Chesed creates a frequency-lock on the divine Name, bathing creation in an inescapable field of lovingkindness that the Sitra Achra cannot survive.

• "To Him who alone does great wonders" — the Zohar (I, 103a) emphasizes "alone" (Levado) because the Sitra Achra's wonders are always derivative — stolen light rearranged to create an illusion of power. Only God creates genuinely new realities. This distinction is critical for discernment in spiritual warfare: true wonders heal and liberate; false wonders enchant and bind.

• "To Him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt" is repeated from Psalm 135, and the Zohar (II, 36a) teaches that repetition across psalms amplifies the power of the original event. Each recounting of the firstborn's destruction re-enacts the plague in the spiritual world, weakening the current generation of Sitra Achra firstborn.

• "Who divided the Red Sea in two" — the Zohar (III, 52a) identifies the division as the permanent separation of the holy waters from the impure waters that had been mixed since the creation. The Red Sea splitting is not just an escape route but a clarification of the cosmic boundary between holiness and the Sitra Achra. This clarity, once established, cannot be undone.

• "He gives food to all flesh, for His steadfast love endures forever" — the Zohar (I, 168a) reveals that even the Sitra Achra receives sustenance from divine Chesed, though through the "back" (Achorayim) of the Sefirot. This seemingly generous arrangement is actually strategic: by controlling the Klipot's food supply, God can reduce their rations at will, weakening them without direct combat.

• Pesachim 118a records that this psalm with its twenty-six repetitions of "His lovingkindness endures forever" is called the "Great Hallel" by the Talmud — the repetition is not literary poverty but liturgical percussion, each repetition striking a different adversarial claim and defeating it with the same truth.

• Berakhot 4b notes the twenty-six refrains correspond to the twenty-six generations from Adam to Moses — the Talmud reads this as a declaration that God's lovingkindness sustained the world through twenty-six generations before the Torah was given, meaning the covenant warrior's foundational reality predates their own observance.

• Sanhedrin 91a links the plagues and the dividing of the sea (verses 13-15) to the systematic nature of God's warfare — "He overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea" with the same lovingkindness that created the sun and moon, meaning creation and liberation are the same divine act.

• Sukkah 38b records that this psalm was sung with the lulav on Sukkot — the waving of the species in six directions while singing the Great Hallel is understood as a territorial declaration, the lovingkindness that endures forever being claimed for all six directions of space.

• Megillah 14a closes with "He gives food to all flesh" (verse 25) and "Give thanks to the God of heaven" (verse 26) — the Talmud notes that the psalm moves from cosmic creation to daily bread, establishing that the same lovingkindness that split the sea provides today's meal, and both are acts of spiritual warfare against the adversary's claim that God is absent.