“Thy statutes have been my songs” (Ps. 119:54). David leaves all the songs and poetry of the world to engage in Torah. He reads the signs¹ with appropriate tastefulness, accentuation and song.² But those who recite the passages in the manner of scorners, mouthing them as ribald songs, in the future Torah will cry over them and say, “Lord of the Universe, your children make use of me as a lute³ and at the time when they read from me with their arrogance, they do not read with the proper cantillation.” Also those who interrupt the versification with talk, Torah complains of them, saying, “You have divided me into eight thousand five hundred sentences,⁴ denoting five thousand instead of a het denoting eight thousand, was intended. None the less, the figure is only approximate. and they have divided me into more than six hundred thousand.⁵ Moreover, they have done to me that which is not even done in everyday talk. A person speaking of secular matters does not jump from one topic to another but they interrupt my words to engage in banal conversation.”

footnotes: ¹ The accents and notations for cantillating the Biblical Text. ² Megillah 32a. ³ Sanhedrin 101a. ⁴ Kiddushin 30a. Five thousand five hundred sentences would be nearer the true total. It is possible that a heh ⁵ As a result of repeated interruptions they have intensified the division.