The Inuit have many words for snow. The Bedouin have a multiplicity of terms for sand. When something is essential to the life of a group, it develops a richer and more nuanced vocabulary to speak about it than do others. The same is true of Hebrew, and it is fascinating is that what it has a seemingly endless list of words for is – praising God.

            Think of the cataract of verbs in the penultimate paragraph of the Verses of Praise for Shabbat and festivals. We are called on to 'thank, praise, laud, glorify, exalt, honour, bless, raise high and acclaim', nine verbs of praise. The next paragraph, Yishtabach, uses no less than fifteen types of praise: 'to offer song and praise, hymn and psalm, strength and dominion, eternity, greatness and power, song of praise and glory, holiness and kingship, blessings and thanks'.

            Each has its own distinctive nuance. B-r-kh, 'to bless', for example, conveys a sense of downward movement. A berekhah is a pool into which water flows down. Berekh is a knee, and when we kneel, we lower ourselves. So when we 'bless' G-d we testify to the downward flow of His blessings from heaven to earth.

            The word hallel, which occurs often in the book of Psalms, means to radiate or reflect light. When we praise G-d with the verb le-hallel we are, as it were, trying to reflect back some of the light with which He illuminates our lives, literally and metaphorically.

            The verb le-hodot means to acknowledge or admit. Hence it can also mean 'to thank' and 'to confess', two very different acts springing from different emotions, but having in common the intellectual acknowledgement of our dependence on G-d. We thank Him for His gifts. We acknowledge Him as our judge before whom we admit our shortcomings.

Does G-d need our praise? Obviously not. Nothing is added to G-d by our thanksgiving; nothing is subtracted from Him by our indifference. Yet it makes a momentous difference to the world.

Isaiah said about the Jewish people, in the name of G-d, 'I formed this people for myself that they may proclaim My praise' (Is. 43: 21). The task of the Jewish people is to praise: to testify in itself to something beyond itself. What we have, G-d gave us. What we achieve, G-d helped us achieve. To praise is to do more than thank. It is to acknowledge G-d's presence in all we do, His gift in all we enjoy, His love in all that exists. Joseph became the archetypal Jew when Pharaoh asked him to interpret his dreams and Joseph replied: 'It is not I who will do so, but G-d.' (Gen 41: 16).

That is the Jewish task: to proclaim G-d's praise. No wonder then that among the words Judaism contributed to the English language is Halleluyah, meaning 'Praise G-d.'