After the morning blessings (Birkot Hashachar), we begin a series of introductory biblical passages, pesukei d’zimra (verses of song). Sometimes they are collections of verses; other times whole paragraphs, and often entire psalms or prayers. All biblical.
Which is strange because the siddur itself is rabbinic. It was arranged by rabbis, and virtually all of the prayers in the main section of the service (with the notable exception of the shema) are composed by rabbis.
Here’s the back story: In early rabbinic times, people would prepare to recite the rabbinic prayers by reciting biblical verses. These served to sharpen their spiritual focus, provide a liturgical and emotional vocabulary, and anchor their meditations in a tradition stretching back (already then) 2000 years.
At a certain point, baruch sheamar was composed and added as an introduction to all those biblical passages, just as yishtabach at the end of pesukei d’zimra was added as a peroration (a big word meaning “the stirring conclusion” in TV language).
And baruch sheamar contains a hidden secret. If you count the words, they add up to 87. This is intentional. 87 is the gematria, the numerical value, for the word paz, meaning “pure gold.” The word paz is found in Song of Songs, which is traditionally seen as a love song between
G-d and Israel. In verse 5:11, it says of the male lover “His opening words are pure gold.”
So put another way, the rabbis were trying to link their entire liturgical enterprise to the classic biblical love duet of G-d and Israel. They were in effect saying: we can’t compose a Bible. That has already been done, and completed at a time when prophets still roamed the earth. We cannot reproduce the grandeur of what they have done, we can merely avail ourselves of it. But we can offer the words of that Bible, together with the prayers we ourselves have written, as our own love song to You.
And we will devote ourselves to making it, and our hearts, “pure gold.”