In response to the rockets, the rumors, the unimaginable atrocities committed, our worst nightmares came to life, we turned to what Jews throughout the ages have turned to for protection and solace: sefer Tehillim. Dovid Hamelech's words resonate, describing the full gamut of our emotions and experiences. Here, readers share the pasuk that is providing them with comfort and chizuk
Translations reprinted with permission from ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications
תָּעִ֗יתִי כְּשֶׂ֣ה אֹ֭בֵד בַּקֵּ֣שׁ עַבְדֶּ֑ךָ כִּ֥י מִ֝צְוֺתֶ֗יךָ לֹ֣א שָׁכָֽחְתִּי׃ (תהילים קי״ט:קע"ו)
I have strayed like a lost sheep, seek out Your servant for Your commandments I have not forgotten (Tehillim 119: 176)
Seek Us Out
Lani Harrison
MY
favorite kapitel is one that makes me very popular in Tehillim groups and on signup lists: 119.
I became frum in my late teens, and I remember the first time I said that kapitel. It was Erev Rosh Hashanah 25 years ago, and I was on the Boston “T” subway, on my way to visit a dear friend in the hospital. I made my way through the letters of her name, taking notice of the eidosechas and eidvosechas as the tears rolled down my cheeks. Sadly, I was not able to visit her that day; the nurses kept asking me to wait longer and longer so they could do some procedures, and I had to leave in order to be back home in time for Yom Tov. To my great sadness, I never saw my friend again. She was nifteres on the fourth of Tishrei that year, right before I was planning to attempt another visit. But my relationship with 119 remained.
Not only does perek 119 contain all of our names, but in reciting it from beginning to end, one gets a sense of how absolutely central Torah was to all facets of Dovid Hamelech’s life, as it should be to all parts of our lives. I remember fashioning a little poster for my desk at work during those early years of saying it. It was a photo I’d cut out, probably from an advertisement somewhere, of beautiful jewels on a light-blue background. I wrote the pasuk, “Tov li soras picha me’alfei zahav vachasef — I prefer the Torah of Your mouth more than thousands in gold and silver” underneath. Jewelry ads are fine, but we have to know what’s paramount.
My favorite pasuk within this perek is actually the last one. No, not because it means I’ve accomplished saying it — I practically have the whole thing memorized by now. It’s that after reading through this entire odyssey of Dovid Hamelech’s life, framed by his love for Torah, we read, “Ta’isi k’seh oveid, bakeish avdecha — I have strayed like a lost sheep, seek out Your servant.” After all this, after 175 pesukim, is it still possible to stray and beg Hashem to seek us out? Yes. But: “Ki mitzvosecha lo shachachti — For I have not forgotten Your mitzvos.”
It’s not an ending of despair. It’s an ending of hope. We must keep trying. We must keep doing mitzvos. We must keep Torah at the forefront. And Hashem will seek us out. Just like that lost sheep, He’ll find us and bring us in wherever we are.
L’zecher nishmas Sara Miriam bas Reuvain Leibel, for whom I first started saying 119
וְלִבִּי חָלַל בְּקִרְבִּי. (תהילים ק"ט כ"ב)
My heart has died within me (Tehillim 109:22)
Where My Heart Should Be
Anonymous
There’s an empty place where my heart should be — it must have fallen into my stomach. Something keeps fluttering around down there.
In the space where my heart used to be, there’s an empty black pit, with no potential for joy, just worry about the fate of the beautiful young woman who was taken hostage, and the old grandmother, and that gorgeous little red-haired three-year-old, and the families of all those wonderful young men who went to save Hashem’s people and Hashem’s land.
הִנֵּ֣ה לֹֽא־יָ֭נוּם וְלֹ֣א יִישָׁ֑ן שׁ֝וֹמֵ֗ר יִשְׂרָאֵֽל (תהילים קכ״א:ד)
He neither slumbers nor sleeps, the Guardian of Israel (Tehillim 121:4)
Nighttime Whispers
Rebbetzin Aviva Feiner
Having gone through so many years of infertility, and many unsuccessful medical interventions, the words of Tehillim 127 have always struck a chord in my heart: “Im Hashem lo yivneh bayis, shav amlu bonav bo — if Hashem does not build a house, its builders will labor in vain.”
In our collective horror this week, the words that follow reflected a tragic reality. “Im Hashem lo yishmor ir, shav shakad shomer — if Hashem doesn’t watch a city, its watchman will watch in vain.”
And yet… elsewhere in Tehillim, we are told, “Hinei lo yanum v’lo yishan shomer Yisrael — The Guardian of Israel does not slumber nor sleep.”
These words (Tehillim 121) are so often cried out in pain mixed with confidence. Hashem is not corporeal; He does not tire. Clearly, He makes no human mistakes, and His judgment does not err. His guard doesn’t falter — and yet He can choose to look away.
My tears have been pouring and my heart aches. My brothers, my sisters — why did Hashem look away? I know with confidence that all those who ascended On High already know the answer to that question. I am a proud Jew standing in a place in history where, again, we must live and forge forward without the answer to that question. But He alone watches all our comings and goings. He alone decides who comes and who goes — now and forever.
And we will continue to go to sleep at night and whisper to our children: Hinei lo yanum v’lo yishan shomer Yisrael.
נָ֘תַ֚תָּה לִּֽירֵאֶ֣יךָ נֵּ֣ס לְהִתְנוֹסֵ֑ס מִפְּנֵ֖י קֹ֣שֶׁט סֶֽלָה(תהילים ס:ו)
You gave to those who fear you a banner to be raised high for truth’s sake. Selah! (Tehillim 60:6)
Miracles in Pain
Rabbi Menachem Nissel
IT
took just three seconds for me to become a Tehillim-zogger.
On the 28th of Tammuz, just over two years ago, I slipped in the Rebbe Reb Elimelech’s mikveh in Lizhensk and found myself in a gloomy Soviet-era hospital. I had cracked my right upper arm horizontally and in three places vertically, like a sliced salami. Funnily enough, that bone is called a humerus.
The doctors recommended that I get immediate surgery — they would drill a screw through my broken bones. I pictured a carpenter who moonlights as a doctor hammering through my bones.
I managed to call my friend Dr. Michael Wilshansky of Hadassah Hospital, who screamed at me, “I don’t care how much pain you’re in, take the first flight home.” We drove all night to Warsaw. At one point I saw the driver falling asleep at the wheel. In panic I told him to pull to the side and schloof. He veered into a forest and immediately fell asleep. At that moment, to the sounds of snoring and imaginary Polish bears, I started to think. Really think.
Never in my life had I felt so vulnerable and in so much pain. How would I function with one hand? I couldn’t even put my shirt on. Would I ever drive again? Hold a child? Would my life ever be normal again?
Through tears I started to say Tehillim. In all my life as a tefillah teacher I never felt Ein od milvado as I did in those dark moments. Through pain I had touched reality.
It turned out we were just five minutes from the airport. Hashem wanted me to have those precious moments of clarity. What followed was a series of miraculous events that brought me to recovery. Rav Chaim Kanievsky advised me to start saying ten perakim of Tehillim daily. I bought myself a Masok Midvash Tehillim and embraced my new connection to Dovid Hamelech’s gift.
I never wanted to forget the way I felt in that Polish forest. One of the first phrases that I underlined was, “Nesata l’yerayacha neis l’hisnoses, mipnei koshet” (Tehillim 60:6). The Chasam Sofer (Derashos, Rosh Chodesh Tammuz 5569) gives a powerful translation, based on his own experience:
The Chasam Sofer, for whom every moment was precious, felt it necessary to write a Sefer Zikaron on Napoleon’s siege of Pressburg in 1806. For 42 days, French firepower rained rockets and missiles that devastated the city and decimated its population. Something extraordinary happened. The Jewish population simultaneously witnessed the horrors of war yet witnessed seemingly endless miracles that left them virtually unscathed.
The Chasam Sofer marveled that Hashem would punish His people by having them witness the horrors of war, while teaching them that He has total dominion, that every missile has an address. He then translated the pasuk the following way:
Nesata l’yerayacha neis — You showed miracles to those who fear You,
L’hisnoses — as a banner that elevates You, to show Your total control,
Mipnei koshet — for the purpose of bringing us to teshuvah, to mend our ways.
Unfortunately, we don’t always get the message. Then Hashem sends a neis l’ra’ah, an evil miracle (Ritva, Yoma54b). We suffer in such a horrific, miraculous fashion that it’s obvious that it can only come from the Hand of Hashem.
I learned in three seconds in a mikveh in Lizhensk what the Jewish people learned on Simchas Torah. How can it be that an army that destroyed three nations in six days in 1967, could not defend its people against an enemy using tractors and paragliders? It was a neis l’ra’ah, something so miraculous that it screams out the message: When Hashem says yes, we are infinitely powerful; when Hashem says no, we are infinitely weak. It was a devastating display of Ein od milvado.
Perhaps that is what was meant when we said on Hoshana Rabbah, Hoshana na, shalosh sha’os, hoshana na!
The Ritva’s example of a neis l’ra’ah was the humiliating miracle of Titus seeing the Keruvim intertwined as husband and wife in the Kodesh Hakodoshim at the time of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash (ibid.). Reb Tzaddok HaKohein of Lublin (Pri Tzaddok, Devarim:13) notes the secret message of hope in that miracle. The husband and wife depicted by the Keruvim are Hashem and Knesses Yisrael. In the middle of all the destruction and carnage, Hashem was giving us a hug, showing His unwavering love and closeness to His beloved people. He wanted us to see Him. He wanted us to do our part, with our Tehillim, Torah study, and displays of chesed and achdus. Meanwhile, says Reb Tzaddok, Hashem was doing His part.
He was planting the seeds of Mashiach.
לָמָּה פָּרַ֣צְתָּ גְדֵרֶ֑יהָ (תהילים פ׳:י”ג)
Why have you breached its fences? (Tehillim 80:13)
From Chaos to Chorus
Aviva Orlian
WEare still reeling from the shock and chaos of this past week’s horrific events. However, as I read the words of Asaf in Tehillim 80, the dystopian images of our collective nightmare begin to take form.
The words within this perek reflect the gaping void that we feel. We beg Hashem, three times (pesukim 4, 8, 20), with a familiar refrain: to restore our relationship with Him by shining His light upon us. Asaf’s words reflect our raw emotions. We cry, we mourn the destruction, and we ask the question (pasuk 5) that is so difficult to even utter: Ad masai ashanta b’tefillas amecha? — Hashem, until when will You be angry and reject the prayer of Your people?
The word ashanta — from the root ashan, smoke — is significant. Smoke blinds and masks. Has our tefillah not accomplished the goal of bringing us close to Hashem? A frightening question, but it may plague many who are experiencing a tzarah. We were so recently steeped in prayer during Elul and Tishrei. Did You not want, or attend to, our prayers? We ask, not to challenge G-d, but for the purpose of growth. Sefer Tehillim gives us permission to ask. For without the questions, our avodah may remain shallow and rudimentary.
Asaf continues to echo our stream of consciousness (6-7): Hashem, You fed us bread of tears; we are the object of scorn, laughter, and cheers of our enemies. The cries and shrieks of terror from men, women, and children; the maniacal screams of celebration from Hamas as they dragged their civilian captives is something that will be etched in our consciousness indefinitely.
Am Yisrael is compared to a vineyard that Hashem uprooted from Egypt and lovingly replanted, nourished, and then protected with a fence in Eretz Yisrael (9-12). We bear our broken hearts to Hashem: “Lamah paratzta gederehah — Why have You broken down the fence and the passersby pluck at Your vineyard?” (13). Images of bulldozers flattening large areas of protective fences, with no detection from arguably the most sophisticated army in the world, is an open display of Yad Hashem, for it is not within the realm of teva. Lamah Paratzta? Why, oh why, Hashem, have You broken down that fence with Your tools, the vicious terrorists?
“The swine and animals come out of the woods and feed upon that vine” (14). Comparing Hamas to animals is too kind, for animals feed upon their prey for the purpose of nourishment. Hamas are not just subhumans, they are subanimals, mutants, ugly caricatures. We cry: “Lamah! — or L’mah — for what purpose?” We don’t point fingers outward, rather we peer deep within ourselves. How did I, my service of Hashem, my interaction with others, my attitudes — play a part in this modern-day pogrom?
We implore Hashem not to remain in the state of hester panim. “Shuv na, habeit mi’Shamayim ure’eh u’pekod gefen zos — Please show us ha’aras panim; look and display Your Hashgachah pratis on Your vineyard, Hashem” (15), as you have done for us throughout history. “Techayeinu — give us life.” Keep us alive, keep our Jewish soldiers and citizens and mothers and fathers alive, “U’beshimcha nikra — so that we can proclaim Your name” (19).
This intensely painful and emotional perek counterintuitively begins with “Lamintzeich Mizmor.” We maintain a dialogue and relationship with Hashem, amid the challenges and cries, and this gives us reason to sing. As Dovid Hamelech tells us earlier in Tehillim: “Ba’erev yalin bechi, v’laboker rinah” (30:6). May the nights filled with tears, chaos, and questions transform to a morning of chorus, song, and clarity.
וְאַתָּ֣ה ה’ מָגֵ֣ן בַּעֲדִ֑י כְּ֝בוֹדִ֗י וּמֵרִ֥ים רֹאשִֽׁי׃ (תהילים ג׳:ד)
But You, Hashem, are a shield for me, for my soul, and the One Who raises my head (Tehillim 3:4)
Raise Our Heads
Anonymous
Hashem, how great are my troubles; people say that there is no hope.
You are my shield, my Kavod.
We are fighting a two-pronged war: the vicious enemy itself, and the public opinion of the world. Those in the halls of academia, heads of governments who have morally equated a peace-loving, tolerant, virtuous democracy to a rogue, horrific terrorist organization.
Dovid Hamelech asked Hashem: Please protect us from our enemy, magen ba’adi, and give Your nation Kavod, and raise their heads. Let the nations see our virtue, our mercy, our being a nation of Rachmanim, Bayshanim, and Gomlei Chasadim.
Let them see that we love peace, we only defend, and we are Rachmanim to a fault.
Please, Hashem protect us and תן כבוד לעמך.
מִשְּׁמוּעָ֣ה רָ֖עָה לֹ֣א יִירָ֑א נָ֘כ֥וֹן לִ֜בּ֗וֹ בָּטֻ֥חַ בַּֽה’ (תהילים קי”ב:ז)
Of evil tidings he will have no fear, his heart is firm, confident in Hashem (Tehillim 112:7)
Steadfast Heart
Toby Friedman
Anticipation is greater than realization is a truism used in the context of joyful events — but it is equally applicable to good events. Our imaginations take flight when we look forward to a much-anticipated simchah, and many times that joy doesn’t match up to our expectations. It is also true that our imaginations take flight in times of uncertainty. Whether we are students waiting for test results from a final or are adults waiting for test results from a biopsy, that waiting period can be excruciating. And as life and time are partners, we live our days and look to our tomorrows. As much as we want to have control, we know in our hearts that we are impotent. Our future is unpredictable. That is why one of my favorite phrases in Tehillim is “Mashmuah ra’ah lo yira — he will not fear bad news.”
Practicing this mindset on smaller issues prepares us for the bigger tests in life. No time for rehearsals now. Whether we live in Eretz Yisrael or have loved ones living there, it is challenging to keep our spirits up. For those who indulge in catastrophic thinking, these times are unbearably challenging. But mashmuah ra’ah lo yira. He will not fear bad news. Not because it is the smart thing to do but because Nachon libo batuach b’Hashem. His heart is steadfast, trusting in Hashem.
We have been reminded that “ein al mi l’hisha’en — there’s no one or anything to rely on.” Not on politicians nor ambassadors, not on intelligence nor brave armies, not on sophisticated weapons, and certainly not on any nations of the world. Nachon libo batuach b’Hashem. His heart is steadfast, trusting in Hashem.
We are ma’aminim bnei ma’aminim, and our eyes look only to Him. And only He will bring our salvation.
קַוֵּה אֶל-ה’ חֲזַק וְיַאֲמֵץ לִבֶּךָ וְקַוֵּה אֶל-ה’ (תהילים כ”ז:י”ד)
Place your hope in Hashem, strengthen yourself and He will instill in your heart and place your hope in Hashem (Tehillim, 27:14)
Fear Not
Yitzchak Pinkus
Here in Yerushalayim, we knew on Shabbos morning — from the air raid sirens and explosions that we could feel, even in our secure room — that something serious was happening. We wouldn’t know how serious until Motzaei Shabbos. Instead of attending the hakafos shnios typically held on Motzaei Simchas Torah, our family gathered in our dining room. We tried to calm the children and explain what was going on — as if we as adults understood what was happening. And we said Tehillim together as a family, the words of Dovid Hamelech calming and strengthening, prophetically appropriate.
We began with perek 20, recalling how the enemy puts their faith in chariots and horses (rockets and guns?), while we put our faith only in Hashem. We continued from there in order. My G-d, my G-d, why have You forsaken me? (22:2)… For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me, like a lion, my hands and feet (22:17)… Even when I walk in the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil for You are with me (23:4)… Who is this King of Glory? Hashem, Who is strong and mighty, Hashem Who is a mighty warrior (24:8)…
Then in the next perek, the pasuk jumped out at me with new meaning. See my enemies for they have increased, and they hate me with unjust hatred (25:19). The word translated here as “unjust” is סמח, Chamas, and the pasuk could be translated as “They hate me with a Hamas hatred.”
But not to fear. For all those crowded in their homes or bomb shelters crying out with the words of Dovid Hamelech, the mothers putting their children to sleep with these words comforting their hearts as they try to comfort their children, and the great men of our nation engaged in protecting the Jewish People, with arms and with Gemaras, saying a few more perakim of Tehillim will bring some comfort. Kaveh el Hashem, chazak v’ya’ametz libecha v’kaveh el Hashem. Hope for Hashem, be strong and He will give your heart courage, and hope for Hashem (27:14).
לְדָוִ֨ד ה’ אוֹרִ֣י וְ֭יִשְׁעִי מִמִּ֣י אִירָ֑א (תהילים כ״ז:א)
By Dovid, Hashem is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear (Tehillim 27:1)
Hashem Is My Light
Shira Fogel
A
fter many years of snatching brief opportunities for tefillah in between my family responsibilities, it’s been difficult for me to get back into the habit of regularly, fully davening, now that my children are getting older. This year, when Elul began, I resolved not to close my siddur at the end of Aleinu, but to turn a few more pages and recite the words of L’Dovid Hashem Ori.
Some days, I paid closer attention to the words I was murmuring, and different words would jump out at me, depending on what was on my mind. As I finished davening on Hoshana Rabbah, I was wistful to see this perek go until next year. Then I read the fine print in the siddur more closely and realized that we say this beautiful perek through Shmini Atzeres. Two more days!
But on Shemini Atzeres, everything changed. My children came home from shul with the news that something terrible had happened in Eretz Yisrael. Now, when I said L’Dovid Hashem Ori, the words jolted me with powerful intensity: Hashem ma’oz chayai, mimi efchad? Hashem is my life’s strength; whom shall I dread? B’krov alai mere’im le’echol es b’sari… heimah kashlu v’nafalu. When evildoers approach me to devour my flesh… it is they who stumble and fall. Im takum alai milchamah, b’zos ani boteiach. Though war would arise against me, in this I trust. Ki yitzpeneni b’suko b’yom ra’ah yastireini b’seser ahalo. He will hide me in His shelter on the day of evil, He will conceal me in the concealment of His Tent.
Suddenly, every word was so relevant to current events. Al taster panecha mimeni! Conceal not Your Presence from me! Al titneini b’nefesh tzarai! Deliver me not to the wishes of my tormentors! And finally ending with the comforting words, Kaveh el Hashem, chazak v’yaametz libecha, v’kaveh el Hashem. Hope to Hashem, strengthen yourself and He will give you courage, and hope to Hashem.
Simchas Torah 5784 — a day of mixed emotions — our last chance to say these words before next Elul. I was afraid of the setting sun, of the full impact of the news we’d hear when Yom Tov departed — news that was worse than anything we could have imagined.
But then, the next evening, my family took out the Tehillim mechulak to daven for our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael. Why had I never noticed before how many perakim of Tehillim talk about our enemies who seek to destroy us? As I opened the next booklet, I saw the familiar words of perek chaf zayin: L’David Hashem Ori v’Yishi. I don’t have to wait until next year after all. I can access these words whenever I need to.
יִוָּדַע כְּמֵבִיא לְמָעְלָה בִּסֲבָךְ עֵץ קַרְדֻּמּוֹת (תהילים ע”ד:ה)
It was known, as if he were bringing axes upward in a thicket of wood (Tehillim 74:5)
Knocking on Your Doors
Rabbi Binyomin Adler
ITwas known, as if he were bringing axes upward in a thicket of wood (The Gemara expounds on this pasuk to mean that the enemy knew that they were, so to speak, knocking on Heaven’s doors.
With all the predictions that people are positing, it seems clear that the enemy is the catalyst for us to start knocking on Hashem’s door. As we recently said in Selichos, k’dalim u’k’rashim dafaknu dilasecha — like the poor and impoverished we knock on Your doors.
Hashem should answer our knocking and bring the complete downfall of our enemies, with the arrival of Mashiach, may he come speedily in our days.
עֶ֭זְרִי מֵעִ֣ם ה’ עֹ֝שֵׂ֗ה שָׁמַ֥יִם וָאָֽרֶץ (תהילים קכ״א:ב)
My help is from Hashem, Maker of heaven and earth (Tehillim 121:2)
Source of Salvation
Tirtza Green
When I try to wrap my brain around the horror going on, I can’t do it. I don’t have a place to put this kind of atrocity. There’s no internal file folder that can store the knowledge of our brothers and sisters being brutalized and terrorized. Not a thousand years ago. Not a hundred years ago. Not fifty years ago. Today. Yesterday.
Motzaei Yom Tov, when I heard the news, I cried. My husband told me to daven, that it’s the only thing we can do. I struggled to find words to say to express my feelings, words to pray to express my feelings. Desperation. Terror. Horror. I felt like the world was caving in on us. And in a way it was, and is. “Mei’ayin yavo ezri?” How will we get through this? Will we get through this? The fear clogged up my blood, my brain cells, my lungs. It was choking, smothering, all-encompassing.
“Ezri mei’im Hashem” is our only answer. It’s the only answer. It’s become my inner refrain. Internalizing this message is far more productive than frantically following the news, sitting in a terrified stupor, or ranting about the injustice of it all.
When will this end? How will this end? We don’t know. But I do know that the salvation will come. And it will come from the “Oseh Shamayim va’aretz.” He created this world. He runs this world. And when the doubts, worries, and fears try to take hold of my system, “ezri mei’im Hashem” helps me tap into the peace of knowing we are in the Hands of the Most Powerful. “Mei’ayin yavo ezri?” my inner fearmongers cry. But I have an answer. I don’t know what it looks like, but I believe in it with all my heart.
ַקוֵּ֗ה אֶל ה’ (תהילים כ״ז:י”ד)
Place your hope in Hashem (Tehillim, 27:14)
A Long Journey
Dina Schoonmaker
WE
just finished saying the beautiful perek of L’Dovid Hashem Ori, right before this tragic event. The last pasuk in the perek is kaveh el Hashem chazak v’yaametz libecha v’kaveh el Hashem.
This pasuk is relating to the ongoing struggles we face. Some struggles are yeshuos Hashem k’heref ayin: we daven, we see salvation, and it’s beautiful.
Then there are ongoing struggles, the ones we daven for and we don’t see a yeshuah. And they tire us out.
And we need a littzle chazak v’yaametz libecha. Strengthen your heart, because you fell off the bandwagon. Then kaveh el Hashem, get back on the bandwagon. This is particularly true throughout our history as the Jewish People. It’s been a long journey. I heard this beautiful expression sung by chayalim: Am hanetzech lo mifacheid m’derech aruchah, the eternal nation is not afraid of a long journey. We’ve had tzaros for thousands of years. We’re not afraid of a long journey.
And as we say each morning in birchos hashachar, hanosein layaeif koach. Hashem gives strength to the weary. Kaveh el Hashem.
אֱלֹקים אַל־דֳּמִי־לָ֑ךְ אַל־תֶּֽחֱרַ֖שׁ וְאַל־תִּשְׁקֹ֣ט (תהילים פ”ג:ב)
O G-d, do not hold Yourself silent, be not deaf and be not still, o G-d (Tehillim 83:2)
One Family
Elana Moskowitz
I
t’s late Sunday afternoon when the car circles our corner of the neighborhood. It takes a slow, meandering route, broadcasting a prerecorded message in a tenor I associate with funeral announcements. But instead, in Yerushalmi Hebrew, we are summoned at 10 p.m. for tefillah at the Ezras Torah shul.
I’m accustomed to Israeli time, where things run comfortably late. So I’m surprised when I arrive at three minutes after ten and barely manage to shoehorn myself into the women’s section. The air is dense, women compressed shoulder-to-shoulder across the swooping arc that’s the ezras nashim. And they’ve already begun reciting Tehillim, the sonorous baal tefillah chanting line by line, hundreds of voices rebounding after his. If not for the tension, the tautness sketched in the faces and posture of the women around me, we could be mistaken for a symphony, with the give and take of a maestro and his orchestra.
At first, he directs us to the familiar perakim, 20 and 22, but now, somehow, they assume another persona, a significance I never attributed them: In “Eileh varechev v’eileh vasusim,” I see the Hamas terrorists bulldozing through Israel’s security fences. “Kol ro’ai yaligu li,” is the vicious Palestinian laughter as they cart hostages, elderly women and children, over the Gaza border.
And perek 79, a dreadfully prescient account of the last two days in Eretz Yisrael: “Nations infiltrated your land… poured blood like water…we were shamed before our neighbors…may the desperate cries of the captive come before you….”
The baal tefillah leads us through perek 83 — “Elokim… do not be deaf, nor silent…they said, let us annihilate them… and the name Yisrael will not be remembered… do to them as You did to Midian, to Siserah.” We speak words of Dovid Hamelech seemingly scripted for us alone, volleying them back and forth, from baal tefillah to tzibbur, in a seamless exchange.
By now the women sob unabashedly, shameless heaving from teens, young mothers, middle-aged women and weathered grandmothers. An elderly woman stoops two rows ahead, eyes squeezed in wrinkled slits, tears pooling in her Tehillim. Is she here with us now, or has she been transported back 50 years to another desperate tefillah gathering in Tishrei?
I glance up, noting familiar faces from the neighborhood. Israelis and Americans and South Africans, litvish and chassidish women pressed together in clammy rows. Just yesterday we davened in our separate orbits, scattered between myriad community minyanim. But tonight we are in the same cramped space, in sync with the baal tefillah and with each other.
We begin Avinu Malkeinu: “Avinu Malkeinu, hachazireinu b’teshuvah sheleimah lefanecha.” The notion that we uttered this tefillah a mere few days ago is alarming. Was our teshuvah imperfect? Somehow lacking, that we have to revisit it once again a week and a half later?
The baal tefillah leads us through select portions of this timeless tefillah, guiding us to parts that are disconcertingly relevant, almost clairvoyant. “Avinu Malkeinu, chamol aleinu v’al olaleinu v’tapeinu.” The children herded as hostages into Gaza, some only two years old. The 12-year-old who hid to evade the rampaging Palestinians and is yet to be found. The 12 and 16-year-old brothers on their way to captivity.
“Avinu malkeinu aseh l’maan harugim al shem kadshecha… l’maan tevuchim all yichudecha… l’maan ba’ei ba’eish…” The soldiers slaughtered, the medics that snipers shot dead, the houses and their inhabitants torched, the teenagers shot at dead range, “n’kom l’eineinu nikmas dam avadecha hashafuch!”
And now everyone is crying, the men, the women, self-conscious teenagers, and elderly zeidies. The tefillah ascends, rising to skim the 30-foot ceiling, swelling to fill the rounded expanse of the shul, until its roar mimics the sound of streaking fighter jets I heard earlier today.
And as I peer at the sobbing ladies packed around and across and on the other side of the women’s section, it occurs to me: Most of us do not have relatives in the army, friends in the border communities targeted by Hamas, or acquaintances from the police rescue units, yet we are davening and crying like the victims and hostages and imperiled Jews are our own brothers and sisters, our closest relatives and family.
Because during times like these we know, deep down, they are.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 864)
