I was desperate for relief, desperate for comfort, desperate for so many things only He could give me. I decided to give the alos thing a try

AS far back as I can remember,

I’d wake up Rosh Hashanah morning to the singsong of my father chanting Tehillim. I’d come down to find him swaying at his shtender, my mother whispering over her own Tehillim at the table. I knew I was witnessing the tail end of a tefillah session that had begun hours before what I considered to be morning.

Every Rosh Hashanah, my parents would awake at alos hashachar, sit down with their sifrei Tehillim, and recite the entire Sefer while the world slept. I always admired the practice, in a detached sort of way. I knew I could never do it — the entire Sefer Tehillim in one go seemed too colossal a task, and the only time I’d woken before the sun was for my eighth-grade graduation trip.

Then, the summer I was 16, I experienced a nightmare that knocked my world off balance, leaving me reeling and utterly broken. Rosh Hashanah drew near, and I was struggling in an ocean of grief and helplessness. I was desperate for relief, desperate for comfort, desperate for so many things only He could give me. I decided to give the alos thing a try.