Readers find faith and fortitude in Dovid Hamelech’s timeless words

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.