Tehillim by Heart at the Border
In a camp of Jewish children waiting at the edge of Iran, a boy with no sefer led his friends in Tehillim from memory.
A story ofRav Dovid Matisyohu Rabinowitz of Bialaרבי דוד מתתיהו רבינוביץ מביאלאProfile ›
Chassidim relate that when the children of the Yaldei Tehran waited at the edge of Iran for the way to Eretz Yisroel to open, they lived in tents, far from parents and teachers, with no seforim and nothing to fill the long days. Many of them had seen terrible things. Many did not know whether their families still lived.
Among them was a boy of the Biala court, Dovid Matisyahu. Each day he gathered the children and said Tehillim by memory, one verse at a time, and the children repeated it after him, as if they were back in cheder.
He did more than that. He taught the children to call out Shema several times a day, with their whole hearts, so that Hashem's oneness would live in them even in a tent at the border.
Those who had been in that camp remembered how that boy kept their faith alive. All it took was a few Jews ready to open their mouths and say a verse of Tehillim together.
Source: Aryeh Ehrlich, “The Best Defense,” Mishpacha, issue 678 (18 September 2017) (Profiles), which tells of his leading the children of the Yaldei Tehran in daily Tehillim from memory and stressing Shema and Hashem's oneness; the detail of the tents at the Iranian border is told in Chassidic tradition among Biala Chassidim. No standalone English edition.
You do not need the right building, the right book or a crowd to bring something holy into a hard place. This week, choose one chapter of Tehillim you can say mostly by heart, or even one verse, and say it aloud with one other person: a child at bedtime, a spouse, a friend on the phone. Let them repeat it after you. Notice how a few words said together can settle a room, and give someone else the quiet message that they are not alone.