Reading the entire Book of Tehillim for 53 days in the Tzemach Tzedek’s minyan
A story is told in the name of the Rebbe Rayatz about how the reading of Tehillim saved the Jewish people from a great calamity.
After Rosh Hashanah, throughout the month of Tishrei, in the year 5608 (1847), the Tzemach Tzedek was in a melancholy mood.
His sons and senior students—Chassidim—noticed this, but no one dared ask him what had happened.
After Sukkot the Tzemach Tzedek called his eldest son Rabbi Baruch Shalom and asked him to assemble a minyan to read the entire Book of Tehillim every morning, beginning no later than 4:00 a.m., and continuing until the Tzemach Tzedek instructed them to stop. There was also an important condition: no one in the minyan was to know that they were reading at the Tzemach Tzedek’s request.
This minyan continued from Tuesday, 25 Tishrei, until Shabbat of the week of Parashat Vayishlach—exactly 53 days—until 18 Kislev. The Tzemach Tzedek also read Tehillim daily, putting a coin into the Kupat Tzedakah each time. According to the attendant, these were gold, silver, and copper coins. On Friday, 18 Kislev, the Rebbe stopped the reading, allowing those who wished to continue to do so.
On Yud-Tes Kislev, the Tzemach Tzedek looked very pleased. Several weeks later, at the festive meal commemorating the yahrzeit of the Alter Rebbe, on 24 Tevet, he explained the sequence of events.
“On the first day of Rosh Hashanah,” he said, “in the spiritual realms I saw an Accusatory Decree of tremendous force, directed against the Jewish people as a whole and the Torah community in particular. I suffered terribly and tried in various ways to make contact with my grandfather, the Alter Rebbe, but, unfortunately, all my efforts were unsuccessful. At the meal on Simchat Torah, when we sang his nigun ‘Arba Bavot’—the Melody of Four Themes—I saw him.
He reminded me of a paragraph of Jewish law: The cup of wine used for a blessing must be held above the table at the height of a handbreadth. The Cup of King David is the Book of Tehillim. When we raise it, we annul all evil decrees. Establish a secret minyan; let them read the entire Book of Tehillim every morning, no later than four o’clock, for 53 days—and the decree will be annulled.”
The Tzemach Tzedek concluded this account with his famous statement about Tehillim:
“If only you knew the power contained in Tehillim and the effect they have Above, in Heaven, you would recite them constantly. Know that the words of Tehillim shatter all barriers. They rise upward, ever higher, without any hindrance, and spread out before the Master of the worlds in supplication, attaining everything through Divine grace and mercy.”
(“Tehillim Ohel Yosef Yitzchak,” p. 210; “HaYom Yom,” 24 Shevat; “A Voice in the Silence,” vol. 9, Yaakov Shachter)
P.S. Interestingly, 53 is also the gematria of the words אבן—“even” (a stone—possibly triangular in this context) and גן —“gan” (a garden, possibly the Garden of Eden).
