The Power of Tehillim Lies in Reading Tehillim Properly

The Power of Tehillim Lies in Reading Tehillim Properly

A pious man had a custom of reading the entire Book of Tehillim on Shabbat, after which he would lie down to rest during the day. One day, while he was reading the Psalms, guests came to visit him and wanted to converse with him. He interrupted his reading to answer their questions, sometimes in the middle of a verse, a third of the way through it, or a quarter of the way through it. Then, while he was still reading the Psalms, someone angered him. He became extremely angry, finished reading, and went to sleep. He dreamed that two angels wrapped in white garments came to him and stood on his right. Then two angels dressed in black entered and stood on his left. The angels standing on his right were holding a Book of Tehillim. They opened it and said: “Look at the Psalms you read today.” He looked, and his vision grew dark: all the idle conversations he had conducted while reading the Psalms had become mixed with the verses of the book, to such an extent that in some places they appeared like curses, while in others the verse had lost all meaning. In some places in the book there was the image of an idol (this was because he had become angry, for one who becomes angry is considered as though he were serving idols), and the man became terribly frightened. The angels asked him: “Do you want your reading of the Book of Tehillim today to be brought before G-d?!” He replied: “No, heaven forbid! This entire reading should be concealed!” But at that moment, the angels dressed in black who stood on his left snatched the book from the white angels and ran to show it to the Creator’s heavenly retinue. The man “cried out loudly and bitterly” and began begging them to return the book, but they would not listen and hurried to deliver it to the higher angels. At that point, the man awoke in terror. Deeply regretting what had happened, he went to the great and holy Rabbi, told him everything, and asked how he could rectify his actions. The Rabbi said to him: “You acted foolishly. You should have remembered the words of the Sages: “Anyone who interrupts words of Torah in order to engage in idle conversation will be fed burning coals.” (Avodah Zarah 3a.) “But since you regret this, stand up and promise before the Creator that from now on you will not interrupt your Torah study or the reading of the Psalms. Say three times, ‘I regret it,’ as a sign that you truly repent.” The man did everything as the Rabbi had instructed him and returned home. On the night following Shabbat, he had another dream: the angels dressed in white who had stood on his right pursued the angels dressed in black, took the book from them, and hid it. He awoke and rejoiced that his repentance had been accepted. Fortunate is the one who takes this to heart. (From the book “The Branch of the Fathers’ Tree” — Rabbi Ovadia Yosef on Pirkei Avot)