Anatoly Sharansky spent nearly nine terrible years of deprivation and suffering as a “prisoner of Zion” in Soviet prisons and labor camps. His “crime” consisted in wanting to leave the hell of the “workers’ paradise” in order to migrate to the land of Israel. By his own testimony, during all the years of enforced isolation, oppressive loneliness, appalling misery, agonizing suffering, and unutterable anguish, it was the copy of the Hebrew Psalter that he kept with him that sustained his spirit, gave him the strength to endure his bitter fate, and imparted the courage to persevere in hope. While he was incarcerated, his wife, Avital, accepted on his behalf an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Yeshiva University in New York. On that occasion, she told the audience, “Anatoly has been educated to his Jewishness in a lonely cell in Chistopol prison where, locked alone with the Psalms of David, he found expression for his innermost feelings in the outpourings of the king of Israel thousands of years ago.” When he was finally released, and arrived in Jerusalem, he was carried to the Western Wall by his friends and admirers still clasping in his hands his beloved Book of Psalms. —Nahum M. Sarna, Songs of the Heart
Act! Memorizing psalms is an ancient Christian custom. When we commit something to memory, we know it “by heart.” Thus, we can spontaneously pray psalms that we have memorized as occasions and the events and needs of daily life move us, even when we don’t have a Bible or Psalter at hand. As Rev. Ben Patterson advises, Memorize the Psalms—but not by rote. Rather, learn them by heart; make their words your words. Come to understand them so well you can recite them—by inflection and tone—as though Wisdom Psalms | page 31
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