Before TraditionOnline signs off for a Sukkot break, we leave you with one of the most profound columns we've published since last Simhat Torah. Israeli poet Bacol Serlui turned to Tehillim as the rockets began falling on Oct. 7 and her son was called away to war: “I sat with my Tehillim, reciting from beginning to end until the close of the holiday, until my tears dried up and the breaking news broke me once again. I recite the Psalms again and again and feel that the Tehillim are reading me, dubbing my fear and sorrow, giving me a voice. Three millennia ago a Jew sat and poured out the agony of his soul in times of peace and war, and here he reaches out a hand of prayer and speaks to our own day, until we will be redeemed.” Read Serlui’s essay on King David, the warrior poet, and his Psalms’ ability to reach us across the millennia.

In reading the account of Kind David’s repentance through the prism of Psalm 51—"The Song of Repentance”—Judith Bleich offers lessons of teshuva and the manner in which we should engage in the repentance process with contrition, sincerity, and humbled hearts.