This year, Simchat Torah 5787 will mark 100 years since the Previous Rebbe requested that people say Tehillim as it is divided according to the days of the month.

At the beginning of 5687, the year during which the Previous Rebbe would eventually be arrested and would survive through great miracles, he felt a tremendous spiritual pressure. He sensed that it would be a difficult year and was deeply burdened by this concern.

The Previous Rebbe would later tell the Chossid Reb Eli Chaim Althaus that “until he established the Takana of saying Tehillim, he had it very hard,” implying that once he established the Takana of saying Tehillim, things became easier for him. Reb Eli Chaim did not remember when this had occurred, so he asked the Previous Rebbe when it happened. The Previous Rebbe answered: Simchat Torah.

As this Simchat Torah marks 100 years since the Previous Rebbe established this Takana, it is an especially appropriate time to renew our commitment to saying Tehillim and Chitas. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the spiritual significance of doing something the Rebbe asked us to do, and in particular, on the unique power of saying Tehillim. What the recitation of Tehillim does for us, the incredible power it has on high. It is so powerful that it benefits even the Rebbe כביכול.

There are several different forms of saying Tehillim that have become part of our daily and yearly Avodah. These include saying Tehillim according to the days of the month, saying the entire Tehillim on Shabbos Mevorchim, following the Baal Shem Tov’s custom of adding three Kapitlach each day during Elul and 36 Kapitlach on Yom Kippur, saying the Kapitel corresponding to one’s age throughout the personal year, and saying קאפיטל כ׳ on days when Tachanun is not said, a Takana added by the Rebbe.

There is actually one more Takana that very few people know about or practice. It is a custom established by the Previous Rebbe that each person should study one possuk from his own personal Kapitel each Rosh Chodesh. If the Kapitel has fewer than 12 pesukim, the pesukim should be reviewed more than once over the course of the year. If it has more than 12 pesukim, more than one possuk should be studied each Rosh Chodesh.

Each of these practices expresses something deeper than simply reciting words. Tehillim has a unique ability to awaken within a person a sense of sincerity and simplicity, Temimus. Even a great scholar, when saying Tehillim, can discover within himself that simple and sincere place from which he turns to Hashem without sophistication or calculation.

That simplicity reaches into the deepest part of who we are. In turn, it touches כביכול the deepest and highest levels of Godliness, what is sometimes described as the Temimus Shel Maalah, the “simplicity Above.”

The 100th anniversary of this Takana gives us an opportunity not only to strengthen our commitment to חת״ת, to learning Rambam, and especially to saying Tehillim, but also to rediscover our own personal “Temimus nerve,” the part of us that can say Tehillim simply, sincerely, and wholeheartedly.

This class introduces these ideas and serves as a catalyst for all of us to grow in each of these areas.