A Blessed Path - Psalms Chapter 1 - Tehilim Poetry

A couple of months back I set myself a personal challenge, or rather, a goal, to say one perek of Tehilim a night, before going to sleep, with my sights set on me completing the entire Sefer. Beginning on the night of Bais Teves, just before Shavuos, I finally completed saying all 150 perakim of Tehilim, one night at a time.

An idea I had while in the middle of this project is that when I complete all this challenge, I want to learn the translation of every single perek and write a poem on the pasuk, (verse) which sticks out to me in every one of them.

Well, now we begin. Of course we start with Tehilim Perek Aleph (Perek 1) and in this Perek it is the famous opening verse of "אַ֥שְֽׁרֵי הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר ׀ לֹ֥א הָלַךְ֮ בַּעֲצַ֢ת רְשָׁ֫עִ֥ים וּבְדֶ֣רֶךְ חַ֭טָּאִים לֹ֥א עָמָ֑ד וּבְמוֹשַׁ֥ב לֵ֝צִ֗ים לֹ֣א יָשָֽׁב׃" - Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked, or taken the path of sinners, or joined the company of the insolent - that stuck out. As soon as I finished reading the perek I knew the first, opening verse was the way to go. I got to work and came up with what you will read below.

I hope you will enjoy the first entry in what I hope will become a much-loved and important series not just for myself but for everyone who reads it.

Best Wishes,

Yitzy Schweitzer

A Blessed Path - Psalms Chapter 1 - Tehilim Poetry

The world sometimes seems so full of sin,
Deceit and disgrace fill the streets,
Wicked and ruthless people roam carelessly,
Seeking to inflict horrors on anyone they meet.

They trap people behind the steel gates,
Of hard-bitten scorn and lies,
They care not for when their pawn fails,
But rather, they rejoice in giving him their misleading advice.

But, with the shield of Torah,
I am not affected by their ways,
Because the moral code I am deciphering,
Keeps me busy night and day.

I have a connection to my maker
It is he who shows me truth and love,
So, for more of that, I’d rather be raised higher,
Then, down on the ground, shoved.

For it is the ways, the character and the serenity
Of the Torah Jew that these sinners don’t know.
While we climb to the peak, reach higher when we try,
They fall down towards endless destruction, when they realize they can’t fly

So, lead yourself, down the path of gems,
Not, the path of fake ideals,
Because the vision of the wicked is selfish and impaired,
While, one who has the Torahs eyes, see, in the hidden, that which is revealed