THE DAILY PSALM A special psalm was said in the Temple on each of the seven days of the week. We say them still, in memory of those days and in hope of future restoration.

לְדָוִד מִזְמוֹר Sunday: Psalm 24. The opening verses mirror the act of creation, reminding us that each week mirrors the seven days of creation itself. The psalm also alludes to the Temple, built on “the mountain of the LORD.” The connection between the two is based on the idea that the Temple was a microcosm of the universe, and its construction a human counterpart to the divine creation of the cosmos.

שִׁיר מִזְמוֹר לִבְנֵי־קֹֽרַח Monday: Psalm 48. A hymn of praise to the beauty and endurance of Jerusalem, the city that outlived all those who sought to conquer it. A score of conquerors have held it as their choicest prize; and more than a dozen times has it been utterly destroyed. The Babylonians burnt it, and deported its population; the Romans slew a million of its inhabitants, razed it to the ground, passed the ploughshare over it, and strewed its furrows with salt; Hadrian banished its very name from the lips of men, changed it to Aelia Capitolina, and prohibited any Jew from entering its precincts on pain of death. Persians and Arabs, Barbarians and Crusaders and Turks took it and retook it, ravaged it and burnt it; and yet, marvelous to relate, it ever rises from its ashes to renewed life and glory. It is the Eternal City of the Eternal People. (Rabbi J.H. Hertz)

מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף Tuesday: Psalm 82. The psalm for Tuesday is about judges and justice. Justice, the application of law, brings order to society as scientific law brings order to the cosmos. Justice ultimately belongs to God. A judge must therefore act with humility and integrity, bringing divine order to human chaos. “A judge who delivers a true judgment becomes a partner of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the work of creation” (Shabbat 10a).

אֵל־נְקָמוֹת יהוה Wednesday: Psalm 94. Marking the midweek, this is a psalm of intense power about the connection between religious faith and ethical conduct and their opposite: lack of faith and a failure of humanity. When man begins to worship himself, he dreams of becoming a god but ends by becoming lower than the beasts. Appropriately, some communities recite this psalm on Yom HaSho’a, Holocaust Memorial Day (27 Nisan).

לַמְנַצֵּֽחַ Thursday: Psalm 81. God pleads with His people: a classic expression of one of the great themes of the prophetic literature, the divine pathos – God’s love for, but exasperation with, His children. “If only My people would listen to Me.”

יהוה מָלָךְ Friday: Psalm 93. Speaking as it does of the completion of creation (“the world is firmly established”), this psalm is appropriate for the sixth day, when “the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their array.”

לְדָוִד Psalm 27: A magnificent expression of trust in God’s protection and unfailing love. An early Midrash (Vayikra Raba 21:4) relates it to the festivals of Tishrei: “The LORD is my light – on Rosh HaShana, and my salvation – on Yom Kippur.” The phrase, “He will keep me safe in His pavilion [beSukko]” suggested Sukkot. It was accordingly adopted as a prayer for the penitential period up to and including these holy days, beginning on Rosh Ḥodesh Elul.