The Life-Saving Power of Pesukei Dezimra

Question

I often find myself coming late to tefillah and, as a result, I have to skip most of Pesukei Dezimra. How much effort should I spend reciting Pesukei Dezimra in full?

Thank you.

Yanky

Rav Auerbach 

The Mishnah in Brachos (30b) notes that the Chassidim Harishonim would spend an hour preparing before and after each of the three tefillos, and then spend an hour davening, nine hours in total. Even though nine hours is a significant amount of time spent davening, the Gemara says that they were compensated for their great investment in tefillah, and all of the activities that they engaged in during the rest of the day actually went much smoother.

You might be surprised to hear this, but the Shulchan Aruch (93:1) actually rules that one should follow in the ways of the Chassidim Harishonim and spend an hour before davening so that one’s heart is focused on our Father in Heaven, and one hour after davening in order to demonstrate that our tefillos to the Almighty were not a burden.

The Pri Megodim (Aishel Avrohom 93:1) points out that today, most people do not follow the practice laid down by the Chassidim Harishonim, and it is sufficient for us to clear our minds for a short time beforehand. Yet, the Pri Megodim suggests that one should still try to daven and spend an hour davening before Shemoneh Esrei, including a half hour for Pesukei Dezimra, and the rest of the hour for the other parts of tefillah before Shemoneh Esrei. If the Pri Megodim has already ruled that an hour is not required, why would one need to do this?

We can explain that the Pri Megodim means that although we cannot live up to the high standards of the Chassidim Harishonim to spend nine hours on our daily tefillos, we should still try to have some connection to what they did by attempting to spend an hour in prayer itself before we daven the Shemoneh Esrei of Shacharis. Although even this might be very hard for us, we should at least try and designate sufficient time beforehand so that we will not need to skip any parts of davening, especially Pesukei Dezimra.

I would like to share with you a powerful story that happened to me over ten years ago that shows the great power of Pesukei Dezimra. My talmid, Rabbi Yaakov Schwalbe, came to me to ask a similar question as yours. He told me that he learns every morning for an hour right after Shacharis with a chavrusa named Rabbi Moshe Cowland. Sometimes he is running late, and if he does not skip Pesukei Dezimra, he will have to cut that chavrusashaft short. Was it permitted for him to skip Pesukei Dezimra?

I responded very firmly that no matter how important his chavrusa is, under no circumstances was it permitted for him to skip Pesukei Dezimra. Consequently, if he was running late, he would have to daven in a later minyan. A few days later, Rabbi Schwalbe got to shul five minutes late and had a quandary. Theoretically, he could rush through Pesukei Dezimra and still make it or he could daven at the next minyan. Because we had spoken a short time before about how important Pesukei Dezimra is, he decided to daven later.

That morning was the 25^th of Cheshvan 5775, the morning that the Har Nof massacre took place. Rabbi Schwalbe had a seat between Rav Moshe Twersky and Rav Goldberg, who were both murdered in this attack. Had he been in his seat, he would almost certainly have been murdered along with them. His carefulness not to skip Pesukei Dezimra saved his life.

Although I was devastated to hear about this tragic massacre, I was overjoyed to hear that my halachic ruling not to skip Pesukei Dezimra had saved his life. We should all learn from this special Hashgocha Protis how powerful Pesukei Dezimra is and make sure never to skip these critical tefillos.