Why Maskil LeDavid is So Difficult

After October 7th, they instituted saying three chapters of Tehillim in many shuls in America, to be said responsively. These are:

I’ve had difficulty with the third one in particular, Tehillim 142, having to open up the Tehillim in the back of the siddur for that part. I think many people just mutter and don’t actually say most of it.

There may be content-based reasons for selecting this chapter, but I think there are three reasons why it is so difficult for people to recite.

1. Familiarity. The first two are among the popular ones, which have been recited in many contexts in the past. Enough exposure to and repetition of any text and you start to memorize it. In contrast, how often do we encounter Tehillim 142?

2. Word frequency. Many of the words are common roots and common forms. Ezri me-im Hashem, Osei Shamayim vaAretz. In contrast, what is va-Mearah, be-hitatef, orach-zu, manos? Not that these are impossible, but they are encountered less frequently in tefillah.

3. Sentence-length. This, I think, is the most troublesome aspect. We recite this responsively, not just as a prompt, but because people don’t know the words. Especially if they haven’t recited it in the past.
   
   But look at the red line, for most common sentence length. Most of the sentences in the first two chapters are short, so you listen to the Chazzan and repeat while it is fresh in your mind. In contrast, in Tehilim 142, the first three sentences are short, but the rest are uncommon words and long sentences. You try to listen to the Chazzan and repeat, but you maybe repeat the first half of the sentence, stumbling on the words, and don’t recall how it ends.

I wonder if we can write a program to quantify how difficult different chapters of Tehillim are, along these lines.

Anyway, this is why it pays to read that chapter inside, until we memorize it. Hopefully, soon it will not be necessary to recite it — before we do get around to memorizing it.