The Psalms Menorah

UPDATE: see a more recent detailed post here.

One of the best-selling Safrut items is the Lamnatzeach Menora. You can see it in almost every Sephardic and Chassidic synagogue but I never knew what was the story behind it. This past Shabbos I saw an explanation in the Chatan Sofer's Bircon - see the bottom of the the picture for the Hebrew version. I will summarize it in English below.

"In the sefer Kaf Hachaim (...) is brought that G-d showed to King David and Moshe Rabbeinu the Mizmor Lamnatzeach Bineginot in the form of a Menorah, written in a golden sheet. King David inscribed this Psalm Menorah in his war shield and would meditate upon it in his wars, for protection."

That sparkled the Minhag of reciting this Psalm in this format every day and many people prefer to read it from parchment. I'm currently writing my Shir Hashirim scroll but I got so excited about this that I decided to write a large Lamnatzeach Menorah hopefully next month ii"H. Stay tuned!