TO YOU I CALL

A rabbi offers commentary on ancient psalms for a contemporary audience.

“Life is joyful, tragic, visionary, mired in muck,” writes Rabbi Elyse Frishman. Reflective of the range of human experiences and interactions with the divine, the Bible’s Book of Psalms explores topics that range from expressions of gratitude for God’s gifts during personal triumphs to accusations against God’s seeming desertion amid heartbreaks. While psalms are relevant to contemporary society, their traditional biblical arrangement often makes them inaccessible to those unfamiliar with them. Seeking to pair “traditional psalms with different moments of our contemporary lives,” Sank Ross offers readers 72 psalms rearranged thematically into six categories (anticipation, commemoration, despair, gratitude, pain, and relief). The first section, “Psalms for Anticipation,” suggests pairing specific psalms for periods of anxious waiting, such as before a surgery, before traveling, or during a pregnancy. Additional sections provide similar matchings of psalms to real-life experiences through topics that include celebrating anniversaries, mourning death, moving on after divorce, and experiencing antisemitism. Given its goal of connecting with modern readers, the book utilizes Richard Levy’s 2018 translation of psalms, Songs Ascending. Each psalm is accompanied by a stylized Hebrew heading and a brief introduction by Sank Ross, who provides guidance on how to incorporate the psalm into one’s prayer practices. Many entries contain footnotes that refer readers to similar psalms that are found in different sections of the guide. An associate rabbi at the Community Synagogue in Port Washington, New York, Sank Ross excels at making her editorial comments meaningful to a general audience, from those who attend temple weekly to those who haven’t been in decades. The book opens with a fascinating introduction that draws on Sank Ross’ academic background in anthropology; she provides a brief historiography of psalters and introduces readers to the literary nature of the psalms as metaphorical poetry. “The beauty of metaphors,” she notes, “is that they can be redefined.” Guided by an impressive editorial advisory committee of eleven rabbis and Jewish scholars, this book is both profound and refreshingly simple.

A welcome reintroduction to the psalms for 21st-century Jews.