Elmer A. Leslie, in his book, The Psalms, comments, “The words of the Psalter are alive with the awareness of an Other. The religion of the psalms is a communion, a sharing between the human and the divine.”

Our colleague, Rabbi Paul Plotkin, in his book on the meaning of the Psalms, succeeds in capturing for us the presence of the Divine and the impact of the Divine in our daily lives.

Drawing extensively on his own life experiences and other real life situations, he assists the reader in applying the teachings of the Psalms to one’s own existential circumstances.

Having gone through a divorce and then open heart surgery some years ago, the reviewer was caught up in Rabbi Plotkin’s descriptions of his own efforts to cope with a divorce and the upheaval it created in his own life. For Rabbi Plotkin, the daily recitation of the Psalms took on a new and vivid intensity and meaning as he sought Divine comfort and strength to cope with personal vicissitudes.

The strength of The Lord Is My Shepherd lies in the personal stories he relates, his own and others, and the manner in which he relates these stories to the Psalm texts. Thus the quote from Psalm 30, “At night one goes to sleep crying; in the morning there is the ringing cry of joy,” became for Rabbi Plotkin in the aftermath of his divorce, a comforting balm to ease the anguish of his heart, a verse that gave him renewed energy to pull together the shattered fragments of his life.

In our Jewish tradition, we have the Yiddish phrase, “zogt tehillim “to recite the Psalms,” whether in times of joy or sorrow.

Rabbi Plotkin infuses the Psalms with spiritual depth and understanding and culls helpful insights from their verses through his psychological probing of the meaning of the Psalms.

Whether for personal use, as one of the texts in an educational course on the Psalms, or as a rich source of homiletical illustrations, The Lord Is My Shepherd—Why Do 1 Still Want? is worthy of our reading and our reflection as each of us confronts the myriad and challenging aspects of our own lives.


1. Leslie, E.A. (1949). The Psalms, Abingdon Press, Nashville and New York, 448 pages — 382 —