A New Psalm is a commentary and guide to reading the Book of Psalms as literature. After an introduction, each psalm is interpreted in light of biblical scholarship, ancient and modern, with an emphasis on the poetic presentation. The commentary elucidates the spiritual quests, insights, and struggles of generations of men and women confronting their world and their place in that world, with no subject, be it faith or nonbelief, good or evil, hope or despair, God or man, the individual or the society, the nation or the nations, left unexplored. Sophisticated poets who knew how to speak to both their peers and the masses, the psalmists used words creatively to allow their readers to search their own hearts. The words are ancient, but the questions are immediate and modern. The Psalms has contributed to the thinking and search of people across the millennia. It is truly poetry of the heart. In this commentary, modern research and insight allow the poems to sing once again. No other commentary brings a combination of classical and modern interpretations to the Book of Psalms, along with a real appreciation for the poetic skills of the poets and an acknowledgment of their own struggles and strivings. Uniquely identifying the literary techniques used by the psalmist, the author opens the psalms to the reader through an integrated appreciation of form and content.

Auteur
Rabbi Benjamin J. Segal is an author and lecturer living in Jerusalem. He is a past president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies the academic and educational center of Masorti Judaism in Israel and Melitz, the Center for Jewish and Zionist Education. Earlier in his career he served as the director of the Ramah Programs in Israel. His translation and commentary, The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love, was published in 2009. He has also authored Returning: The Land of Israel as Focus in Jewish History (revised 2005), several study texts, and numerous articles on Bible, Jewish Thought, Education, and Zionism. He has taught in various educational and academic venues in Israel and North America. He was at one time chairperson of the Masorti movement in Israel and a member of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization. He is presently chairperson of the Directorate of the Meimad (political) party in Israel and serves on the boards and steering committees of several nonprofit educational organizations. Rabbi Segal was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1969 and served as a pulpit rabbi in Palo Alto, California. He moved to Israel in 1973 and lives in Jerusalem with his wife Judy. The Segals have five children and fifteen grandchildren.