Book Description
Sefer Tehillim (the Book of Psalms) has been a companion to Jews throughout history. In any situation in which we find ourselves, we turn to the words of King David to express our deepest feelings and prayers. The words are meaningful, magical — and Divinely inspired.
Still, it isn’t always easy to see how these holy words connect to modern life. After teaching Tehillim to hundreds of women in Jerusalem, noted lecturer Mrs. Rivka Segal has finally brought the beauty and relevance of Tehillim to the general public. Written with the help of bestselling author Dr. Lisa Aiken, Living Tehillim brings the words of Tehillim to life and shows us how we can adapt each chapter to our lives today.
Connect to Tehillim like never before.
Netania –
I have no “real” words to explain Mrs Segal’s incredible book. This book “fell” into my lap by a friend of mine and it has truly made such an impact on my life. I have searching for a book or a class that goes through Tehillim in a way that I could understand what or why I was saying each Psalm. Mrs Segal has broken down the first 30 and Please GD, the next book will be the next 30. Mrs Segal explains Tehillim in a way that you truly are able to feel it and understand it.
I am not the most observant Jew and I will say this book has and continues to bring such depth, hope, meaning, and understanding to what I am saying in Tehillim. It feels really good to be able t connect to Tehillim. THANK YOU MRS SEGAL for putting your knowledge on paper for the world to see and read. I HIGHLY recommend for any level observance, it speaks to everyone and anyone who is just “searching”.
Roy Doliner –
LIVING TEHILLIM
By Rivka Segal with Lisa Aiken
Book review by Roy Doliner
Living Tehillim: like so much of Jewish writing, this seemingly simple title has several different meanings. First of all, it is the same name as Rivka Segal’s ongoing series of classes on the Psalms and their inner meanings. She has been enlightening her students for years, from those who are newly observant to those who have been reciting these holy verses since childhood. This tells us that it is a treasure chest of the same insights and illuminations, now in print to reach a new, and G-d willing much larger audience.
Living Tehillim also means that these 3,000 year old poems/songs (the Hebrew word shir can mean both “poem” and “song”) are still vibrant and powerful in our day. Yes, we have many commentators who explain the original impulse or situation in the life of David – from lonely shepherd boy to warrior to mighty king – that sparked these writings. However, the undiminished popularity of the psalms over the millennia proves that they are relevant to everyone’s life, no matter their background. The tehillim are alive today, not because they are historical, but because they transcend history.
There is yet another interpretation of the book’s title. Rivka Segal knows that it is not enough to recite or learn the background of the psalms; we must come to embody them. The early Chassidic teacher Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezeritch, expressed it perfectly: “Do not simply speak words of Torah; BE Torah.”
Mrs. Segal, along with her collaborator Dr. Lisa (Chana Leah) Aiken, does what a great educator does – she encourages us to dig deeper and go further, until we are truly living the tehillim. She even has sections entitled “Living this Tehillim”to help bring their message home to us. For example, at the end of the teaching on Psalm 6 (Perek Vav), she gives us concrete, modern examples of how people who have suffered tragedy or great loss were able to transform their grief into positive actions and g’milut chasadim (deeds of righteousness).
She elucidates the very first psalm by pointing out something surprising. Instead of a cheerful opening, it tells us to avoid evil and negative people: not to walk in the advice of the wicked, not to stand in the path of sinners, and not to sit in the place of cynics. Her inspiring explanation (which I won’t spoil by giving it away here) helped me also understand why in the standing meditation of the Amida, the prayer condemning the wicked comes before the prayer for allying ourselves with the righteous.
While Rivka Segal provides us the historic background, the classic commentaries on each psalm plus her original point of view, Lisa Aiken gives us the perfect counterpoint, bringing in modern, worldly anecdotes that relate the ancient text to our lives today. For example, in the chapter on Psalm 23 (“The L-rd is my Shepherd”; arguably the best known of all the tehillim), Mrs. Segal asks what should be an obvious question, but one that never occurred to me: how can David the shepherd sing about Hashem leading him to green pastures when he is in a rocky, arid landscape of ancient Israel? She teaches us that – and I am over-simplifying here – our state of mind does not depend solely on our physical surroundings, but more on our spiritual inner life.
On this same psalm, Dr. Aiken is able to tie in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the story of one young woman who was always cheerful no matter what the situation. In this way, the “harmonizing” of Segal and Aiken rescue this famous psalm from being just something we intone somberly at a funeral or rattle off before lunch on Shabbat.
One of the joys of this book is that you can either seek out the teaching on tehillim in any order you like, or you can study the book in a linear fashion, whichever works best for you.
When I was a theater student in NYC, my best teacher then was Martha Schlamme, a Jewish Broadway star who was considered one of the world’s pre-eminent performers of the songs of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill. She taught how to analyze and internalize each song until we became one with it. Her dictum was similar to that of Dov Ber: “Don’t sing the song; let the song sing you!”
This brings us to the subtitle of this book: Finding Yourself in the Songs of Tehillim. Following the chain of wisdom of Dov Ber, Martha Schlamme, Rivka Segal and Lisa Aiken, we can also call it “Finding the songs of Tehillim within yourself.”
This is just the first volume of a five volume set; thirty psalms per book. Personally, I can’t wait to see how the authors bring the rest of the tehillim to life.
Roy Doliner is an internationally acclaimed author, lecturer and the co-author (with Rabbi Benjamin. Blech) of the global best-seller THE SISTINE SECRETS.
Sheva –
When I am in Israel I always make sure to attend Rivki Segal’s Tehillim class. I was so happy that now, when I cannot attend her class, I have her book on Living Tehillim. The book is like her class…she walks you through each Tehillim in a way that you feel she is teaching you personally, with the most salient points brought out in depth, and then made practical in a way that you can apply the lesson directly to your own life. It is truly a work of art and has changed my life for the better! Thank you Rivki!