Lord Get Me High! by Rabbi Elchanan Shoff, Kodesh Press, New York; ISBN 978-069-250-143-6 ©2015, $24.95, p. 109
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D
WINCHESTER, California –Psalm 27, the subject of Rabbi Elchanan Shoff’s newest book Lord Get Me High!, is every bit as commanding in its imagery and meaning as its more well-known cousin, the Twenty-Third Psalm. King David, traditionally recognized as the author of both psalms, a warrior keenly aware of the nearness of the enemies plotting to attack and kill him, found expression for his intense and grave feelings in poetry.
In Psalm 23 David describes how trust in God ameliorates his fear of death, and so this psalm is often limited to recitations at funerals and memorial services. Psalm 27, a broader-themed psalm, carries the idea that God is the singular source of truth, redemption, and strength in one’s everyday life; thereby mitigating the need for concern about one’s enemies because they are the ones whose own evil plots will be turned against them by God. This psalm is traditionally recited in Ashkenazic synagogues twice a day during the Hebrew month of Elul, the month before the High Holidays, and continuing until the Eighth Day of Sukkot.
There are fourteen verses in the psalm and Shoff finds a unique theme closely linked to the High Holiday season in each of them, such as fear of God, evil, and planning for a better New Year. But much of what he writes goes beyond the subjects associated with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For instance, he carefully crafts a response to the non sequitur found in verse 4, a verse in which David tells the Lord he will ask for just one thing and then offers a “laundry list,” and explains how David could say in verse 10 that his father and mother abandoned him when in fact he had an “exceptional father.”
Shoff, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and the spiritual leader of Beis Knesses at Faircrest Heights in Los Angles, wrote Lord Get Me High! to help Jews set the mood for and extract new meaning from the “Days of Awe.” But there is no need to wait, the topics and ideas presented in Lord Get Me High! are general enough and important enough to make this book valuable reading throughout the year.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Public Education in Camden, NJ: From Inception to Integration; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. The author can be reached via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.