Psalms Book 1 (1-41): Chanted in Hebrew by Rabbi Dan Be'eri

At Trinity Church, we’ve been preaching through Book 1 of the Psalms (that is, Psalms 1-41) from Easter until the end of August. We won’t have had time to preach on all of them; we’ve had 18 weeks, so there will have been time to preach on just under half of them. Nevertheless, we thought it would serve the church better to preach selected psalms from the first book, rather than a selection dotted across the whole psalter. We will probably do another series on Book 2 at some point.

We've been greatly helped by Christopher Ash’s magnificent new 4-volume commentary (paid link) on the Psalms. This is the culmination of about 20 years’ study, preaching and teaching for him. Most commentaries on the Psalms make little to no mention of Jesus. Once you’ve started noticing this, it’s really striking just how absent Jesus is. Of course, great attention is needed to the poetry, the structure, the imagery, and so forth. None of that is denied. But as part of the canon of Christian Scripture, they surely point to Jesus. Yes, there is an important debate about what the superscription “of David” (לְדָוִד) means. Does it mean written by, written about, in tribute to David, or some other option still. Whatever it means, David is a central figure in the Psalms, which means Jesus must be too. He is, after all, great David’s greater son, to quote the hymn by James Montgomery. Christopher Ash does a superb job at paying attention to all of the poetry and literary devices of the psalter, but also showing how each psalm points to Christ and belongs first and foremost on his lips.

In preparing to preach on psalms, I find it helpful to listen as well as to read.

I came across an audio recording of the Psalms in Hebrew (תְהִלִּים, t^ehillîm) by Rabbi Dan Be'eri.

Unfortunately, the only version of it I can find is on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/TanakhAudioRecordingByRabbiDanBeeri-BookByBook/19_psalms.mp3. That means no live website (that I could find) hosts this recording.
Fortunately however, the audio is released under the Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 licence. That means that, with attribution to the original creator, and provided the same licence is used for the shared version, it is possible to share this material, including adapting it. What I am about to share is therefore released under the same CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.
The psalms are cantillated (chanted), rather than spoken, and according to the archive.org page it is chanted according to the Sephardi style. Inititally, I thought this was another “unfortunately” feature, but as I’ve listened I've come to see this as “fortunately”. The musical rhythm of cantillation greatly aids the memory and recognition in a way that simply spoken words do not. I think I’m discovering the psalms go in more deeply as I listen to them in this way, and learn to chant along.
Unfortunately, the recording I had found was a single audio file of just under 4 hours. If you are preparing to preach on Psalm 23, you just want to be able to stick Psalm 23 on in the car, and not have to find your place in an audio file of the whole psalter.

So, I have taken Rabbi Dan Be'eri’s audio file, and split it into its individual psalms. I have so far only done this for Book 1 (Psalms 1-41), and will return to the others later. The archive.org description page suggests Psalms 50-112 are missing from the recording. That will be a sad omission, and if anyone knows of other sources of those missing psalms please let me know via the comments below.

I should add that I know nothing of Rabbi Dan Be'eri, the schools of Judaism to which he belongs, his theological views, or his political views. I just know that he is a skilled cantor who has beautifully brought these psalms to life. In reproducing his chants I am therefore not endorsing him or his ministry in any way, simply grateful for this piece.