Norman Fischer is an influential American Zen-Buddhist, a poet and writer, and a Jew. He wrote Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms after spending a week with the Trappist monks at Gethsemani Abbey, where he experienced for the first time the Christian monastic practice of daily recitation of the psalms. Troubled by “the violence, passion, and bitterness” expressed in some of the psalms but recognizing the power they held for the monks, Fischer decided to investigate th...
