This practical guide covers such topics as mantra meditation, contemplation, and visualization within a Jewish context. It shows us how to use meditative techniques to enhance prayer using the traditional liturgy—the Amidah and the Shema. Through simple exercises and clear explanations of theory, Rabbi Kaplan gives us the tools to develop our spiritual potential through an authentically Jewish meditative practice.

    It provides practical advice on how to manage a Jewish home in the traditional way and offers fascinating accounts of the history behind the tradition. In a warm, personal style, Blu Greenberg shows that, contrary to popular belief, the home, and not the synagogue, is the most important institution in Jewish life. Divided into three large sections—"The Jewish Way," "Special Stages of Life," and "Celebration and Remembering"—this book educates the uninitiated and reminds the already observant Jew of how Judaism approaches daily life. Topics include prayer, dress, holidays, food preparation, marriage, birth, death, parenthood, and many others. This description of the modern-yet-traditional Jewish household will earn special regard among the many American Jews who are re-exploring their ties to Jewish tradition. Such Jews will find this book a flexible guide that provides a knowledge of the requirements of traditional Judaism without advocating immediate and complete compliance. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household will also appeal to observant Jews, providing them with helpful tips on how to manage their homes and special insights into the most minute details and procedures in a traditional household. Herself a traditional Jew, Blu Greenberg is nevertheless quite sympathetic to feminist views on the role of women in Jewish observance. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household therefore speaks intimately to women who are struggling to reconcile their identities as modern women with their commitments to traditional Judaism.

    These shattering stories describe the lives of ordinary people as they are compelled to do the unimaginable.

    Her loving parents, both fervent radicals, fill her with the fiercely bright hope of a new and better world. But as the deprivations of war and depression take a ruthless toll, Davita unexpectedly turns to the Jewish faith that her mother had long ago abandoned, finding there both a solace for her questioning inner pain and a test of her budding spirit of independence.From the Paperback edition.

    Reprint. NYT.

    From the courageous struggle of the Hungarian revolution, to the dramatic strife of the civil rights movement in Mississippi…from Israel’s heroic fight for freedom, to the eve of the Six-Day War…Leah’s children confronted their own convictions and desires in an ever-changing world fraught with danger, idealism, and betrayal. Their uncompromising search for love and fulfillment carried them into dangerous emotional territory—where only the strength, courage, and imagination inherited from their mother could lead them to their own triumphant destinies.

    Ten lessons teach students how to pronounce any Hebrew word. 104 pages.

    Rebbe Nachman practiced this ancient method to perfection. More elaborate than any of his previous teachings, the stories are fast-moving, richly structured and filled with penetrating insights -- while spellbinding and entertaining. Rabbi Kaplan's translation is accompanied by a masterful commentary drawn from the works of Rebbe Nachman's pupils. For the first time the English-speaking reader has access to authentic interpretations of the stories.

    He was famous for encouraging interruptions of the solitary task of writing. These twenty-four welcomed interruptions are representative of the many he allowed over a twenty-five-year period. Included here are his conversations with such interviewers as Irving Howe, Laurie Colwin, Richard Burgin, and Herbert R. Lottman. In these talks Singer discusses the nature of his writing, its ethnic roots, his demonology, the importance of free will, and the place of storytelling in human life. The interviews with Singer reveal both his impish sense of humor and a determination that sustained him through many years of limited acclaim and comparative neglect by critics. Yiddishists often faulted him for refusing to use his talent as a force for change in the world, Jewish readers often deplored his use of pre-Enlightenment folk material, and academics could not take too seriously a writer who insisted on telling stories that emphasized plot and character. Yet he was not deterred from his astonishing and beloved work, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

    In this new revision, Anita Diamant, one of the most respected writers of guides to Jewish life, continues to offer step-by-step guidance to planning the ceremony and the party that follows -- from hiring a rabbi and wording the invitation to organizing a processional and hiring a caterer. She also includes: A new chapter focusing on converts, non-Jews, and same-sex couplesEssential Web sitesAll new art, with examples of ketubot, invitations, and other wedding paraphernaliaNew poems and new translations of the seven wedding blessings Complete, authoritative, and indispensable, The New Jewish Wedding is a must-have resource for anyone who wants a wedding that combines spiritual meaning and joyous celebration.

    No markings. Pages are clean and bright.

    It provides new answers to old questions - questions about the essence of Jewish identity, about the real meaning of Jewish history, the significance of the Jewish personality, and, not least, it includes questions about the nature of Jewish ethics. It also provide a radical new way of being Jewish - new ways of celebrating Jewish holidays and ceremonies of the Jewish life cycle, a new approach to dealing with intermarriage and conversion, a new way of reinforcing Jewish identity.

    

    Pollack has been a great influence on the women's spirituality movement. The book provides a commentary on every card, with beautiful full-color reproductions of each design. There are two motifs which Dali used throughout the deck: the butterfly and the linear figures. Both motifs can be seen in The Fool, shown above. On the left is the figurative image of a person raising a staff above the Fool’s head. The staff reflects the shape of Hebrew letter Shin. The figure is also painted in red which may represent the element associated with this Hebrew letter: Fire. A blue butterfly can be seen over the belly of the rider, and a pattern of butterfly wings can be seen in the blanket which covers the horse. “The intellectual plane is symbolized by butterflies, expressive of irrationality and the alienated soul, the consequence of fickleness and disorder.” The Fool himself is not identified, but appears to be a depiction of either a saint or Don Quixote. The “prophetic meaning” given for this card is the expiation of disorder. The Lovers, which incorporates a painting by Gossaert of Adam and Eve. The serpent himself takes the place of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the fruit of the tree is represented by the shape of an apple. The meaning of Trump X is Changes in Fortune. The man at the top of the globe signifies Time, who wields the sword of Destiny. Trump XVII is The Moon. This modern version of the card is based on the New York city skyline. The silhouette of two howling dogs can be seen in the distance, and the two towers have become two skyscrapers. In the foreground is a lobster, and above him is a moon with a woman’s face. The lobster as symbolically similar to the Egyptian scarab beetle, representing “the transformation of the superficial into the useful.”

    These letters represent Maimonide’s response to three issues critical to Jews in his day and ours; religious persecution, the claims of Christianity and Islam and rational philosophy’s challenge to faith.

    A biography of the Jewish heroine whose mission to help rescue European Jews in World War II cost her her life.

    It is therefore no surprise that The Tales of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, retold with commentary by a world-renowned rabbi such as Adin Steinsaltz, is a remarkable volume. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810) emerged from the hasidic world as a great leader with devoted followers both in his lifetime and to this very day. He produced several masterpieces of religious writing, but of all his works, his tales are considered to be at the peak of his creative life. As Rabbi Steinsaltz writes: "These stories, which are essentially fairy tales dating from Nachman's last years, are a mixture of intellectual and poetic imagination, simplicity of form, and complexity of content. On the one hand, any child can read them as one would a tale of ancient days, as the author himself put it; and, on the other hand, one can as an adult read them again and again, analyze and study them, and constantly discover in them layer upon layer of hitherto unrevealed symbol and meaning." Rabbi Nachman's tales were originally told in Yiddish. They were recorded by his outstanding pupil, Rabbi Nathan, who translated them into Hebrew and published them after Rabbi Nachman's death. While these tales are structurally similar to folk or fairy tales, they include highly compressed and clearly defined Torah teachings expressed in literary and poetic form. Rabbi Nachman's stories are a medium for conveying hidden aspects of Torah, yet in such a veiled way that the content is not outwardly apparent. These complex allegories, intended by their author to have several dimensions, are presented here by Rabbi Steinsaltz with his own commentary, pointing the way for the modern reader to begin to grasp Rabbi Nachman's profound tales. Of the thirteen major tales by Rabbi Nachman, this volume offers six of them, each with extensive commentary

    Hard times on adjoining farms bring about parallel acts of kindness and a celebration of "how good it is for brothers to live together in friendship."

    A treasury of religious thought and faith--places the symbolic world of the Bible in its original context.

    The story begins in the early part of the seventeenth century with Reb Mendel and Sarah Pulichever embarking on a journey of hope to Krakow and reaches its starting climax over thirty years later with a return to Krakow for a dramatic and memorable confrontation affecting the Jewish population of the entire region. The Promised Child is a work of fiction. The city of Pulichev, the Pulichever family, and the events in this book are fictitious, although it was certainly not uncommon for a Jewish child to disappear into a monastery and never be heard from again. To a certain extent, however, many of the episodes in this entire series are based on actual events. The historical background relating to the Jewish community and the political situation in Poland is authentic.

    

    In A Living Covenant, Hartman challenges this approach revealing a Judaism grounded in a covenant-a relational framework-informed by the metaphor of marital love rather than that of parent-child dependency. This view of life places the individual firmly within community. Hartman shows that the Judaic tradition need not be understood in terms of human passivity and resignation, but rather as a vehicle by which human individuality and freedom can be expressed within a relational matrix."With passion and erudition, David Hartman argues for a version of Judaism that is at once faithful to the tradition and fitted to the requirements of modernity. He writes like Jacob wrestling with the angel, and the result, for the reader, is an exhilarating experience." --Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton"This deep philosophical treatise-filled with new, nuanced interpretations of Torah and Talmud-reads like a novel that one cannot put down until reaching the very last page." --Judith Hauptman, Rabbi Philip R. Alstat Associate Professor of Talmud, The Jewish Theological Seminary; author of Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voice"I learned much from this book, and I appreciate its theo-logical courage and originality." --Harold M. Schulweis, Rabbi, Cong. Valley Beth Shalom, Encino, Calif.; author of For Those Who Can't Believe

    The author describes the Holocaust and explains how he tries to tell the story of that catastrophic slaughter of Jews through his art.

    This volume offers a selection of these great sages' profound words and exemplary deeds, which serve to inspire and guide the reader towards self-improvement.

    "Walzer knows his Bible. He stands in the growing ranks of contemporary academicians who are discovering in biblical and rabbinic sources a literature rich with significance for modern man".--Chaim Potok, "Philadelphia Inquirer".

    The book explores the private--familial and religious--lives of the German-Jewish bourgeoisie and the public roles of Jewish women in the university, paid employment and social service. It analyzes the changing roles of Jewish women as members of an economically mobile, but socially spurned minority. The author emphasizes the crucial role women played in creating the Jewish middle class, as well as their dual role within the Jewish family and community as powerful agents of class formation and acculturation and determined upholders of tradition.

    'The Little Midrash Says' series was created to facilitate the child's understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of the weekly parsha. Mr.S. Forst's striking illustrations will help the child visualize the scenes described in the text. Parents and educators are urged to regard the text merely as a springboard and guide,and to elaborate on it. The weekly quizzes ('Are you a Parsha expert?') and the 'problem of the week' should stimulate a family-wide discussion of the weekly Torah-portion. Full page illustrations. Enjoyable to tell, enjoyable to listen to, enjoyable to read !!

    We are Christians or Jews, Michael Goldberg maintains, not principally because we embrace different creeds, but because we have gained an understanding of the world from one of two distinct master stories - for Jews, the Exodus; for Christians, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The author demonstrates what each master story ultimately reveals about who God is, what humanity is, and how humanity should therefore act in God's world.