Best of
Judaism

1995

The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis


Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg - 1995
    With amazing literary sensitivity, Zornberg ingeniously breathes new life into Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Rachel, and Joseph. The author's vibrant spirit, charming personality, and infectious enthusiasm for the Bible draw the reader into the search for meaning where real life and the biblical story intersect. The Beginning Of Desire imaginatively interweaves biblical, rabbinic, and literary sources into a colorful tapestry that is both intellectually stimulating and personally uplifting.One of the Jewish biblical scholars scheduled to appear on the Bill Moyers PBS special on Genesis, Avivah Zornberg employs an amazing repertoire of literary sources to engage the audience and illuminate the text. Delivering her erudition in a pleasantly lyrical style, the author shares her experience of God with the world. It is an intimate, personal, and revealing encounter no one should miss.

Toward a Meaningful Life: The Wisdom of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson


Simon Jacobson - 1995
    Head of the Lubavitcher movement for forty-four years and recognized throughout the world simply as “the Rebbe,” Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in June 1994, was a sage and a visionary of the highest order.Toward a Meaningful Life gives people of all backgrounds  fresh perspectives on every aspect of their lives—from birth to death, youth to old age; marriage, love, intimacy, and family; the persistent issues of career, health, pain, and suffering; and education, faith, science, and government. We learn to bridge the divisions between accelerated technology and decelerated morality, between unprecedented worldwide unity and unparalleled personal disunity. Although the Rebbe’s teachings are firmly anchored in more than three thousand years of scholarship, the urgent relevance of these old-age truths to contemporary life has never been more manifest.            At the threshold of a new world where matter and spirit converge, the Rebbe proposes spiritual principles that unite people as opposed to the materialism that divides them. In doing so, he continues to lead us toward personal and universal redemption, toward a meaningful life, and toward God.

Chofetz Chaim: A Lesson a Day: The Concepts and Laws of Proper Speech Arranged for Daily Study


Shimon Finkelman - 1995
    Based on his works, Sefer Chofetz Chaim and sefer Shmiras Haloshon includes Vignettes from the life of the Chofetz Chaim.

Konin: One Man's Quest for a Vanished Jewish Community


Theo Richmond - 1995
    Twenty-five years later, Theo Richmond set out to find what he could about that vanished world. He traveled across the United States, Europe, and Israel, tracing survivors and sifting through archives and the stories of those he interviewed. A project he thought would take six months took seven years. Finally he confronted the Konin of today. Interweaving past and present, Konin tells the story of one community--how it began, how it flourished, and how it ended--and in the process re-creates the precariousness, anguish and necessity of human memory."A fascinating memorial to a lost community and the people who lived there."--The New York Times Book Review"One reads [it] sometimes with a smile...always on the edge of tears--as if it were the most gripping adventure story."--Elie Wiesel, New York Newsday

Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: An American Story


Yossi Klein Halevi - 1995
    He grew up, his father's stories grew within him, and Halevi found himself identifying more and more with the persecution and suffering of his people. Even as a boy, he wanted justice, retribution, and action. By the sixth grade, Halevi was learning how to handle a gun, handing out leaflets, joining right-wing movements. Soon he was swept away by the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane and was on the front lines of every protest, hoping to see his face and raised fist on the television news reports. At the climax of his activism, he led an unprecedented demonstration in Moscow to force the world to free Soviet Jews. But then Halevi began questioning the basic premises of his life, repudiating rage as a worldview, and trying to free himself from the bitter accounts of history. He wished for a life that embraced a world different from his father's. In Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist, Halevi looks back on his youth with wry affection, reflecting on who he was - and why - and seeing his hotheaded and passionate fellow activists from the perspective of time.

Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice


Wayne D. Dosick - 1995
    Combining quality scholarship and sacred spiritual instruction, Living Judaism is a thought-provoking reference and guide for those already steeped in Jewish life, and a comprehensive introduction for those exploring the richness and grandeur of Judaism.

Worldmask


Akiva Tatz - 1995
    This book traces some of the Torah themes which express the duality of the world: the physical, outer layer, and its inner root.

Rachel Calof's Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains


Rachel Calof - 1995
    It is powerful, shocking, and primitive, with the kind of appeal primary sources often attain without effort.... it is a strong addition to the literature of women's experience on the frontier." --Lillian Schlissel [asking for approval to use quote]In 1894, eighteen-year-old Rachel Bella Kahn travelled from Russia to the United States for an arranged marriage to Abraham Calof, an immigrant homesteader in North Dakota. Rachel Calof's Story combines her memoir of a hard pioneering life on the prairie with scholarly essays that provide historical and cultural background and show her narrative to be both unique and a representative western tale. Her narrative is riveting and candid, laced with humor and irony.The memoir, written by Rachel Bella Calof in 1936, recounts aspects of her childhood and teenage years in a Jewish community, (shtetl) in Russia, but focuses largely on her life between 1894 and 1904, when she and her husband carved out a life as homesteaders. She recalls her horror at the hardships of pioneer life--especially the crowding of many family members into the 12 x 14' dirt-floored shanties that were their first dewllings. "Of all the privations I knew as a homesteader," says Calof, "the lack of privacy was the hardest to bear." Money, food, and fuel were scarce, and during bitter winters, three Calof households--Abraham and Rachel with their growing children, along with his parents and a brother's family--would pool resources and live together (with livestock) in one shanty.Under harsh and primitive conditions, Rachel Bella Calof bore and raised nine children. The family withstood many dangers, including hailstorms that hammered wheat to the ground and flooded their home; droughts that reduced crops to dust; blinding snowstorms of plains winters. Through it all, however, Calof drew on a humor and resolve that is everywhere apparent in her narrative. Always striving to improve her living conditions, she made lamps from dried mud, scraps of rag, and butter; plastered the cracked wood walls of her home with clay; supplemented meagre supplies with prairie forage--wild mushrooms and garlic for a special supper, dry grass for a hot fire to bake bread. Never sentimental, Caolf's memoir is a vital historical and personal record.J. Sanford Rikoon elaborates on the history of Jewish settlement in the rural heartland and the great tide of immigration from the Russian Pale of Settlement and Eastern Europe from 1880-1910. Elizabeth Jameson examines how Calof "writes from the interior spaces of private life, and from that vantage point, reconfigures more familiar versions of the American West." Jameson also discusses how the Calofs adapted Jewish practices to the new contingencies of North Dakota, maintaining customs that represented the core of their Jewish identity, reconstructing their "Jewishness" in new circumstances.

Why Be Jewish?


David J. Wolpe - 1995
    Wolpe addresses all who seek to enlarge the spiritual side of their lives. For those considering a return to the faith of their forebears, for those drawn to conversion, Why Be Jewish? is a learned, graceful, and welcoming introduction beckoning readers into the heart of this venerable and enduring religion.

Pirkei Avos Treasury: The Sages Guide to Living with an Anthologized Commentary & Anecdotes


Moshe Lieber - 1995
    SRS The sages guide to living with an anthologized commentary and anecdotes.

The Nineteen Letters


Samson Raphael Hirsch - 1995
    With extensive commentary by Rabbi Joseph Elias.

The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain


Benzion Netanyahu - 1995
    Its principal target was the conversos, descendants of Spanish Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity some three generations earlier. Since thousands of them confessed to charges of practicing Judaism in secret, historians have long understood the Inquisition as an attempt to suppress the Jews of Spain. In this magisterial reexamination of the origins of the Inquisition, Netanyahu argues for a different view: that the conversos were in fact almost all genuine Christians who were persecuted for political ends. The Inquisition's attacks not only on the conversos' religious beliefs but also on their "impure blood" gave birth to an anti-Semitism based on race that would have terrible consequences for centuries to come.This book has become essential reading and an indispensable reference book for both the interested layman and the scholar of history and religion.

God Was Not in the Fire


Daniel Gordis - 1995
    Rabbi Daniel Gordis, a dynamic new voice on the American Jewish scene, addresses what lies at the heart of modern Jews' frustration with Jewish life--namely, the apparent absence of spirituality in traditional Jewish expression.

The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery


Richard Elliott Friedman - 1995
    He begins with a fresh, insightful reading of the Hebrew Bible, revealing the profound mystery and significance of the disappearance of God there. Why does the God who is known through miracles and direct interaction at the beginning of the Bible gradually become hidden, leaving humans on their own by the Bible's end? How is it possible that the Bible, written over so many centuries by so many authors, depicts this diminishing visible presence of God - and the growing up of humankind - so consistently? Why has this not been common knowledge? Friedman then investigates this phenomenon's place in the formation of Judaism and Christianity.But this is not only the study of an ancient concept. Friedman turns to the forms this feeling of the disappearance of God has taken in recent times. Here, too, he focuses on a mystery: an eerie connection between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, who each independently developed the idea of the death of God.Friedman then relates all of this to a contemporary spiritual and moral ambivalence. He notes the current interest in linking discoveries in modern physics and astronomy to God and creation, reflecting a yearning for concrete answers in an age of divine hiddenness. And here the focus is on another mystery, intriguing parallels between Big Bang cosmology and the mysticism of the Kabbalah, which points to a territory in which religion and science are complementary rather than antagonistic.This inspiring work is grounded in learned research. It is a brilliantly original exploration of the Bible that also shows how the Bible is much more than "ancient history." In the Bible the hiding of the face of God is a literary and theological development, but in the twentieth century it is a spiritual crisis, and Friedman aims to apply solutions to this quandary. Moving through rich and provocative examinations of world literature, history, theology, and physics, The Disappearance of God is as readable and exciting as a good detective story, with a conclusion that offers real hope in a time of spiritual longing.

The Scepter and the Star (Anchor Bible Reference)


John J. Collins - 1995
    Recent figures in the news, such as the self-proclaimed messiah David Koresh of the Branch Davidians, and the prophetic Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, are confounding reminders of the forceful vitality of messianism in the modern world. They are also sobering indicators that contemporary society needs to take seriously and understand the messianic mind set. In "The Scepter And The Star," biblical scholar John J. Collins unearths the seeds of messianic thought in the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other ancient literature.Many of Collins's conclusions hinge on his recent discovery of profoundly important material in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1991, nearly fifty years after they were originally folind, the entire collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls was finally released to the public. Collins was one of the first scholars to examine the scrolls and realized that they contained enormously significant messianic texts. "The Scepter And The Star" Will be the first scholarly work to explore fully the impact this new evidence has on our understanding of Jewish apocalypticism and messianism. In addition, Collins examines the crucial links and similarities between Jewish and Christian models of the messiah. How did Jewish communities, living in the turbulent century before the birth of Christ, envision the end of time? Did Jewish messianic figures influence the development of the Christian Messiah? Here, in careful detail and cogerit, accessible analysis, Collins explains the birth of messianic thought and its repercussions for Jews andChristians alike in ancient--as well as modern-times.

Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic


Moshe Idel - 1995
    By applying what he calls the panoramic approach, in contrast to the existentialist approach of Buber and the historicist approach of Scholem, Idel has been able to illuminate the phenomenon of Hasidism in all its complexity and diversity. Rather than focusing on any one immediate aspect of Jewish mysticism, Idel proposes to understand Hasidism as the aggregation of multiple streams, including magic, theosophic kabbalah, and ecstatic kabbalah. By applying Idel’s orientation one can appreciate the complex fabric woven by the Hasidic masters from previous mystical sources. His book is provocative and stimulating.” ― Elliot R. Wolfson, New York University“The author succeeds in broadening our understanding of Hasidism through clarifying its relations to phenomenological models that are typical of earlier stages of Jewish mysticism. As a result of Idel’s vast knowledge of mystical and philosophical literature, he is able to demonstrate and clarify the extent that Hasidism is dependent on non-Lurianic schools of Kabbalah. Thus, Hasidism emerges as an important stage in Jewish mysticism, rather than as a mere reaction or result of historical and social forces such as Sabbatianism."Idel focuses on one of the most significant, yet little understood developments in the history of Jewish thought and religion. His close study of ecstasy and magic will be essential for all those who are in any way interested in this area.“The book is full of brilliant insights concerning the meaning of key concepts and practices in early Hasidism." ― Miles Krassen, Oberlin College

The Chassidic approach to joy


Shloma Majeski - 1995
    This genuine joy comes from profound spiritual awareness of life and an absolute clarity of direction, living for a purpose. Now with [this book] you too can explore the mystical depths of your soul as well as the universe at large, on the well-traveled path to pure, internal happiness. These lessons are presented in a clear simple language by [a] rabbi [and] lecturer on Chassidic Philosophy"--Book jacket.

The Midrash Says: The Book of Sh'mos (Volume, #2)


Moshe Weissman - 1995
    Selected and adapted from the Talmud and Midrash. All the volumes in this popular series will not fail to inspire and stimulate the reader, while providing vital information on the Parshah.

Likutey Moharan: Volume 1, Lessons 1-6


Nachman of Breslov - 1995
    With appendices of a variety of charts to assist the reader with the kabbalastic teachings found in the text. Volume 1 contains Reb Noson's introduction to the original work, short biographies of Rebbe Nachman and Reb Noson and a bibliography.

Anne Frank: A History for Today


Menno Metselaar - 1995
    Photographs, illustrations, and maps accompany historical essays, and diary excerpts, providing an insight to Anne Frank and the massive upheaval which tore apart her world.

Echoes of Glory: The Story of the Jews in the Classical Era, 350 BCE-750 CE


Berel Wein - 1995
    

The Meaning Of God In Modern Jewish Religion


Mordecai Menahem Kaplan - 1995
    This work continues to function as a central text for the Reconstructionist movement, whose influence continues to grow in American Jewry.

Jewish Roots: A Foundation of Biblical Theology


Dan Juster - 1995
    From examining God's call on Israel to Paul and the Law, Dan Juster presents a solid foundation for biblical theology that includes its Jewish Roots.

Understanding the Sick and the Healthy: A View of World, Man, and God, with a New Introduction by Hilary Putnam


Franz Rosenzweig - 1995
    An elegant introduction to Rosenzweig's "new thinking," Understanding the Sick and the Healthy was written for a lay audience and takes the form of an ironic narrative about convalescence. With superb simplicity and beauty, it puts forth an important critique of the nineteenth-century German Idealist philosophical tradition and expresses a powerful vision of Jewish religion. Harvard's Hilary Putnam provides a new introduction to this classic work for a contemporary audience."Today, more than three-quarters of a century after it was written, the critique of philosophy in this book is what makes it of such great interest. Critique of philosophy has been a central theme of twentieth-century philosophy, and many philosophers have attacked some of the targets that Rosenzweig attacked in his little book. Yet this early attack by a profound religious thinker is far more powerful and far more interesting than most."--From the new Introduction by Hilary Putnam

God at Sinai: Covenant and Theophany in the Bible and Ancient Near East


Jeffrey Jay Niehaus - 1995
    These self-disclosures are called theophanies. The pivotal theophany in Old Testament times was God's revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. So significant is this theophany in terms of God's covenant with his people and his progressive revelation that author Jeffrey J. Niehaus justifiably employs the term "Sinai theology" to convey his theme. This book explores the meaning of this theophany throughout the Old Testament -- pre-Sinai, post-Sinai (especially the prophets), and the Psalms -- and its significance for the New Testament. It also examines parallels in ancient Near Eastern traditions.

The Rabbi's Tarot: Spiritual Secrets of the Tarot


Daphne Moore - 1995
    By understanding the physical and nonphysical universe and the psychological and psychic make-up of those within it, we can be transformed and make our dreams come true. A fascinating Tarot study.

On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the New Testament


Margaret Barker - 1995
    Any serious student now needs a knowledge of the traditions of the temple. This book, a supplement to Margaret Barker's The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem, breaks further new ground, showing how the symbols and rituals of the temple shaped the lives of the early Christians, and illustrates the striking relevance of temple theology to the New Testament. The influence of the temple cult has to be reconstructed by drawing on the increasing number of non-biblical texts now available. These include those written in the early churches; fragments from among the Dead Sea Scrolls; and Jewish texts written in the early Christian period. Piece by piece the world of the temple is emerging from this material. Through this close study of the Pseudepigrapha and other non-canonical writings, Margaret Barker examines four symbols of temple theology: Light, Life, Blood, and the Robes of Glory. She shows how details missing from the Old Testament descriptions can be recovered from other ancient texts to throw new light upon many significant passages of the Bible. This is a reprint of the volume published by T. & T. Clark in 1995.

And I Shall Dwell Among Them: Historic Synagogues of the World


Neil Folberg - 1995
    But it is the building's power to evoke spirituality that comes across most forcefully in his photographs. --"New York Magazine"For nearly two millennia, from the year 70 until the founding of Israel in 1948, the Jewish people were without a homeland. But wherever they wandered in the great Diaspora they continued the tradition of building synagogues as refuge for their beliefs and testament to their strength and accomplishments as a people. And "I Shall Dwell Among Them" considers the spiritual, architectural and cultural significance of these structures. It is the first study to document the synagogues with both scholarly depth and photographic excellence.

The Shabbos Home: Vol. 1: A Comprehensive Halachic Guide to the Laws of Shabbos as They Apply Throughout Time


Simcha Bunim Cohen - 1995
    

The Unholy Bible: Hebrew Literature of the Time of David to the Beginnings of Greek Influence (1000-300 BC)


Jacob Rabinowitz - 1995
    "Rabinowitz continues his conquest of the ancient world with linguistic scholarship and common sense. His inquiries into the roots of religion and poetry carry him across oceans of bullshit to the old planet of polytheist natural psychology" ---Allen Ginsberg.

Seven Colors of the Rainbow


Yirmeyahu Bindman - 1995
    A presentation of the concepts behind the seven laws of Noah that provide the keys to a civilized world and the precepts of universal morality.

Wrestling with the Angel: Jewish Insights on Death and Mourning


Jack Riemer - 1995
    How can Jewish insights on death and dying teach the living and comfort the grieving? In this new collection, Rabbi Jack Riemer brings together the experiences and insights of people from many walks of life as they encountered the Jewish rituals of mourning and healing. This essential volume introduces and explains the traditional Jewish practices from the moment of death through the week of shiva and the year that follows. Contemporary writers talk about their rediscovery of and appreciation for Jewish customs and rituals at this time. Many explore the thoughts and feelings accompanying the commemorative rites of kaddish, yizkor, and yahrzeit. Some share new rituals created to fill a need, such as a way to mark the end of shiva, a prayer to say on lighting the yahrzeit candle, and a prayer for doctors and nurses to say upon the death of a patient. These personal reflections offer a collective outpouring of hope and support from those who have experienced loss. Jewish teachings are also brought to bear on contemporary problems not addressed directly by the tradition: Do we have the right to hasten the process of dying? How do we mourn the stillborn child? What does the Jewish tradition have to say about an afterlife? How does the knowledge of the certainty of death affect the way we live? A timely chorus of voices on a perennially timely issue, Wrestling with the Angel provides both guidance and solace from the wisdom of a caring community.

Opening the Inner Gates: New Paths in Kabbalah and Psychology


Edward Hoffman - 1995
    In recent years, a growing number of people—both Jews and non-Jews—are finding the Kabbalah to be a fascinating treasure house of wisdom about the human mind. Men and women are discovering and applying Jewish mystical insights in daily life, and professionals in such fields as psychology, psychotherapy, and medicine are actively using Kabbalah in their work.  Opening the Inner Gates is an anthology concerning these new explorations. In sixteen chapters, thirteen contributors present both theoretical considerations and applied methods of Kabbalah in such areas as healing, the mind-body relationship, dreamwork, intuition and creativity, storytelling, women's spirituality, parenting, working with the elderly, and "repairing the world" (tikkun olam).  Contributors:LaVera Draisin, MD • Gerald Epstein, MD • Sheldon Kramer, PhD • Rabbi Steven Rosman, PhD • Edward Hoffman, PhD • Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi • Steven Joseph, MD • Howard Schwartz • Rabbi Chaim Richter • Alyce R. Tresenfeld • Mark Malachi • Rabbi Rami Shapiro • Laya Firestone Seghi

A Jewish Colonel in the Civil War: Marcus M. Spiegel of the Ohio Volunteers


Marcus M. Spiegel - 1995
    He saw action in Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, where he was fatally wounded in May 1864. These letters to Caroline, his wife, reveal the traumatizing experience of a soldier and the constant concern of a husband and father.

Yiddishe Kop: Creative Problem Solving in Jewish Learning, Lore, and Humor


Nilton Bonder - 1995
    With their long history of persecution, they've developed a knack for escaping seemingly hopeless predicaments: when your back is against the wall, you learn to think fast. Centuries of reasoning and interpreting the Holy Scriptures have also contributed to the Jews' skill in solving the most puzzling problems. This astute way of thinking is known in Yiddish as yiddishe kop , literally "Jewish head." Through Jewish humor, folklore, and tales of the great rabbis, Rabbi Nilton Bonder presents the basic principles of this creative approach to thinking, which sees beyond appearances to the hidden truth of any problem. Once these are mastered, they may in turn be applied to many "impossible" situations that arise in business and in life. The book focuses on four levels of solving a problem:    1.  On the level of Information, we approach problems literally, in response to the obvious and the concrete.    2.  On the level of Understanding, we obtain concealed information through techniques such as questioning, reframing, and emptying the mind.    3.  On the level of Wisdom, we access the world of intuition, where a "fool" can achieve the impossible by relying on feelings, premonitions, dreams, and coincidences.    4.  On the level of Reverence, we discover the hidden Reality behind appearances. This is the realm of those who dare to take risks, make commitments, and learn from mistakes, who act out of their living experience without relying solely on reason and conceptual thinking.

To Heal the Soul: The Spiritual Journal of a Chasidic Rebbe


Kalonymus Kalman Shapira - 1995
    Those rebbes who did choose to put pen to paper tended to write expositions on biblical or rabbinical texts, and in many cases it was their students and followers who copied down their teachings. Thus the modern reader is left with works that tend to be impersonal, esoteric, and often complex. The journal of Rabbi Shapira is unique in its use of first-person narrative to relay the inner thoughts, fears, and struggles of this bold leader as he responds to the pains of life. It offers guidelines for spiritual progress and several meditations based on an active imagination. Rabbi Shapira tells us that the purpose of this work is to bequeath a journal of his personal struggles and triumphs to posterity. Some entries are indeed very revealing; the Rebbe is not afraid to disclose his moments of self-doubt, his anger, his fears, and his fervent hope that his soul will remain strong as his body grows old. The more one reads of Rabbi Shapira's journal, the more insight and inspiration one will glean from its message. Young and old will find personal, spiritual guidance in these pages and be able to reap from the maternal fulfillment.

The Soloveitchik Heritage: A Daughter's Memoir


Shulamit Soloveitchik Meiselman - 1995
    Among the scions of this illustrious family was the man known familiarly to thousands as the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, kmz, who served for more than forty years as the preeminent authority of centrist Orthodoxy. This memoir by his daughter, Shulamit Soloveitchik Meiselman, describes the life of the family of Rabbi Moses Soloveitchik before they emigrated to the United States in order to allow Rabbi Moses to assume a post at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Rabbinical School of Yeshiva College and until his life was tragically cut short and he was succeeded by his son, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. She also recounts the story of the family's antecedents, its connection with R. Hayyim of Volozhin and the Volozhiner Yeshiva, as well as those of her mother's family, the Feinsteins, of whom R. Moshe Feinstein, ztl, was an eminent representative. This daughter's eye view, which contains many personal glimpses of the family's life over a period of almost forty years, will be of great interest to anyone studying the history of this preeminent family and the history of Eastern European and American Jewry in the nineteenth and twentieth century, as well as rabbinic life on both continents. The book contains twelve pages of family photographs and memorabilia.

No Other Gods: The Continuing Struggle Against Idolatry


Kenneth Seeskin - 1995
    While the nature of the temptation has changed over the years, idolatry is as much a threat today as it was in our ancestors' time. Today, we face the lures of a material society. For many of us, our careers expand at the expense of our personal lives. Seeskin looks at turning points in Jewish history to demonstrate how Judaism can respond to the modern threat of idolatry. The example of our forebears can help us confront today's temptations--and preserve the holiness in our lives.