Showing titles in Judaism

They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of "the 400," a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds.

"You shall be holy," teaches the Bible. The masters of the Jewish Mussar tradition have crafted a roadmap to help people approach that lofty goal. Mussar is a system of introspective practices that can help you identify and break through the obstacles to your inherent holiness, using methods that are easy to integrate into daily life. Every Day, Holy Day is an essential companion for anyone who wants to experience the life-changing gifts of Mussar.

In September 1984, Lisa Paul, an American college student and nanny living in Moscow, entered Inna Meiman’s house for her first Russian language lesson. And so began a two–year friendship and a fight for Inna’s life. In Swimming in the Daylight, Lisa chronicles her friend’s struggle to shed her refusenik status, obtain a visa to America, and find medical treatment for her malignant cancer. Inna endured a perverse reality as a citizen of the Soviet Union....

In the eight-part series Discovering Genesis, the late David Neiman, professor of Jewish theology at Boston College, expertly guides you through the book's first chapters - from the story of creation to the Tower of Babel - to examine how the Biblical writers grappled with the fundamental questions and mysteries of the shared human experience: Where do we come from? Who are we? What makes us different? How did civilization come about? Why do we die?

Influential Jewish scholars have discovered that Jews in the times of Jesus believed in a heavenly second power who would bring the kingdom of God to earth. The writers of the New Testament understood that this second power in heaven was Jesus Christ, the awaited Messiah. After the destruction of the 2nd Temple, Jews who believed that there were two powers in heaven were deemed heretical and banished from the synagogue. Yet this belief is foundational to the New Testament.

Throughout history, the Jewish people have faced catastrophe after catastrophe. They have been expelled, ghettoised, murdered and forcibly converted. The question that Jonathan Sacks asks in this original and compelling book is not how Judaism survived four thousand years of persecution, but how it found ways to flourish and thrive. Originally written as a wedding gift for his son over twenty years ago, now featuring a new foreword by Natan Sharansky, this revised edition is a reminder of the enduring beauty and wisdom of one of the world’s oldest religions.

American culture focuses on letting go of grudges and redemption narratives instead of the perpetrator’s obligations or recompense for harmed parties. As survivor communities have pointed out, these emphases have too often only caused more harm. But Danya Ruttenberg knew there was a better model, rooted in the work of the medieval philosopher Maimonides. For Maimonides, upon whose work Ruttenberg elaborates, forgiveness is much less important than the repair work to which the person who caused harm is obligated.

Renowned critic and translator Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative has radically expanded our view of the Bible by recasting it as a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In this seminal work, Alter describes how the Hebrew Bible’s many authors used innovative literary styles and devices such as parallelism, contrastive dialogue, and narrative tempo to tell one of the most revolutionary stories of all time: the revelation of a single God. In so doing, Alter shows, these writers reshaped not only history, but also the art of storytelling itself.

Derech Hashem (The Way of God) is a philosophical text written in the early 1740s by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. It is considered one of the quintessential handbooks of Jewish thought. The text covers a vast gamut of philosophical topics in the vast spectrum of classical Judaism's outlook on the world. These topics include the purpose of creation, the Creator, human responsibility, the spiritual realms, providence, Israel and the nations, astrology, the human soul, theurgy, prophecy, the study of Torah, prayer, and the function of mitzvah observance.

Where would the Jewish people be without the discernment and wisdom of Jewish women - qualities they possess far in excess of men? Time and again, holy text and real-life experience prove this.

Based, in part, on Rabbi Sacks’s collection of columns in the UK's Times newspaper, Celebrating Life is a series of reflections on subjects such as morality, friendship, listening to others and giving thanks. It also talks about topics such as being a parent, finding and losing one’s faith and most of all, finding happiness. In Celebrating Life, Rabbi Sacks discovers where happiness lives, often in unexpected places, through family, community, friendship and responsibilities. He also finds it through a renewed relationship with God who spoke to his deepest needs.

With a foreword written and read by HRH The Prince of Wales, Patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust 'A stunningly moving book about the power of hope and love to overcome the very worst of mankind' Piers Morgan When Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert was liberated in 1945, a Jewish-American...

Always with Me is more than a memoir about my teacher. It is both an exposition of a spiritual path and an intimate account of a great kabbalist; it details the formation and evolution of the relationship and joint study of a teacher and his devoted disciple. Through a profound bond, conflicts, assistance, and rejections, devotion, protests, ascents, and descents, the teacher imbued in me the wisdom of Kabbalah. Rabash was the standard-bearer, the last in a line of spiritual giants dedicated to conveying the secret wisdom to humankind.

Charlotte Beradt began having unsettling dreams after Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. She envisioned herself being shot at, tortured and scalped, surrounded by Nazis in disguise, and breathlessly fleeing across fields with storm troopers at her heels. Shaken by these nightmares and banned as a Jew from working, she began secretly collecting dreams from her friends and neighbors, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Disguising these "diaries of the night" in code and concealing them in the spines of books from her extensive library, she smuggled them out of the country one by one.

The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view?

The Vision of Enoch the Righteous is largely a forgotten first-century text, not being connected to any of the numbered versions of the Book of Enoch. It is part of a tradition referred to as Apocalyptic Literature. The content of The Vision of Enoch the Righteous alternates between the voice of Enoch and that of a chorus of cherubim, who have descended from heaven, in order to deliver a message to Enoch. Includes a prologue discussing the text.

Simple Kabbalah shows how to bring esoteric knowledge into everyday life. Scholar Kim Zetter presents a brief history of ancient kabbalistic beliefs, explaining key tenets and the main symbol, the Tree of Life. Meditations and exercises help listeners learn to use kabbalah to calm the mind, sharpen awareness, and improve relationships.

Beyond the familiar lions' den and fiery furnace, much of the book of Daniel seems baffling to modern readers. The first half recounts stories full of ancient Near Eastern protocol and imperial court drama; the second half features apocalyptic visions of monstrous beasts and cosmic conflict. Many Christians misunderstand or simply avoid the book. But failing to read Daniel well means missing a critical part of God's message to us.

David, a much older man now, sits on his verandah with his old friend, Nguni, as they reminisce on the good old days. Not having seen each other in almost 50 years, there is much news to tell, many stories to laugh at, and some sorrows to reflect on. Based on an untold true story, this book brings the Langbourne family's saga to its conclusion.

The Holocaust is the defining event of the twentieth century and perhaps all of modern history. Yet for too long, we have ignored the vital question of how and why such a monstrous event could have happened at all. Now, in How Could This Happen, historian Dan McMillan distills the existing Holocaust research into a cogent explanation of the genocide’s causes, revealing how a once progressive society like Germany could commit murder on such a massive scale.