Author: Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
ISBN: 1948626667
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 140
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Book Description
"Judaism Without Tribalism is a blessing, a much-needed challenge, and a deep well of wisdom and sanity." —Natalie Goldberg This book investigates Judaism at its best—and sanest. It strips away outdated and harmful beliefs that have accrued over the centuries and returns to the essential truths that are too-often ignored in favor of tradition, tribal identity, or the claims of the powerful. The result is a vibrant Judaism for the 21st century and beyond—a Judaism that draws deeply from history and scripture yet addresses the unmet needs of the present and the future. It is a Judaism that is open and accessible to everyone. Judaism without tribalism is a call to be a light unto the nations, and a blessing to all the people of the earth. It is a Judaism free from legalism and tribalism—a Judaism that refuses to serve patriarchy and power. Written by one of today's most respected—and most unconventional—Jewish thinkers, Judaism Without Tribalism is a manifesto, an invitation to completeness, and a call for inner and outer spiritual revolution. It is also a deeply practical guide to living authentically, breath by breath and day by day.
Author: Douglas Rushkoff
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1400049563
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201
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Book Description
Acclaimed writer and thinker Douglas Rushkoff, author of Ecstasy Club and Coercion, has written perhaps the most important—and controversial—book on Judaism in a generation. As the religion stands on the brink of becoming irrelevant to the very people who look to it for answers, Nothing Sacred takes aim at its problems and offers startling and clearheaded solutions based on Judaism’s core values and teachings. Disaffected by their synagogues’ emphasis on self-preservation and obsession with intermarriage, most Jews looking for an intelligent inquiry into the nature of spirituality have turned elsewhere, or nowhere. Meanwhile, faced with the chaos of modern life, returnees run back to Judaism with a blind and desperate faith and are quickly absorbed by outreach organizations that—in return for money—offer compelling evidence that God exists, that the Jews are, indeed, the Lord’s “chosen people,” and that those who adhere to this righteous path will never have to ask themselves another difficult question again. Ironically, the texts and practices making up Judaism were designed to avoid just such a scenario. Jewish tradition stresses transparency, open-ended inquiry, assimilation of the foreign, and a commitment to conscious living. Judaism invites inquiry and change. It is an “open source” tradition—one born out of revolution, committed to evolution, and willing to undergo renaissance at a moment’s notice. But, unfortunately, some of the very institutions created to protect the religion and its people are now suffocating them. If the Jewish tradition is actually one of participation in the greater culture, a willingness to wrestle with sacred beliefs, and a refusal to submit blindly to icons that just don’t make sense to us, then the “lapsed” Jews may truly be our most promising members. Why won’t they engage with the synagogue, and how can they be made to feel more welcome? Nothing Sacred is a bold and brilliant book, attempting to do nothing less than tear down our often false preconceptions about Judaism and build in their place a religion made relevant for the future. From the Hardcover edition.
Author: Rami M. Shapiro
Publisher: Harmony/Bell Tower
ISBN: 9780517799666
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Advice for those seeking to deepen and build their relationship with God.
Author: David L. Lieberman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666758663
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 117
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Book Description
Is it really possible to connect with God? Can we find spirituality in Judaism? The answer to both these questions is yes. Traditionally, Judaism teaches that we connect with God through the performance of the commandments, the mitzvot (from the Aramaic word tzavta meaning connection). But what if we are not mitzvah-observant in the traditional ways? Can we still experience a palpable closeness to God and have a sense that we are all connected as one? To this question, our sages also answer yes. Through the meditative quieting of the mind, we can directly experience that "still small voice." It is the awesome voice of infinite intelligence that created and upholds our world with compassion and justice. When we repeatedly experience it, we enliven its qualities into our lives; we "walk in God's ways." When we do so, we uplift not only ourselves, but the world around us.
Author: Anson Hugh Laytner
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666770507
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 143
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Book Description
A wave of disease and death in his immediate family led Rabbi Anson Laytner to question much of what he had learned about the meaning of suffering, the value of petitionary prayer, and the role of God in human life. As he struggled to deal with his grief and doubts, he gradually found a way forward. His spiritual healing process took him from intense grief to a renewed appreciation of life—and resulted in this book, a work of creative theology some eighteen years in the making. Choosing Life After Tragedy is written for people who struggle with the subjects of suffering, divine providence, God, and prayer; people who are looking for honest, thoughtful, provocative—and occasionally humorous—theological reflections, but no easy answers. Laytner intersperses his penetrating theological reflections with pertinent episodes from his life because, for him, theology is personal and experience-based. Trained as a liberal rabbi, Laytner riffs on Jewish themes to offer a universal message of hope in the face of suffering and loss, and of mutual support based on humanity’s various teachings of lovingkindness. This book will challenge you; it will sometimes amuse you; but you will not remain unmoved.
Author: Joyce Antler
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479802549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 462
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Book Description
Finalist, 2019 PROSE Award in Biography, given by the Association of American Publishers Fifty years after the start of the women’s liberation movement, a book that at last illuminates the profound impact Jewishness and second-wave feminism had on each other Jewish women were undeniably instrumental in shaping the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Yet historians and participants themselves have overlooked their contributions as Jews. This has left many vital questions unasked and unanswered—until now. Delving into archival sources and conducting extensive interviews with these fierce pioneers, Joyce Antler has at last broken the silence about the confluence of feminism and Jewish identity. Antler’s exhilarating new book features dozens of compelling biographical narratives that reveal the struggles and achievements of Jewish radical feminists in Chicago, New York and Boston, as well as those who participated in the later, self-consciously identified Jewish feminist movement that fought gender inequities in Jewish religious and secular life. Disproportionately represented in the movement, Jewish women’s liberationists helped to provide theories and models for radical action that were used throughout the United States and abroad. Their articles and books became classics of the movement and led to new initiatives in academia, politics, and grassroots organizing. Other Jewish-identified feminists brought the women’s movement to the Jewish mainstream and Jewish feminism to the Left. For many of these women, feminism in fact served as a “portal” into Judaism. Recovering this deeply hidden history, Jewish Radical Feminism places Jewish women’s activism at the center of feminist and Jewish narratives. The stories of over forty women’s liberationists and identified Jewish feminists—from Shulamith Firestone and Susan Brownmiller to Rabbis Laura Geller and Rebecca Alpert—illustrate how women’s liberation and Jewish feminism unfolded over the course of the lives of an extraordinary cohort of women, profoundly influencing the social, political, and religious revolutions of our era.
Author: David Radin
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
ISBN: 1948626683
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 101
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Book Description
A Temporary Affair is a collection of talks given at Sunday morning sittings at the Ithaca Zen Center by Yoshin David Radin, abbot and founder of the Ithaca Zen Center for the past 40 years. The talks contained here were given at a time when Yoshin’s health was severely compromised by end stage renal failure. In February 2019, he received a kidney transplant from a member of Ithaca Zen Center, to whom the publication is dedicated. The collection of 31 talks contains the insight of the individual dharma talks themselves, as well as the underlying story of how the dharma teachings helped the author cope, and even thrive, with his continuing loss of kidney function. The talks go right up to the days before he was admitted to the hospital. The comfort and guidance he received from the dharma during the times when he was most ill have been a great inspiration to all who know him, as they will to readers. In his own words, “How extraordinary, how blessed, how wonderful, to have met the teachings that free us from suffering when in difficult places.” Through these talks the reader can clearly see how he put that wisdom to use in his own life situation, and how they can do so as well.
Author: Ruth Pearl
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1580234895
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 412
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Book Description
Being Jewish. What does it mean—today—and for the future? Listen in as Jews of all backgrounds reflect, argue, and imagine. When Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered in Pakistan, many Jews were particularly touched by his last words affirming his Jewish identity. Many were moved to reflect on or analyze their feelings toward their lives as Jews. The saying "two Jews, three opinions" well reflects the Jewish community's broad range of views on any topic. I Am Jewish captures this richness of interpretation and inspires Jewish people of all backgrounds to reflect upon and take pride in their identity. Contributions, ranging from major essays to a paragraph or a sentence, come from adults as well as young people in the form of personal feelings, statements of theology, life stories, and historical reflections. Despite the diversity, common denominators shine through clearly and distinctly. Contributors include: Ehud Barak • Sylvia Boorstein • Edgar M. Bronfman • Alan Colmes • Alan Dershowitz • Kirk Douglas • Richard Dreyfuss • Kitty Dukakis • Dianne Feinstein • Tovah Feldshuh • Debbie Friedman • Milton Friedman • Thomas L. Friedman • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Nadine Gordimer • David Hartman • Moshe Katsav • Larry King • Francine Klagsbrun • Harold Kushner • Lawrence Kushner • Shia LaBeouf • Norman Lamm • Norman Lear • Julius Lester • Bernard-Henri Lévy • Bernard Lewis • Daniel Libeskind • Joe Lieberman • Deborah E. Lipstadt • Joshua Malina • Michael Medved • Ruth W. Messinger • Amos Oz • Cynthia Ozick • Shimon Peres • Martin Peretz • Dennis Prager • Anne Roiphe • Sandy Eisenberg Sasso • Vidal Sassoon • Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi • Daniel Schorr • Harold M. Schulweis • Lynn Schusterman • Natan Sharansky • Gary Shteyngart • Sarah Silverman • Michael H. Steinhardt • Kerri Strug • Lawrence H. Summers • Mike Wallace • Elie Wiesel • Leon Wieseltier • Sherwin T. Wine • Ruth R. Wisse • Peter Yarrow • A. B. Yehoshua • Eric H. Yoffie
Author: Eric L. Goldstein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691207283
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
What has it meant to be Jewish in a nation preoccupied with the categories of black and white? The Price of Whiteness documents the uneasy place Jews have held in America's racial culture since the late nineteenth century. The book traces Jews' often tumultuous encounter with race from the 1870s through World War II, when they became vested as part of America's white mainstream and abandoned the practice of describing themselves in racial terms. American Jewish history is often told as a story of quick and successful adaptation, but Goldstein demonstrates how the process of identifying as white Americans was an ambivalent one, filled with hard choices and conflicting emotions for Jewish immigrants and their children. Jews enjoyed a much greater level of social inclusion than African Americans, but their membership in white America was frequently made contingent on their conformity to prevailing racial mores and on the eradication of their perceived racial distinctiveness. While Jews consistently sought acceptance as whites, their tendency to express their own group bonds through the language of "race" led to deep misgivings about what was required of them. Today, despite the great success Jews enjoy in the United States, they still struggle with the constraints of America's black-white dichotomy. The Price of Whiteness concludes that while Jews' status as white has opened many doors for them, it has also placed limits on their ability to assert themselves as a group apart.
Author: Leon Rosselson
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 1629633984
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 38
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Book Description
“For my parents and grandparents, Jewish identity, in religion, culture and language, was a given. Not so for me. I’m not religious, not a Zionist, so in what consists my Jewishness? Is a love of chopped liver and a belief that chicken soup cures all ills enough? And does it matter? This is the story of my search for answers. It is an argument with myself, with song lyrics to embellish the argument.” Like so many of those others in Britain of Jewish lineage, songwriter and award-winning folk singer Leon Rosselson is descended from antecedents who fled pogroms in eastern Europe. Pertinently, he questions what being a Jew means—is it adherence to Judaism as a religion, an ethnicity, a citizen of Israel, or someone who eats “chicken soup with knedlach”? He describes clearly and with historical insight how any concept of “Jewishness” can involve all of those things and more. In his own life, he has decided to pick and choose from this tradition and history and build on what he deems to be the progressive, humane, and universalist values of that Jewish background. Rosselson is a strong supporter of Palestinian rights, seeing in the victimization of Palestinians by the state of Israel parallels with historical Jewish persecution. He concludes this short essay by stating: “I share with the growing number of Jews in the diaspora who place solidarity with the oppressed above demands of tribalism and with those in Israel who dare to stand against the powers that be.”
