From the beloved author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, deeply moving and illuminating reflections on what it means to live a good life. As a congregational rabbi for half a century and the best-selling author of twelve books on faith, ethics, and how to apply the timeless wisdom of religious thought to everyday challenges, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner has demonstrated time and again his understanding of the human spirit. In this compassionate new work, his most personal since When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Kushner relates how his time as a twenty-first-century rabbi has shaped his senses of religion and morality. He elicits nine essential lessons from the sum of his teaching, study, and experience, offering a lifetime’s worth of spiritual food for thought, pragmatic advice, inspiration for a more fulfilling life, and strength for trying times. With fresh, vital insight into belief (“there is no commandment in Judaism to believe in God”), conscience (the Garden of Eden story as you’ve never heard it), and mercy (forgiveness is “a favor you do yourself, not an undeserved gesture to the person who hurt you”), grounded in Kushner's brilliant readings of Scripture, history, and popular culture, Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life is compulsory reading from one of modern Judaism’s foremost sages. Distilling the wisdom of an extraordinary career, this profoundly inspiring yet practical guide to well-being is truly the capstone to Kushner’s luminous oeuvre.

Product Description: Jewish art has always been with us, but so has a broader canvas of Jewish imaginings: in thought, in emotion, in text, and in ritual practice. Imagining the Jewish God was there in the beginning, as it were, engraved and embedded in the ways Jews lived and responded to their God...read more

Product Description: Kabbalah and Ecology is a groundbreaking book that resets the conversation about ecology and the Abrahamic traditions. David Mevorach Seidenberg challenges the anthropocentric reading of the Torah, showing that a radically different orientation to the more-than-human world of nature is not only possible, but that it also leads to a more accurate interpretation of scripture, rabbinic texts, Maimonides, and Kabbalah...read more

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was a prolific scholar, impassioned theologian, and prominent activist who participated in the black civil rights movement and the campaign against the Vietnam War. He has been hailed as a hero, honored as a visionary, and endlessly quoted as a devotional writer. In this sympathetic, yet critical, examination, Shai Held elicits the overarching themes and unity of Heschel’s incisive and insightful thought. Focusing on the idea of transcendence―or the movement from self-centeredness to God-centeredness―Held puts Heschel into dialogue with contemporary Jewish thinkers, Christian theologians, devotional writers, and philosophers of religion.

Product Description: Moshe Idel, the Max Cooper Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Senior Researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute, is a world-renowned scholar of the Jewish mystical tradition. His historical and phenomenological studies of rabbinic, philosophic, kabbalistic, and Hasidic texts have transformed modern understanding of Jewish intellectual history and highlighted the close relationship between magic, mysticism, and liturgy...read more

Product Description: Eugene B. Borowitz is Sigmund L. Falk Distinguished Professor of Education and Jewish Religious Thought at Hebrew Union College in New York. A rabbi, teacher of rabbis, and a theologian, Borowitz has been an important spokesperson for non-Orthodox forms of Judaism, Reform Judaism in particular...read more

Product Description: This study pioneers the use of philosophy of religion in the study of the Hebrew Bible. After identifying the need for a legitimate philosophical approach to Israelite religion, the volume traces the history of interdisciplinary relations and shows how descriptive varieties of philosophy of religion can aid the clarification of the Hebrew Bibles own metaphysical, epistemological, and moral assumptions...read more

Product Description: In Knowledge of God and the Development of Early Kabbalah, Jonathan Dauber offers a fresh consideration of the emergence of Kabbalah against the backdrop of a re-evaluation of the relationship between Kabbalistic and philosophic discourse.

Product Description: Exploring the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and other rabbinic writings, the Rabbi Timoner uncovers surprising insights about how God as spirit influences Jewish ideas of creation, revelation, and redemption. Written with an accessible and engaging voice, full of stories and relevant teachings, Breath of Life speaks to lay readers and scholars alike, as it pursues a new perspective on Judaism’s sacred texts...read more

Product Description: The biggest stumbling block when it comes to religion is God, even for an ordained rabbi who admits her rational mind "just can't buy into a God in the sky who writes down our deeds and rewards and punishes us accordingly." But not being sold on an intervening God shouldn't bar you from living a vibrant and fulfilling Jewish life...read more

Product Description: James Diamond's new book consists of a series of studies addressing Moses Maimonides' (1138–1204) appropriation of marginal figures—lepers, converts, heretics, and others—normally considered on the fringes of society and religion...read more

Product Description: This warm, inspiring look at the Jewish holidays—by one of the most dynamic and accessible teachers of Jewish thought today—shows us how each holy day empowers us to recognize God's loving presence in our life every day. There are many books that discuss how to celebrate the holidays; Inviting God In explains why we should celebrate...read more

Product Description: What does Martin Buber mean, in I and Thou, by the claim that the one thing that matters is full acceptance of presence? An attempt to answer this question led the author on a journey of exploration through Buber's early writings, to reach a clarification of Buber's predialogical concept of God...read more

Product Description: This book explores the enigma surrounding the usage of the root spt, to provide a clearer understanding of the title sopet, and how Yahweh could be called sopet. Past research shows that several scholars have argued against assigning spt (or its cognates) the basic meaning "to judge...read more

Product Description: Idolatry is not just the worship of idols and clay figures. 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...read more

Considers the role and representation of women in polytheistic religions and compares it with the treatment of women in the Judeo-Christian scheme of beliefs. Original.

Meeting a new man reawakens the tender feelings a young woman has kept locked away since the end of a previous unhappy relationship, but the return of her former lover forces her to make a crucial decision