"In most cases references to God are in gender-neutral language. The Tetragammaton, the unpronounceable four-letter name for the Divine, appears in this translation in unvocalized Hebrew to convey that the Name is something totally "other" - beyond translation, gender, speech, and understanding. In some instances, however, male imagery depicting God is preserved because it reflects biblical society's view of gender roles."--BOOK JACKET.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe's mystical teachings on the weekly Torah portions are widely studied by students and admirers around the world. The Rebbe saw the weekly Torah portion as an inexhaustible source of new ideas, insight into current issues, and profound relevance for daily life. He urged his followers, as well as everyone who came into contact with him, to seek daily inspiration from studying the Torah.This second volume of DAILY WISDOM, in the tradition of the highly acclaimed first volume of DAILY WISDOM, presents these daily inspirations in a clear, user-friendly format. Like its predecessor, this volume comprises 378 daily lessons, each of which offers a taste of the Rebbe's vast and deep teachings, filled with love for humanity, pragmatic optimism, and the conviction that evil and negativity will disappear when we learn to emphasize goodness and kindness. These ideas are woven together throughout the book, resulting in a precious daily resource that will enrich and elevate the lives of all readers.
In this second volume of his long-anticipated five-volume collection of parashat hashavua commentaries, Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks explores these intersections as they relate to universal concerns of freedom, love, responsibility, identity, and destiny. Chief Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy, and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under Gods sovereignty. Erudite and eloquent, Covenant Conversation allows us to experience Chief Rabbi Sacks sophisticated approach to life lived in an ongoing dialogue with the Torah.
Through the magnificent literary, scholarly, and psychological analysis of the text that is her trademark, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg tackles the enduring puzzlement of the book of Numbers. What should have been for the Israelites a brief journey from Mount Sinai to the Holy Land becomes a forty-year death march. Both before and after the devastating report of the Spies, the narrative centers on the people's desire to return to slavery in Egypt. At its heart are speeches of complaint and lament. But in the narrative of the book of Numbers that is found in mystical and Hasidic sources, the generation of the wilderness emerges as one of extraordinary spiritual experience, fed on miracles and nurtured directly by God: a generation of ecstatic faith, human partners in an unprecedented conversation with the Deity. Drawing on kabbalistic sources, the Hasidic commentators depict a people who transcend prudent considerations in order to follow God into the wilderness, where their spiritual yearning comes to full expression. Is there a way to integrate this narrative of dark murmurings, of obsessive fantasies of a return to Egypt, with the celebration of a love-intoxicated wilderness discourse? What effect does the cumulative trauma of slavery, the miracles of Exodus, and the revelation at Sinai have on a nation that is beginning to speak? In Bewilderments, one of our most admired biblical commentators suggests fascinating answers to these questions.
Selected discourses from the founder of the Chabad Chasidic philosophys great works: Torah Ohr and Likkutei Torah. This bi-lingual, Hebrew/English, rendition focuses on Rabbi Schneur Zalmans insights on the festivals. It has been the custom for Chasidim to study the discourses in Torah Ohr and Likkutei Torah, affectionately known as the "Chasidic Parsha," weekly and at festival time.
Confidently navigating the ancient wilderness, master educator Erica Brown guides readers through the tumultuous events of the book of Numbers in search of the key to successful leadership. How might a leader overcome unrest? How to contend with external challenges and internal doubts? And how to rekindle the faith of a people who have all but given up? Bringing together Bible and commentary, literature and philosophy, travelogues and corporate manuals, Leadership in the Wilderness presents a guide to good government, as relevant today as it was three thousand years ago.
The groundbreaking volume The Torah: A Women's Commentary, originally published by URJ Press and Women of Reform Judaism, has been awarded the top prize in the oldest Jewish literary award program, the 2008 National Jewish Book Awards. A work of great import, the volume is the result of 14 years of planning, research, and fundraising. THE HISTORY: At the 39th Women of Reform Judaism Assembly in San Francisco, Cantor Sarah Sager challenged Women of Reform Judaism delegates to "imagine women feeling permitted, for the first time, feeling able, feeling legitimate in their study of Torah." WRJ accepted that challenge. The Torah: A Women's Commentary was introduced at the Union for Reform Judaism 69th Biennial Convention in San Diego in December 2007. WRJ has commissioned the work of the world's leading Jewish female Bible scholars, rabbis, historians, philosophers and archaeologists. Their collective efforts resulted in the first comprehensive commentary, authored only by women, on the Five Books of Moses, including individual Torah portions as well as the Hebrew and English translation. The Torah: A Women's Commentary gives dimension to the women's voices in our tradition. Under the skillful leadership of editors Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea Weiss, PhD, this commentary provides insight and inspiration for all who study Torah: men and women, Jew and non-Jew. As Dr. Eskenazi has eloquently stated, "we want to bring the women of the Torah from the shadow into the limelight, from their silences into speech, from the margins to which they have often been relegated to the center of the page - for their sake, for our sake and for our children's sake." Published by CCAR Press, a division of the Central Conference of American Rabbis
