Safed Spirituality

Safed Spirituality

Author: Lawrence Fine

Publisher: Paulist Press

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780809126125

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Gathers sixteenth-century writings about ethics, mysticism, and Jewish spirituality by some of the many teachers in the Galilean community of Safed.


Do Better

Do Better

Author: Rachel Ricketts

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-02-02

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1982151293

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INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER San Francisco Chronicle’s 10 Books to Pick * HelloGiggles’ 10 Books to Pick Up for a Better 2021 * PopSugar’s 23 Exciting New Books * Book Riot’s 12 Essential Books About Black Identity and History * Harper’s Bazaar’s 60+ Books You Need to Read in 2021 “A clear, powerful, direct, wise, and extremely helpful treatise on how to combat and heal from the ubiquitous violence of white supremacy” (Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author) from thought leader, racial justice educator, and acclaimed spiritual activist Rachel Ricketts. Do Better is a revolutionary offering that addresses racial justice from a comprehensive, intersectional, and spirit-based perspective. This actionable guidebook illustrates how to engage in the heart-centered and mindfulness-based practices that will help us all fight white supremacy from the inside out, in our personal lives and communities alike. It is a loving and assertive call to do the deep—and often uncomfortable—inner work that precipitates much-needed external and global change. Filled with carefully curated soulcare activities—such as guided meditations and transformative breathwork—“Do Better answers prayers that many have prayed. Do Better offers a bold possibility for change and healing. Do Better offers a deeply sacred choice that we must all make at such a time as this” (Iyanla Vanzant, New York Times bestselling author).


White Utopias

White Utopias

Author: Amanda J. Lucia

Publisher: University of California Press

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0520376951

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Transformational festivals, from Burning Man to Lightning in a Bottle, Bhakti Fest, and Wanderlust, are massive events that attract thousands of participants to sites around the world. In this groundbreaking book, Amanda J. Lucia shows how these festivals operate as religious institutions for “spiritual, but not religious” (SBNR) communities. Whereas previous research into SBNR practices and New Age religion has not addressed the predominantly white makeup of these communities, White Utopias examines the complicated, often contradictory relationships with race at these events, presenting an engrossing ethnography of SBNR practices. Lucia contends that participants create temporary utopias through their shared commitments to spiritual growth and human connection. But they also participate in religious exoticism by adopting Indigenous and Indic spiritualities, a practice that ultimately renders them exclusive, white utopias. Focusing on yoga’s role in disseminating SBNR values, Lucia offers new ways of comprehending transformational festivals as significant cultural phenomena.


A Year in White

A Year in White

Author: C. Lynn Carr

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2016-01-19

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0813572665

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In the Afro-Cuban Lukumi religious tradition—more commonly known in the United States as Santería—entrants into the priesthood undergo an extraordinary fifty-three-week initiation period. During this time, these novices—called iyawo—endure a host of prohibitions, including most notably wearing exclusively white clothing. In A Year in White, sociologist C. Lynn Carr, who underwent this initiation herself, opens a window on this remarkable year-long religious transformation. In her intimate investigation of the “year in white,” Carr draws on fifty-two in-depth interviews with other participants, an online survey of nearly two hundred others, and almost a decade of her own ethnographic fieldwork, gathering stories that allow us to see how cultural newcomers and natives thought, felt, and acted with regard to their initiation. She documents how, during the iyawo year, the ritual slowly transforms the initiate’s identity. For the first three months, for instance, the iyawo may not use a mirror, even to shave, and must eat all meals while seated on a mat on the floor using only a spoon and their own set of dishes. During the entire year, the iyawo loses their name and is simply addressed as “iyawo” by family and friends. Carr also shows that this year-long religious ritual—which is carried out even as the iyawo goes about daily life—offers new insight into religion in general, suggesting that the sacred is not separable from the profane and indeed that religion shares an ongoing dynamic relationship with the realities of everyday life. Religious expression happens at home, on the streets, at work and school. Offering insight not only into Santería but also into religion more generally, A Year in White makes an important contribution to our understanding of complex, dynamic religious landscapes in multicultural, pluralist societies and how they inhabit our daily lives.


Minor White

Minor White

Author: Paul Martineau

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1606063227

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Controversial, misunderstood, and sometimes overlooked, Minor White (1908–1976) is one of the great photographers of the twentieth century, whose ideas exerted a powerful influence on a generation of photographers and still resonate today. His photographic career began in 1938 in Portland, Oregon, with assignments for the WPA (Works Progress Administration). After serving in World War II and studying art history at Columbia University, White’s focus shifted toward the metaphorical. He began creating images charged with symbolism and a critical aspect called equivalency, referring to the invisible spiritual energy present in a photograph made visible to the viewer. This book brings together White’s key biographical information—his evolution as a photographer, teacher of photography, and editor of Aperture, as well as particularly insightful quotations from his journals, which he kept for more than forty years. The result is an engaging narrative that weaves through the main threads of White’s life, his growth as an artist, as well as his spiritual search and ongoing struggle with his own sexuality and self-doubt. He sought comfort in a variety of religious practices that influenced his continually metamorphosing artistic philosophy. Complemented with a rich selection of more than 160 images including some never published before, the book accompanies the first major exhibition of White’s work since 1989, on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from July 8 to October 19, 2014.


Israel—A Spiritual Travel Guide (2nd Edition)

Israel—A Spiritual Travel Guide (2nd Edition)

Author: Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

Published: 2011-01-13

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1580235727

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Be spiritually prepared for your journey in Israel. The only travel guide to Israel that will help you to prepare spiritually for your visit. Combining, in quick reference format, ancient blessings, medieval prayers, biblical references, and modern poetry, it helps today’s pilgrim tap into the deep spiritual meaning of the ancient—and modern—sites of the Holy Land. For each of 25 major tourist destinations—from the Western Wall to Masada to a kibbutz in the Galilee—it gives guidance in sharply focused, four-step sections: Anticipation: To read in advance. Information to help orient you in the site’s historical context. Approach: To read on the way there. Readings from traditional and modern sources to orient you in the site’s spiritual context. Acknowledgment: To read at the site. A prayer or blessing to integrate the experience into your spiritual consciousness. Afterthought: Journaling space for writing your own thoughts and impressions. More than a guidebook: It is a spiritual map of the Holy Land.


The Faith of the Mithnagdim

The Faith of the Mithnagdim

Author: Allan Nadler

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1999-07-20

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9780801861826

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The Faith of the Mithnagdim is the first study of the theological roots of the Mithnagdic objection to Hasidism. Allan Nadler's pioneering effort fills the void in scholarship on Mithnagdic thought and corrects the impression that there were no compelling theological alternatives to Hasidism during the period of its rapid spread across Eastern Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century. In Nadler's account, Mithnagdism emerges as a highly developed religious outlook that is essentially conservative, deeply dualistic, and profoundly pessimistic about humanity's spiritual potential—all in stark contrast to Hasidism's optimism and aggressive encouragement of mysticism and religious rapture among its followers.


Folktales of the Jews, V. 3 (Tales from Arab Lands)

Folktales of the Jews, V. 3 (Tales from Arab Lands)

Author: Dan Ben Amos

Publisher: Jewish Publication Society

Published: 2011-05-01

Total Pages: 873

ISBN-13: 0827608713

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Thanks to these generous donors for making the publication of the books in this series possible: Lloyd E. Cotsen; The Maurice Amado Foundation; National Endowment for the Humanities; and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture Tales from Arab Lands presents tales from North Africa, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq in the latest volume of the most important collection of Jewish folktales ever published. This is the third book in the multi-volume series in the tradition of Louis Ginzberg?s timeless classic, Legends of the Jews. The tales here and the others in this series have been selected from the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA), named in Honor of Dov Noy, at The University of Haifa, a treasure house of Jewish lore that has remained largely unavailable to the entire world until now. Since the creation of the State of Israel, the IFA has collected more than 20,000 tales from newly arrived immigrants, long-lost stories shared by their families from around the world. The tales come from the major ethno-linguistic communities of the Jewish world and are representative of a wide variety of subjects and motifs, especially rich in Jewish content and context. Each of the tales is accompanied by in-depth commentary that explains the tale's cultural, historical, and literary background and its similarity to other tales in the IFA collection, and extensive scholarly notes. There is also an introduction that describes the culture and its folk narrative tradition, a world map of the areas covered, illustrations, biographies of the collectors and narrators, tale type and motif indexes, a subject index, and a comprehensive bibliography. Until the establishment of the IFA, we had had only limited access to the wide range of Jewish folk narratives. Even in Israel, the gathering place of the most wide-ranging cross-section of world Jewry, these folktales have remained largely unknown. Many of the communities no longer exist as cohesive societies in their representative lands; the Holocaust, migration, and changes in living styles have made the continuation of these tales impossible. This series is a monument to a rich but vanishing oral tradition. This series is a monument to a rich but vanishing oral tradition.


The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion

The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion

Author: Adele Berlin

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 962

ISBN-13: 0199730040

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"The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion has been the go-to resource for students, scholars, and researchers in Judaic Studies since its 1997 publication. Now, The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, Second Edition focuses on recent and changing rituals in the Jewish community that have come to the fore since the 1997 publication of the first edition, including the growing trend of baby-naming ceremonies and the founding of gay/lesbian synagogues. Under the editorship of Adele Berlin, nearly 200 internationally renowned scholars have created a new edition that incorporates updated bibliographies, biographies of 20th-century individuals who have shaped the recent thought and history of Judaism, and an index with alternate spellings of Hebrew terms. Entries from the previous edition have been be revised, new entries commissioned, and cross-references added, all to increase ease of navigation research." -- Provided by publisher.


Pentecostalism in Context

Pentecostalism in Context

Author: Wonsuk Ma

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2008-01-04

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1725220792

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Pentecostalism in Context is a collection of essays produced by Pentecostal scholars from North America, Europe, and Asia. The essays, produced in their various geographical and cultural contexts, reflect the rich diversity that characterizes the Pentecostal movement. Biblical, theological, and missiological issues relevant to the Pentecostal movement are treated. The book thus represents a valuable resource for those seeking to understand better the key intellectual currents within this dynamic and influential movement. The essays are offered in honor of William Menzies, a leading Pentecostal scholar and Chancellor of Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (Baguio City, Philippines).