Non Fiction: Judaism

This is but a very short selection from such a rich field.

The Five Books of Moses

A Translation with Commentary

Robert Alter

WW Norton ISBN 0-393-01955-1

The capstone of a brilliant scholar's lifelong work to establish the literary identity of the Bible.

Through a distinguished career of critical scholarship and translation, Robert Alter has equipped us to read the Hebrew Bible as a powerful, cohesive work of literature. The culmination of this work, Alter's masterly new translation and probing commentary combine to give contemporary readers the definitive edition of The Five Books. Alter's majestic translation recovers the mesmerizing effect of these ancient stories—the profound and haunting enigmas, the ambiguities of motive and image, and the distinctive cadences and lovely precision of the Hebrew text. Other modern translations either recast these features for contemporary clarity, thereby losing the character of the original, or fail to give readers a suitably fluid English as a point of contact. Alter's translation conveys the music and the meaning of the Hebrew text in a lyrical, lucid English. His accompanying commentary illuminates the text with learned insight and reflection on its literary and historical dimensions.

The Book of Psalms

A Translation with Commentary

Robert Alter

WW Norton ISBN 978 0 393 06226 7

November 2007

A cornerstone of the biblical canon, The Book of Psalms has been a source of solace and joy for countless readers over millennia. The purity of its images invites reflection and supplication in times of sorrow. The musicality of its rhythms moves readers to celebration of good tidings. As in the past, today it is a book to be cherished as the grounding for daily life.
       

This timeless poetry is beautifully wrought by a scholar whose translation of The Five Books of Moses was hailed as a "godsend" by Seamus Heaney, a "masterpiece" by Robert Fagles and a "remarkable work of scholarship" by James Wood. Robert Alter's The Book of Psalms captures the simplicity, the physicality and the coiled rhythmic power of the Hebrew, restoring the remarkable eloquence of these ancient poems. His learned and insightful commentary shines a light on the obscurities of the text.

The Bible: The Biography

Karen Armstrong

Atlantic Books ISBN: 978 1 84354 397 8

March 2008

The Bible is the most widely distributed book in the world. Translated into over two thousand languages, it is estimated that more than six billion copies have been sold in the last two hundred years alone. In this seminal account Karen Armstrong traces the story of the gestation of the Bible to reveal it as a complex and contradictory document created by scores of people over hundreds of years.

Karen Armstrong tells of the development of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, drawing on the disparate sources that formed these sacred texts. From the Jewish practice of Midrash and the Christian cult of Jesus to the influence of Paul’s letters on the Reformation and the manipulation of the book of Revelations by Christian fundamentalists, Armstrong explores the different ways in which these sixty-six books have been understood and identifies the social need that they answered. In the process she reveals the Bible as a fascinatingly unfamiliar and paradoxical work.

Karen Armstrong is one of the world’s foremost commentators on religious affairs. She spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun in the 1960s but left her teaching order in 1969.  She studied English literature at Oxford University.  Since then she has taught modern literature at the University of London, headed the English department in a girls’ public school and taught part-time at the Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism and the Training of Rabbis and Teachers.  Since 1982, she has devoted her life to writing, lecturing, and broadcasting on religious affairs.

Her bestselling books include Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World;  Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet; Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths; In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis;  The Battle For God: A History of Fundamentalism; Islam: A Short History; Buddha; A History of God and her two volumes of autobiography, Through The Narrow Gate and The Spiral Staircase.  The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah.

Her work has been translated into forty languages. She is also the author of three television documentaries and took part in the television series Genesis.  In 1999 she was awarded the Muslim Public Affairs Council Media Award. She has been a frequent contributor to conferences, panels, newspapers, periodicals, and other media on both sides of the Atlantic on the subject of Islam and fundamentalism.

The Rebbe, the Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference

David Berger

Littman Library of Jewish Civilization ISBN 978-1-904113-75-1

March 2008

Winner of the Samuel Belkin Literary Award

This book is a history, an indictment, a lament, and an appeal, focusing on the messianic trend in Lubavitch hasidism. It records the shattering of one of Judaism's core beliefs and the remarkable equanimity with which the standard-bearers of Orthodoxy have allowed it to happen. This is a development of striking importance for the history of religions, and it is an earthquake in the history of Judaism. David Berger describes the unfolding of this historic phenomenon and proposes a strategy to contain it.

David Berger, who received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, is Professor of History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University. For many years he was Broeklundian Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and co-chair of the Academic Advisory Committee of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. He is a Fellow and Executive Committee member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, and a member of the Council of the World Union of Jewish Studies, the Academic Committee of the Rothschild Foundation Europe, and the editorial board of Tradition. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale, and from 1998 to 2000, he served as President of the Association for Jewish Studies. He is the author of The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (1979), which was awarded the John Nicholas Brown Prize by the Medieval Academy of America, and co-author of Judaism¹s Encounter with Other Cultures: Rejection or Integration? (1997), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought.

The Mystery of the Kaddish

The Powerful Story of Judaism's Most Moving and Meaningful Prayer

Leon H Charney & Saul Mayzlish

JR Books ISBN 9781906217402

March 2008

A mourner's prayer, recited by the offspring of a deceased parent, the Kaddish is recited in Lublin and Prague, in New York and London, in Moscow and in Tripoli - in fact, wherever there is a Jewish community. Even people who ordinarily never set foot in a synagogue will recite the Kaddish when a parent passes away and on the anniversary of their parent's death.But what is it that makes this prayer so deeply moving and relevant?

In this endlessly fascinating book, the authors set out on an around-the-world journey to unravel its powerful mystery.Thier fascinating text explores changes in interpretation across communities and cultures, its part in Medieval times as a vehicle to make sense of persecution, Christian influences, the musical and tonal complexities of recitation, concepts of death, as well as the prayer's rich and complex history.Including stories, memories, travelogue and input from scholars and rabbis, The Mystery of the Kaddish is a beautiful voyage of discovery about a prayer which does not actually speak of death, yet has been moving the hearts and spirit of communities for centuries.It traces the origin, history and growth of the most famous and meaningful prayer in Jewish liturgy.

It is set against a background of Jewish history from biblical times to the Crusades, the Second World War to the present. It draws on many powerful first-hand stories from around the world.

1001 Questions and Answers on Pesach
Jeffrey Cohen
Vallentine Mitchell ISBN 9780853038108

March 2008

" Rabbi Cohen writes within a great tradition, bringing together Torah and chokmah, Jewish wisdom and the broad panoply of human knowledge, and finding in their interplay a never-ending source of deepened understanding. He is both sage and man of faith, a lucid teacher and a source of inspiration, and no one will read this work without discovering that the festival they thought they knew so well has a depth and history that are enthralling" Chief Rabbi Professor Jonathan Sacks

."Encyclopedic in breadth, features queries that lead the reader through preparation for the holiday, its historical background, symbolism of the seder ritual, commentary on the Haggadah, special festival services in synagogue, and Pesach customs from around the world. As Rabbi Cohen, the author of several books who leads the largest Orthodox congregation in Great Britain believes , "Questions are of the very essence of the spirit of this festival." The Jewish Week

Rabbi Jeffrey M Cohen is a broadcaster, lecturer, writer and reviewer.

Judaism: History, Belief and Practice

Dan Cohn-Sherbok

Routledge ISBN 978-0415236614

May 2003

This all-encompassing textbook is an unrivalled guide to the history, belief and practice of Judaism, written by a scholar and rabbi who is also an experienced university teacher. Beginning with the ancient Near East, it covers early Israelite history, the emergence of classical rabbinic literature and the rise of medieval Judaism in Islamic and Christian lands. It also includes the early modern period, and the development of Jewry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Extracts from primary sources are used throughout to enliven the narrative and provide concrete examples of the rich variety of Jewish civilization. Specially designed to assist learning Judaism: * Introduces texts and commentaries, including the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic texts, mystical literature, Jewish philosophy and Jewish theology. * Provides the skills necessary to understand these step-by-step * Explains how to interpret the major events in nearly four thousand years of Jewish history * Supports study with discussion questions on the central historical and religious issues, includes key reading for each chapter and an extensive bibliography Illustrates the development of Judaism, its concepts and observances, with nearly 200 maps and photographs Links each chapter from a companion website to other online resources, and gives guidance for students and tips for teachers.

Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction

Joseph Dan

Oxford University Press

ISBN-13: 978-0-19-532705-2

August 2007

In Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction , Joseph Dan, one of the world's leading authorities on Jewish mysticism, offers a concise and highly accurate look at the history and character of the various systems developed by the adherents of the Kabbalah.
Dan sheds light on the many misconceptions about what Kabbalah is and isn't--including its connections to magic, astronomy, alchemy, and numerology--and he illuminates the relationship between Kaballah and Christianity on the one hand and New Age religion on the other. The book provides fascinating historical background, ranging from the mystical groups that flourished in ancient Judaism in the East, and the medieval schools of Kabbalah in Northern Spain and Southern France, to the widening growth of Kabbalah through the school of Isaac Luria of Safed in the sixteenth century, to the most potent and influential modern Jewish religious movement, Hasidism, and its use of kabbalistic language in its preaching. The book examines the key ancient texts of this tradition, including the Sefer Yezira or "Book of Creation," The Book of Bahir, and the Zohar. Dan explains Midrash, the classical Jewish exegesis of scriptures, which assumes an infinity of meanings for every biblical verse, and he concludes with a brief survey of scholarship in the field and a list of books for further reading.
Embraced by celebrities and integrated in many contemporary spiritual phenomena, Kabbalah has reaped a wealth of attention in the press. But many critics argue that the form of Kabbalah practiced in Hollywood is more New Age pabulum than authentic tradition. Can there be a positive role for the Kabbalah in the contemporary quest for spirituality?
In Kabbalah , Joseph Dan debunks the myths surrounding modern Kabbalistic practice, offering an engaging and dependable account of this traditional Jewish religious phenomenon and its impact outside of Judaism.

Joseph Dan, Gershom Scholem Professor of Kabbalah, Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Modern Judaism: An Oxford Guide

Nicholas De Lange and Miri Freud-Kandel

Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0199262878

January 2005

A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, multi-authored guide to contemporary Jewish life and thought, focusing on social, cultural and historical aspects of Judaism alongside theological issues. This volume includes 38 newly-commissioned essays, including contributions from leading specialists in their fields. This book covers the major areas of thought in contemporary Jewish Studies, including considerations of religious differences, sociological, philosophical, and gender issues, geographical diversity, inter-faith relations, and the impact of the Shoah (the Holocaust) and the modern state of Israel.

Nicholas de Lange, Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Miri Freud-Kandel, Lecturer in Modern Judaism, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford

Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends

Anita Diamant

Schocken Books ISBN 978-0805210958
February 1998

Married to a convert herself, Anita Diamant provides advice and information that can transform the act of conversion into an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.

Here you will learn how to choose a rabbi, a synagogue, a denomination, a Hebrew name; how to handle the difficulty of putting aside Christmas; what happens at the mikvah (ritual bath) or at a hatafat dam brit (circumcision ritual for those already circumcised); how to find your footing in a new spiritual family that is not always well prepared to receive you; and how not to lose your bonds to your family of origin. Diamant anticipates all the questions, doubts, and concerns, and provides a comprehensive explanation of the rules and rituals of conversion.

Anita Diamant's books include The New Jewish Wedding, Living a Jewish Life, and The Red Tent, a novel. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

Jewish Mysticism: The Infinite Expression of Freedom

Rachel Elior

The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization ISBN 9781874774679

April 2007

Mysticism, which transcends the boundaries of time and space and refers to a reality not grasped by means of ordinary human cognition, is one of the central sources of inspiration of religious thought. It is an attempt to decode the mystery of divine existence by penetrating to the depths of consciousness through language, memory, myth, and symbolism. Delving deep into the psyche, mystics strive to redeem perceived reality from its immediate meaning.

Mystical texts constitute a history of this religious creativity, of man’s attempt to reveal the divine structure underlying the chaos of reality and thereby endow life with hope and purpose. By offering an alternative perspective on the world that gives expression to yearnings for freedom and change, mysticism engenders new modes of authority and leadership; as such it plays a decisive role in moulding religious and social history. For all these reasons, the mystical corpus deserves study and discussion in the framework of cultural criticism and research.
 
This study is a lyrical exposition of the Jewish mystical phenomenon. It is based on a close reading of the hundreds of volumes written by Jewish mystics and incorporates mystical testimonies drawn from the different countries and cultural environments in which Jews have lived. Rachel Elior’s purpose is to present, as accurately as possible, the meanings of the mystical works as they were perceived by their creators and readers. At the same time, she contextualizes them within the boundaries of the religion, culture, language, and spiritual and historical circumstances in which the destiny of the Jewish people has evolved..

The author succeeds in drawing the reader into a mystical world. With great intensity, she conveys the richness of the mystical experience in discovering the infinity of meaning embedded in the sacred text; teasing out the recurring themes, she explains the multivalent symbols. Using copious extracts from Jewish mystical sources, she illustrates the varieties of the mystical experience from antiquity to the twentieth century. She succeeds in eloquently conveying how mystics try to decipher reality by penetrating beyond its apparent boundaries: how they experience spiritual powers symbolically, imaginatively, or visually; how hidden truths are revealed in visions or dreams, in an epiphany or as ‘lightning’; how they are ‘engraved’ in the mind or illuminate in the soul. Most of the texts she draws on are written in very obscure language, but the skilful translations communicate the mystical experiences vividly and make it easy for the reader to understand how Elior uses them to explain the relationship between the revealed world and the hidden world and between the mystical world and the traditional religious world, with all the social and religious tensions this has caused.

Rachel Elior is John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has been a research fellow and visiting professor at University College London, the University of Amsterdam, Oberlin College, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Case Western University, Yeshiva University, Tokyo University, and Princeton University. She is the author of numerous works on Jewish mysticism and hasidism, two of which are also published by the Littman Library: The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism (2004), and The Mystical Origins of Hasidism (2006). The recipient of many honours, she was awarded the 2006 Gershom Scholem Prize for the Study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

King Saul: The True History of the First Messiah
Adam Green

The Lutterworth Press ISBN-13: 9780718830748

June 2007

Spurred on by a childhood fascination with the Tanakh, which brought to his attention the discrepancy between the English rendering of Samuel 21:19 and the original Hebrew, Adam Green builds upon recent research to show that later authors revised 1 Samuel with the specific intention of defaming Saul. In the process, these revisionist authors glorified the character of David, significantly distorting the true nature of events.

Green systematically works through the Biblical text, highlighting its illogical chronology, and drawing attention to apocryphal incidents, before reconstructing a more plausible sequence for the story. a fresh analysis of a maligned figure and a comprehensive guide to the First Book of Samuel, Green’s interpretation returns Saul to his rightful place as the one genuine Messiah.

Adam Green is an artist and illustrator trained at St. Martins School of Art. In addition to regular exhibits both abroad and in the U.K., he has contributed to the Jewish Chronicle, The Jews’ College Magazine, and the Jewish Chronicle Colour Supplement.

Green lived in Israel for eight months in 1970. In 1993, he moved to southern Spain where he continues to paint and illustrate, as well as making moscatel wine.

Lion’s Honey

David Grossman

Canongate ISBN 1841956562

'There are few other Bible stories with so much drama and action, narrative fireworks and raw emotion, as we find in the tale of Samson: the battle with the lion; the three hundred burning foxes; the women he bedded and the one woman that he loved; his betrayal by all the women in his life, from his mother to Delilah; and, in the end, his murderous suicide, when he brought the house down on himself and three thousand Philistines.

Yet, beyond the wild impulsiveness, the chaos, the din, we can make out a life story that is, at bottom, the tortured journey of a single, lonely and turbulent soul who never found, anywhere, a true home in the world, whose very body was a harsh place of exile.

'For me, this discovery, this recognition, is the point at which the myth - for all its grand images, its larger-than-life adventures - slips silently into the day-to-day existence of each of us, into our most private moments, our buried secrets.'

From David Grossman's Introduction to Lion's Honey

"His journey takes us to the heart of ourselves, in this millennia-old creation of a man like Oedipus whose tragedy was that his own predestined story was too big for his soul to bear." The Independent

"Taking each element of the Samson story as written in the Bible, Grossman approaches the text with the modern advantage of psychology and historical knowledge... Some might object to a psychological deconstruction of a story never intended to relate to an individual character but Grossman's engaging approach is certainly successful in keeping an ancient myth alive." Metro

Sabbatai Zevi: Testimonies to a Fallen Messiah
David J. Halperin

Littman Library of Jewish Civilization ISBN 9781904113256

June 2007

Sabbatai Zevi stirred up the Jewish world in the mid-seventeenth century by claiming to be the messiah, then stunned it by suddenly converting to Islam. The story is presented here for the first time through contemporary documents, written by Sabbatai’s followers and by one of his detractors, in translations that brilliantly capture the vividness of this landmark episode in early modern Jewish history.

David J. Halperin is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He trained in Semitic languages at Cornell University, in Near Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, and in rabbinics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1977. From 1976 through 2000 he taught the history of Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was repeatedly recognized for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He is the author of The Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature (1980), The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish Responses to Ezekiel’s Vision (1988), Seeking Ezekiel: Text and Psychology (1993), and Abraham Miguel Cardozo: Selected Writings (2001).

Holistic Haggadah: How Will You Be Different This Passover Night

Michael Kagan

Urim Publications

The Holistic Haggadah is a fascinating guide to the inner journey that the Passover Seder evening offers us. It is a daring commentary that challenges each of us to go down into our self-imposed Mitzraim (Egypt) and face our attachments and the false gods that confine us. It then beckons us forth to true freedom and a more meaningful relationship between ourselves and God.
Besides the ritual question – “How is this night different from all other nights?” – the most common question asked at the Seder table is probably, “When is the food coming?” The Holistic Haggadah asks deeper questions: “How are you going to be different this night? How are you prepared to let this night change you?”
This commentary incorporates a holistic approach to Judaism, which activates the four worlds of the individual: the world of action, the world of emotion, the world of intellect and the world of spirit. It weaves a beautiful tapestry, illuminating the treasures available to us within Passover and the yearly festival cycle.
It is the hope that this Haggadah will find a place in the hearts of all those whose souls, regardless of denomination, yearn for greater depths and higher vistas, and will provide spiritual sustenance not only on Passover but the entire year.
The Holistic Haggadah presents a contemporary spiritual commentary on the meaning of freedom and its relationship to serving God.

"Hametz is bread – soft, delicious bread. It consists mainly of empty space produced by a gas that does not sustain human life. Its great volume is an illusion of its true essence. Hametz is symbolic of our inflated, swollen egos – mostly hot air."
"Matzah is unleavened bread produced by mixing flour and water, but fermentation is prevented by immediate baking. Matzah is what it appears to be – the essence. It is uninflated. It may not be as soft and as tasty as hametz but it doesn’t need those facades to be what it is. It represents being. It represents being just you, just who you are – with your ego, but an uninflated ego. For after all, the ego is not bad, as it is a necessary part of the interface between the physical world and the spiritual world."

Through The Holistic Haggadah, Michael Kagan shares his teachings and holistic approach to Judaism that he has developed through experiential workshops and lectures in Israel and around the world. He moved to Jerusalem in 1977, has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is married to Ruth Gan Kagan and has five children. He describes himself as an ortho-practicing, but unorthodox, Jew.

To order: orders@urimpublications.com

Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism
Menachem Kellner
Foreword by Moshe Idel

Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation ISBN 978-1-904113-29-4

September 2006

Maimonides' vision of Judaism was deeply elitist, but at the same time profoundly universalistic. He was highly critical of the regnant Jewish culture of his day, which he perceived as so heavily influenced by ancient Jewish mysticism as to be debased. While focusing on that critique, Kellner skillfully and accessibly demonstrates how Maimonides used philosophy in order to purify a corrupted and paganized religion, and to present distinctions fundamental to Judaism as institutional, sociological, and historical, rather than ontological. In Maimonides' hands, metaphysical distinctions are translated into moral challenges.

Menachem Kellner is Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa. He is the author of Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought and Must a Jew Believe Anything? and translator of Isaac Abravanel’s Principles of Faith, all published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. He is also the author of Maimonides on Human Perfection, Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People, and Maimonides on the ‘Decline of the Generations’ and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority. His translations of Gersonides’ Commentary on Song of Songs and Maimonides’ Book of Love appeared in the Yale Judaica Series. Professor Kellner’s critical editions of the original texts of Abravanel’s Principles of Faith and of Gersonides’ Commentary on Song of Songs were published in Hebrew.

Wrestling Jacob : Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis

Shmuel Klitsner

Urim Publication  ISBN 965-7108-93-4

In Wrestling Jacob, a master teacher introduces us to the biblical Jacob in an original and compelling psychological reading that takes us inside the ancient Hebrew text.
As his lens focuses on the Bible’s artistic use of anomalous language and intertextual allusion, Klitsner moves seamlessly from text to subtext, from conscious to subconscious. Readers may be surprised to discover that the dynamics of the Genesis narratives closely mirror the psychoanalytic description of the universal human struggle for wholeness and autonomy.

Settle back and enjoy this intellectually exhilarating exploration of dreams, Freudian slips, resistances and transference, as Jacob, mirroring everyman, wrestles with men and God and struggles to be blessed.
The book Wrestling Jacob: Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis presents close readings of the biblical stories of Jacob from both literary and psychological perspectives. The readings explore the relationship between text and subtext as reflecting the relationship between the conscious and subconscious.

On one level, this book is about Jacob’s personal wrestling with his own angels and demons, his struggle to build a ladder between his own internal heaven and earth. On another level, it is about deceptions – of ourselves and of others – that threaten the fragile development of our identities.
Perhaps above all else, Wrestling Jacob introduces a new way to read the Bible, in which unusual word choices, odd syntax, and striking parallels conspire to reveal profound new meanings in an ancient text.

Rabbi Shmuel (Steven) Klitsner, a student of the late Nehama Leibowitz and co-author of

the acclaimed novel The Lost Children of Tarshish, has trained a generation of Bible teachers at Jerusalem’s Midreshet Lindenbaum College and at the London School of Jewish Studies. His film credits include the award winning Hannukah animation “Lights.”

The Ladder of Jacob: Ancient Interpretations of the Biblical Story of Jacob and His Children

James L. Kugel

Princeton University Press ISBN: 0-691-12122-2

The biblical story of Jacob and his children must have troubled ancient readers. By any standard, this was a family with problems. Jacob's oldest son Reuben is said to have slept with his father's concubine Bilhah. The next two sons, Simeon and Levi, tricked the men of a nearby city into undergoing circumcision, and then murdered all of them as revenge for the rape of their sister. Judah, the fourth son, had sexual relations with his own daughter-in-law. Meanwhile, jealous of their younger sibling Joseph, the brothers conspired to kill him; they later relented and merely sold him into slavery. These stories presented a particular challenge for ancient biblical interpreters. After all, Jacob's sons were the founders of the nation of Israel and ought to have been models of virtue.

In The Ladder of Jacob, renowned biblical scholar James Kugel retraces the steps of ancient biblical interpreters as they struggled with such problems. Kugel reveals how they often fixed on a little detail in the Bible's wording to "deduce" something not openly stated in the narrative. Thus, Simeon and Levi, they concluded, tricked no one. As for Reuben, he was led astray after having caught sight of Bilhah bathing, while Judah was the unfortunate victim of his own weakness for alcohol.

These are among the earliest examples of ancient biblical interpretation (midrash). Through careful analysis of these retellings, Kugel is able to reconstruct how ancient interpreters worked.

James L. Kugel, formerly Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University, is Director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where he also serves as Professor of Bible. Kugel is the author of ten books, including The God of Old: Great Poems of the Bible and The Bible as It Was (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and the winner of the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion in 2001). He lives in Jerusalem.

How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now

Free Press ISBN 978-0-7432-3586-0
September 2007

In How to Read the Bible, Harvard professor James Kugel leads the reader chapter by chapter through the "quiet revolution" of recent biblical scholarship, showing time and again how radically the interpretations of today's researchers differ from what people have always thought. The story of Adam and Eve, it turns out, was not originally about the "Fall of Man," but about the move from a primitive, hunter-gatherer society to a settled, agricultural one. As for the stories of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob and Esau, these narratives were not, at their origin, about individual people at all but, rather, explanations of some feature of Israelite society as it existed centuries after these figures were said to have lived. Dinah was never raped -- her story was created by an editor to solve a certain problem in Genesis. In the earliest version of the Exodus story, Moses probably did not divide the Red Sea in half; instead, the Egyptians perished in a storm at sea. Whatever the original Ten Commandments might have been, scholars are quite sure they were different from the ones we have today. What's more, the people long supposed to have written various books of the Bible were not, in the current consensus, their real authors: David did not write the Psalms, Solomon did not write Proverbs or Ecclesiastes; indeed, there is scarcely a book in the Bible that is not the product of different, anonymous authors and editors working in different periods.

Such findings pose a serious problem for adherents of traditional, Bible-based faiths. Hiding from the discoveries of modern scholars seems dishonest, but accepting them means undermining much of the Bible's reliability and authority as the word of God. What to do? In his search for a solution, Kugel leads the reader back to a group of ancient biblical interpreters who flourished at the end of the biblical period. Far from naïve, these interpreters consciously set out to depart from the original meaning of the Bible's various stories, laws, and prophecies -- and they, Kugel argues, hold the key to solving the dilemma of reading the Bible today.

How to Read the Bible is, quite simply, the best, most original book about the Bible in decades. It offers an unflinching, insider's look at the work of today's scholars, together with a sustained consideration of what the Bible was for most of its history -- before the rise of modern scholarship. Readable, clear, often funny but deeply serious in its purpose, this is a book for Christians and Jews, believers and secularists alike. It offers nothing less than a whole new way of thinking about sacred Scripture.

Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life

Jon D Levenson

Yale University Press ISBN 9780300136357
March 2008

Winner of the 2006 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship awarded by the Jewish Book Council

2007 Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible given by the Biblical Archaeology Society

This provocative volume explores the origins of the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Jon D. Levenson argues that, contrary to a very widespread misconception, the ancient rabbis were keenly committed to the belief that at the end of time, God would restore the deserving dead to life. In fact, Levenson points out, the rabbis saw the Hebrew Bible itself as committed to that idea.

The author meticulously traces the belief in resurrection backward from its undoubted attestations in rabbinic literature and in the Book of Daniel, showing where the belief stands in continuity with earlier Israelite culture and where it departs from that culture. Focusing on the biblical roots of resurrection, Levenson challenges the notion that it was a foreign import into Judaism, and in the process he develops a neglected continuity between Judaism and Christianity. His book will shake the thinking of scholars and lay readers alike, revising the way we understand the history of Jewish ideas about life, death, and the destiny of the Jewish people.

Jon D. Levenson is Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies, Harvard University. He is the author of The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, and co-author of Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews, both published by Yale University Press.

Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews

Kevin j. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson

Yale University Press ISBN 9780300122770

May 2008

This book, written for religious and nonreligious people alike in clear and accessible language, explores a teaching central to both Jewish and Christian traditions: the teaching that at the end of time God will cause the dead to live again. Although this expectation, known as the resurrection of the dead, is widely understood to have been a part of Christianity from its beginnings nearly two thousand years ago, many people are surprised to learn that the Jews believed in resurrection long before the emergence of Christianity. In this sensitively written and historically accurate book, religious scholars Kevin Madigan and Jon Levenson aim to clarify confusion and dispel misconceptions about Judaism, Jesus, and Christian origins.Madigan and Levenson tell the fascinating but little-known story of the origins of the belief in resurrection, investigating why some Christians and some Jews opposed the idea in ancient times while others believed it was essential to their faith. The authors also discuss how the two religious traditions relate their respective practices in the here and now to the new life they believe will follow resurrection. Making the rich insights of contemporary scholars of antiquity available to a wide readership, Madigan and Levenson offer a new understanding of Jewish-Christian relations and of the profound connections that tie the faiths together.

Understanding Judaism

Jeremy Rosen

Dunedin Academic Press ISBN 9781903765289
October 2003

Rabbi Rosen presents a serious and concise overview of Jewish history, theology and practice from Judaism's biblical origins to the present day. The book provides an integrated approach that relates the main developments in Judaism to their historical context.

Jeremy Rosen is an Orthodox rabbi and academic. The book is written from the perspective of a committed and a practising Jew but is not uncritical and incorporates different perspectives.

Undercurrents of Jewish Prayer
Jeremy Schonfield

Littman Library of Jewish Civilization ISBN 978-1-904113-00-3

October 2007

Even those who lavish close attention on talmudic and halakhic writings have rarely studied the Jewish prayer-book. Its dense and apparently impenetrable texts are here subjected to close analysis that exposes the messages and covert concerns implicit in the underlying narrative. The controversial conclusions establish the prayer-book as one of the greatest achievements of Jewish literary creativity.

Jeremy Schonfield, who was born in London and is the son and grandson of rabbis, studied comparative literature and worked in archaeology in Israel and in publishing in London before becoming involved in Jewish education. He taught Jewish studies to adults in London, received a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and is now both Mason Lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and Lecturer at Leo Baeck College in London. Although raised in the Ashkenazi tradition he is member of Bevis Marks Synagogue, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London, where he sings in the choir and occasionally leads services. He is currently working on a study of the Jewish annual and life cycles as enactments of the Jewish sacred narrative.

Gabriel's Palace: Jewish Mystical Tales

Howard Schwartz

Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0195093889

October 2002

A vast bounty of tales recounting mystical experiences among the rabbis can be found in the Talmud, the Zohar, Jewish folktales, and Hasidic lore. Now, in Gabriel's Palace, scholar Howard Schwartz has collected the greatest of these stories, sacred and secular, in a marvellously readable anthology.

Gabriel's Palace offers a treasury of 150 pithy and powerful tales, involving experiences of union with the divine, out-of-body travel, encounters with angels and demons, possession by spirits holy and pernicious, and more. Schwartz provides an informative introduction placing these remarkable tales firmly in the context of centuries of post-biblical Jewish tradition

Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism

Howard Schwartz

Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0195327137

November 2007

Only one of the world's mythologies has remained essentially unrecognized--the mythology of Judaism. As Howard Schwartz reveals in Tree of Souls, the first anthology of Jewish mythology in English, this mythical tradition is as rich and as fascinating as any in the world.

Drawing from the Bible, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud and Midrash, the kabbalistic literature, medieval folklore, Hasidic texts, and oral lore collected in the modern era, Schwartz has gathered together nearly 700 of the key Jewish myths. The myths themselves are marvelous. We read of Adam's diamond and the Land of Eretz (where it is always dark), the fall of Lucifer and the quarrel of the sun and the moon, the Treasury of Souls and the Divine Chariot. We discover new tales about the great figures of the Hebrew Bible, from Adam to Moses; stories about God's Bride, the Shekhinah, and the evil temptress, Lilith; plus many tales about angels and demons, spirits and vampires, giant beasts and the Golem. Equally important, Schwartz provides a wealth of additional information. For each myth, he includes extensive commentary, revealing the source of the myth and explaining how it relates to other Jewish myths as well as to world literature (for instance, comparing Eve's release
of evil into the world with Pandora's). For ease of use, Schwartz divides the volume into ten books: Myths of God, Myths of Creation, Myths of Heaven, Myths of Hell, Myths of the Holy Word, Myths of the Holy Time, Myths of the Holy People, Myths of the Holy Land, Myths of Exile, and Myths of the Messiah.

Schwartz, a renowned collector and teller of traditional Jewish tales, now illuminates the previously unexplored territory of Jewish mythology. This pioneering anthology is essential for anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible, Jewish faith and culture, and world mythology.

Jewish Wisdom

Joseph Telushkin

HarperCollins USA ISBN 9780688129583

October 1994

What do the great Jewish writings of the last 3,500 years tell us about all vital questions about our lives? Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has devoted his life to the search for answers within the teachings of Judaism. In Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Telushkin, the author of the highly acclaimed Jewish Literacy, weaves together a tapestry of stories from the Bible and Talmud, and the insights of Jewish commentators and writers from Maimonides, Rashi, and Hillel to Einstein, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Elie Wiesel. A richer source of crucial life lessons would be hard to imagine.

Accompanying this extraordinary compilation is Teluslikin's compelling commentary, which reveals how these texts continue to instruct and challenge Jews and all people concerned with leading ethical lives today. As he discusses these texts, Rabbi Telushkin addresses issues of fundamental interest to modern readers: how to live with honesty and integrity in an often dishonest world; how to care for the sick and dying; how to teach children to respect both themselves and others, how to understand and confront such great tragedies as antisemitism and the Holocaust; what God wants from humankind. Within Jewish Wisdom's ninety chapters the reader will find extended sections illuminating Jewish perspectives on sex, romance, and marriage, what kind of belief in God a Jew can have after the Holocaust, how to use language ethically, the conflicting views of the Bible and Talmud on the death penalty, and much, much more.

Possibly the most far-ranging volume of stories and quotations from Jewish texts, Jewish Wisdom is a classic, a book that not only has the capacity to transform how you view the world, but one that well might change how you choose to live your life.

Messianic Mysticism: Moses Hayim Luzzatto and the Padua School

Isaiah Tishby

Translated by Morris Hoffman

Littman Library of Jewish Civilization 9781874774099  

April 2008

Moses Hayim Luzzatto (1707-1746), rabbi, mystic, teacher, poet, playwright, and writer of ethical works, gathered around him in his ‘house of study’ in Padua an inner circle of devout Jews who shared his belief in the imminent arrival of the messianic age and who privately identified members of their circle as divinely ordained to usher in the Redemption.  

To the rabbis of Venice and Frankfurt, however, Luzzatto was a heretic, whose claims to have written works at the dictation of a messenger from Heaven could not be genuine. Under pressure from them he was obliged to withdraw a number of such works, and the manuscripts were either lost or destroyed. Yet his known works came to earn him admiration: as a literary figure among the adherents of the Enlightenment, as a great kabbalist and profound mystic by hasidim and even by some of their leading opponents, and as a great ethical teacher by all religious streams.  

Isaiah Tishby spent many years in the study of Luzzatto and his group, and succeeded in tracing a number of the lost manuscripts. In essays translated in this volume he described and annotated the manuscripts which he found, giving the full text of some of the prose works and of all the poems. He showed how far the views of earlier kabbalists and messianists had been accepted or modified by Luzzatto, and found evidence that he had influenced the early hasidic movement, so lending weight to Hayim Nahman Bialik’s description of Luzzatto as ‘the father and first begetter’ of the three main streams of Judaism in modern times. Tishby also clarified the messianic role for which, as the Padua group believed, certain of their members were destined under the leadership of Luzzatto.   One of the most illuminating documents discovered by Tishby and reproduced here is Luzzatto’s version of his ketubah or marriage contract. The phrases of the traditional contract are interspersed with a mystical commentary in which Luzzatto identifies himself with the biblical Moses and interprets his earthly marriage as a marriage with the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence or female element of the Godhead. Thus she would be rescued from exile among the forces of evil and the way would be cleared for the final redemption.  

A second key document is the personal, mystical diary which Luzzatto’s second-in-command, Rabbi Moses David Valle, wrote in the margins of his own voluminous commentary on the Bible. The commentary itself, written in impersonal terms, yields autobiographical information, but the diary entries, in short and often enigmatic notes, record the personal mystical visions and experiences, encouragements and disappointments, of the man who saw himself and was seen in Luzzatto’s group as the Messiah ben David.   

Isaiah Tishby was Emeritus Professor of Philosophical, Mythical, and Ethical Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his death in 1992. He was awarded the Bialik Prize 1972, the Israel Prize 1979, and the Rothschild Prize 1982, mainly for his work on The Wisdom of the Zohar, the English translation of which was published by the Littman Library.   Morris Hoffman studied Hebrew at the School of Oriental and African Studies and University College London, subsequently specializing in Jewish history and religion, and has translated many scholarly articles in this field.   604 pages

Kaddish

Leon Wieseltier

Picador ISBN 9780330372282 

An extraordinary spiritual journey - a record of the inner life of one of America's most brilliant intellectuals during a year of mourning.

When Leon Wieseltier's father died in March 1996, he began to observe the rituals of the traditional year of mourning, going daily to the synagogue to recite the Kaddish. Between his prayers and his everyday responsibilities, he sought out ancient, medieval and modern Jewish texts in pursuit of the Kaddish's history and meaning. And every day he studied, translated and wrote his own reflections on the obscure texts that he found, punctuating his journal with stories about life in his synagogue and his family's progress through grief.

In reflecting upon the fate of his father and of his people, he wrestles with problems of loss and faith, the meaning of tradition, freedom and determinism, and the perplexity of rational religion.

This is My God

Herman Wouk

Souvenir Press ISBN 978-0285633681

February 1997

Recognised throughout the world as the best single work for those who want to understand Judaism, Herman Wouk's "This is My God" remains unique in the field. A major bestseller when first published, it has been translated into many languages and is now thoroughly revised and brought up to date. In engaging, straightforward language the author explains Jewish belief and worship, the meanings of festivals and holy days, attitudes towards diet, marriage, maturation and death, and the history and heritage of the Jewish people. He discusses the importance of the Torah and Talmud, the difference between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism, and the relationship of Jews to Israel and elsewhere. For this edition the author has written and essay exploring the problems of religion in Israel today. "This is My God" is an enthralling and illuminating book, readable and full of deep insights. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what it means to be Jewish.

Originally published in 1992 and now available in a revised paperback edition, an introduction to Judaism which contains a new essay on the problems of religion in Israel today.

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

Random House ISBN: 978-0-385-50825-4 (0-385-50825-5)

Avivah Zornberg grew up in a world of rabbinic tradition and scholarship and received a Ph.D. in English literature from Cambridge University. The Particulars of Rapture, the sequel to her award-winning study of the Book of Genesis, takes its title from a line by the American poet Wallace Stevens about the interdependence of opposite things, such as male and female, and conscious and unconscious. To her reading of the familiar story of the Israelites and their flight from slavery in Egypt, Avivah Zornberg has brought a vast range of classical Jewish interpretations and Midrashic sources, literary allusions, and ideas from philosophy and psychology. Her quest in this book, as she writes in the introduction, is "to find those who will hear with me a particular idiom of redemption," who will hear "within the particulars of rapture . . . what cannot be expressed."

Zornberg's previous book, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, won the National Jewish Book Award for nonfiction in 1995 and has become a classic among readers of all religions. The Particulars of Rapture will enhance Zornberg's reputation as one of today's most original and compelling interpreters of the biblical and rabbinic traditions