Kushner, Lawrence

God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning (The Kushner Series)

God Was in This Place & I, I Did Not Know is about seven different ways to read the Bible verse quoted in its title (Genesis 28:16). The titular verse is Jacob's exclamation upon awakening from his vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. For centuries, readers have tried to imagine what the angels were trying to tell Jacob; Rabbi Lawrence Kushner has now surveyed some of the most illuminating reflections on that question. The book's sources range from Shmuel bar Nachmnani in third-century Palestine, to Hannah Rachel Werbermacher of Ludomir, who lived in 18th-century Poland. Kushner blends these rabbinic interpretations with his own reflections on Jacob's vision in a strong, impassioned style. God Was in This Place is not only about the Jacob story, however; it is, most importantly, a brilliant book about the way that Scripture offers meaning: "Biblical words shatter and rearrange themselves before our sustained gaze," Kushner writes. "As we read in Jeremiah, 'My word is like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that shatters the rock.'" --Michael Joseph Gross

Who am I? Who is God? Kushner creates inspiring interpretations of Jacob s dream in Genesis, opening a window into Jewish spirituality for people of all faiths and backgrounds.

Jacob lies down in the desert and dreams that angels are ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. For thousands of years, people have tried to listen to what messengers told Jacob in one of the great mystical encounters in Western religion. In a fascinating blend of scholarship, imagination, psychology, and history, seven Jewish spiritual masters ask and answer fundamental questions of human experience.

Because Nothing Looks Like God

What is God like? Mixing sparks of curiosity and spiritual imagination, this wondrous book lights children's creativity and shows how God is with us everyday, in every way.

In this, their first collaborative book, husband-and-wife team Lawrence and Karen Kushner combine their experience to help introduce children to the possibilities of spiritual life. Real-life examples of happiness and sadness-from goodnight stories, to the hope and fear felt the first time at bat, to the closing moments of someone's life-invite parents and children to explore, together, the questions we all have about God, no matter what our age.

Where Is God?

To young children the world is full of things to see and touch. And by using those very examples, this enchanting book gently invites children to become aware of God's presence all around us.

Abridged from Because Nothing Looks Like God by Lawrence and Karen Kushner, Where Is God? has been specially adapted to board book format to delight and inspire younger readers.

The Book of Letters: A Mystical Alef-Bait (The Kushner Series)

The Book of Letters: A Mystical Alef-Bait is written in English, but the format is classically Talmudic. The book opens from right to left, ending on the page where most readers are accustomed to beginning. Lawrence Kushner, a Massachusetts rabbi whose writings have helped restore a mystical dimension to popular Judaism in America, wrote The Book of Letters in beautiful calligraphy that is reproduced on every page of this finely bound edition. The text does not so much analyze or explain the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as play with them, teasing their forms and functions for hints of their significance. Noting that aleph, the unpronounceable first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, is also the first letter of the names of the first man (Adam), the first Jew (Abraham), and the herald of the last man (Elijah), as well as the first letter of the first commandment, Kushner notes that "The most basic words there are begin with the most primal sound there is." The Book of Letters is full of seriously playful insights like this. It's a marvelous guide to meditation, a primer for students of Hebrew calligraphy, and a fun introduction to learning Hebrew. --Michael Joseph Gross

In calligraphy by the author. Folktales about and exploration of the mystical meanings of the Hebrew Alphabet. Open the old prayerbook-like pages of The Book of Letters and you will enter a special world of sacred tradition and religious feeling. More than just symbols, all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet overflow with meanings and personalities of their own. Rabbi Kushner draws from ancient Judaic sources, weaving Talmudic commentary, Hasidic folktales, and Kabbalistic mysteries around the letters. Each letter is illuminated and, together with the comments, is presented in the author s original calligraphy, recalling the look and feel of ancient medieval manuscripts.

Honey from the Rock: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism

Lawrence Kushner describes Honey from the Rock as "an attempt to synthesize some of the world view of classical Jewish mysticism, or Kabbala, with the ordinary life experience of its author." In the introduction, Kushner also explains that the book "works best, not as a primer on Kabbalah, nor as a glimpse into the private places of a liberal Rabbi, but as a means of enticing the reader to allow a Kabbalistic world view to inform his or her everyday life." After providing that explanation of his project, Kushner's book takes flight. He begins: "There is a place as far from here as breathing out is from breathing in. For the word is very near you.... Where life forever holds gentle sway over death, where people are human with the same grace that a willow is a willow, where the struggle and the yearning between male and female is at last resolved. It is, to begin with, all inside us." There are no false words in this book, no straining logic, no lazy vagueness, no awkward didacticism. Honey from the Rock walks through 10 different "gates" to Jewish mysticism, from the "Wilderness" of preparation for prayer to the "Higher Worlds" of which some are granted glimpses. Each chapter will help clarify your vision a little more and teach you to become a little more present. Each one will also make you smile. --Michael Joseph Gross

Jewish Spirituality : A Brief Introduction for Christians

One of the defining religious trends of our time is the gradual reconciliation of Christianity and Judaism, which usually takes the form of churches (most notably, the Vatican) accepting responsibility for the anti-Semitic aspects of their worship, theology, and history. No amount of official proclamation, however, can reconcile these religions until individual Christians and Jews recognize their common religious heritage and learn to respect the differences between their traditions. Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians is an important resource for cultivating such awareness. The author, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, has long been known for his sophisticated, accessible books on Jewish spirituality (including Honey from the Rock and God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know). His definition of spirituality, which loops and spirals in rabbinic fashion, includes the following observations: "Spirituality is religion experienced intimately.... Spirituality is where you and God meet--and what you do about it." And Jewish spirituality, he writes, is distinguished as "an approach to life in which we strive to become aware of God's presence and purpose--even and especially in what might strike the casual observer as gross or material things." This, he points out, is a fact that bridges the gap between Judaism and Christianity: the incarnation of Christ, as one pastor explains to Kushner, demands that believers "continuously seek to find God in every person." Beginning with a summary of Jewish ideas about Creation, and then exploring topics such as the Torah, the Commandments, and the nature of God, Kushner expertly defines many of the similarities and differences between the religions. His lively, storytelling style makes Jewish Spirituality a pleasurable and challenging book that would serve well as a personal devotional, a Bible-study or Sunday-school text, or an occasion for Jewish and Christian friends to set aside time to learn more about each other's faith. --Michael Joseph Gross

A window into the Jewish soul--written especially for Christians.

"I invite you to explore with me some of the rich and varied expressions of the Jewish spiritual imagination. It is a tradition that may at times, for Christians, feel strangely familiar and will, for Christians and Jews, always challenge you to see yourself and your world through a new lens." --from the Introduction

Jewish spirituality is an approach to life that encourages us to become aware of God's presence and purpose, even in unlikely places. "This world and everything in it is a manifestation of God's presence," says Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. "Our challenge and goal is to find it and then act in such a way as to help others find it too."

In this special book, Kushner guides Christians through the rich wisdom of Jewish spirituality. He tailors his unique style to address Christians' questions, and, in doing so, opens new windows on their own faith.

Jewish Spirituality is a window into the Jewish soul that people of all faiths can understand and enjoy. From the Talmud and Torah, to "repentance" (teshuva) and "repairing the world" (tikkun olam), Kushner shows all of us how we can use the fundamentals of Jewish spirituality to enrich our own lives.

This intriguing book offers an entry into the center of Jewish spirituality. Kushner explains its key elements and the ways in which Christians--and people of all faiths and backgrounds--can bring them into their everyday lives.

In Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians you will explore:

* Holy things that happen around us every day
* Invisible lines of relation that connect us to each other and to God
* Torah--a blueprint for all of creation
* Everyday, holy deeds that mend the world
* God's Oneness
* How the Jewish experience of Teshuva is similar to the Christian experience of Jesus

...and much more.

The Way Into: Jewish Mystical Tradition (The Way Into)

"Jewish mysticism is not something one can 'do'" but rather "an attitude toward reality," writes Lawrence Kushner, the prolific Massachusetts rabbi whose books on mysticism include Honey from the Rock and The River of Light. Kushner notes this distinction at the beginning of The Way into Jewish Mystical Tradition, an excellent primer for lay readers who know nothing about mysticism, and a useful refresher for more advanced students of mysticism. The book's organization is inspired by Psalm 19, which Kushner says summarizes the "ways of Jewish mysticism" into three parts. It begins with "an inexpressible reverence before the awe and mystery of creation" then moves toward "the conviction that sacred text contains the key to unlocking the secret of being," and finally results in a "yearning to lead a life of holiness and righteousness." In The Way into Jewish Mysticism, each of these three stages is illustrated by key Jewish mystical ideas, drawn from every phase of Jewish history: Heikhalot mystics (beginning in the first century B.C.), for instance, developed a metaphor called shiur koma, which "attempted to describe the size of God's body"; and Lurianic mystics (in the 16th century) were preoccupied with the possibility of past lives and the transmigration of souls. Each of these ideas is preserved in a pithy phrase or biblical verse, offered in both English and its original Hebrew or Aramaic. And each idea, Kushner suggests, is just one part of the larger mystical worldview, which sees that "beneath the apparent contradictions, brokenness, and discord of this everyday world lies a hidden divine unity." --Michael Joseph Gross

The Way Into … Series offers an accessible and highly usable "guided tour" of the Jewish faith, people, history, and beliefs—in total, an introduction to Judaism that will enable you to understand and interact with the sacred texts of the Jewish tradition.

Each volume is written by a leading contemporary scholar and teacher, and explores one key aspect of Judaism.

The Way Into… enables all readers to achieve a real sense of Jewish cultural literacy through guided study.

Volume 4
The Way Into Jewish Mystical Tradition by Lawrence Kushner

An accessible introduction to the concepts of Jewish mysticism, their religious and spiritual significance, and how they relate to our lives.

What Does God Look Like? (20000)

To young children, the world is full of things to see and touch. And by using those very examples, this enchanting book gently invites children to become aware of God's presence all around us.

Abridged from Because Nothing Looks Like God by Lawrence and Karen Kushner, What Does God Look Like? has been specially adapted to board book format to delight and inspire younger readers.

Much has been written about the importance of reading simple, beautiful books to babies and preschoolers to stimulate brain development. But perhaps even more important, what you read begins to shape your child's world, and creates the images that will remain with him or her throughout life. We read books to our children about letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and safety, but do we give their minds the early food they need to think about life's bigger questions?

As spiritual development experts now tell us, each child develops an image of God by age 5, with or without religious instruction. What Does God Look Like? takes you and your child on an imaginative journey designed to help you open not only your child's mind, but your child's heart and soul as well.

Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader (The Kushner Series)

Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader, by Lawrence Kushner, with an introduction by Thomas Moore, collects some of the best writings by one of the most insightful rabbis in America. Kushner writes with profound reverence for the silence that surrounds his words. He believes that the essence of religious seeking is to "devotedly, stubbornly, compulsively return again and again to that line between noise and silence, hoping against hope to find a way to say what finally cannot be said. If it could be said straight out, you wouldn't have to try to find a better way to say it. If you couldn't speak it at all, then you'd have to resort to such nonverbal modes of communication as art or dance or music. The thing about spiritual truth is that it wants to be spoken. It is too important, too transforming, to be left alone in silence. It seems to have speakable content." This book begins with a selection of writings on cultivating awareness of God, the self, and the world. It moves on to explore the bedrock of Jewish religion, sacred text. Later chapters describe mystical, ethical, and political aspects of Jewish spiritual life, concluding with an excellent selection of meditations on the revelatory power of daily life. Kushner sees divine light glinting off his eyeglasses, shining through telescopes, and beaming out from lighthouses. Eyes Remade for Wonder is excellent devotional reading, and a fine introduction to Kushner's wide-ranging mind and empathic spirit. --Michael Joseph Gross

How Does God Make Things Happen?

To young children, the world is full of things to see and touch. And by using those very examples, this enchanting book gently invites children to become aware of God's presence all around us.

Abridged from Because Nothing Looks Like God by Lawrence and Karen Kushner, How Does God Make Things Happen? has been specially adapted to board book format to delight and inspire younger readers.

Much has been written about the importance of reading simple, beautiful books to babies and preschoolers to stimulate brain development. But perhaps even more important, what you read begins to shape your child's world, and creates the images that will remain with him or her throughout life. We read books to our children about letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and safety, but do we give their minds the early food they need to think about life's bigger questions?

As spiritual development experts now tell us, each child develops an image of God by age 5, with or without religious instruction. How Does God Make Things Happen? takes you and your child on an imaginative journey designed to help you open not only your child's mind, but your child's heart and soul as well.