General Books

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children

Wendy Mogel

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Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Parenting -> Babies & Toddlers -> Child Development
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Best Parenting Book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee is the best parenting book I've ever read. It has a common sense approach and really works. I can hardly wait to read her next book, The Blessing of a B-

What works with kids and for parents 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Child rearing is tough work, as tough or tougher now than ever. Mogul, a psychologist, sought to find a different, healthy approach to managing children and parenthood. She came to Judaism's traditional ways. For much of the book, the theme is simple: given three thousand years of parenthood, what are the lessons of what works? These lessons are presented clearly and helpfully. There's a bit of promoting Judaism in here, but anyone willing to read critically will easily be able to come away with some parenting gold nuggets. As the parent of young adults, I found some things that will even help me with their finishing the entry to adulthood and only the smallest number of ideas with which I disagreed. Highly recommended to prospective parents, those with youngsters, and anyone working with children.

Editorial Review:

Every parent hopes their child will be self-reliant, optimistic, and well mannered, a challenge in our current culture. Clinical psychologist and Jewish educator Wendy Mogel distills the ancient teachings of the Torah, the Talmud, important Jewish thinkers, and contemporary psychological insights into nine blessings that address key parenting issues such as:

* determining realistic expectations for each child
* respect for adults
* chores
* mealtime battles
* coping with frustration
* developing independence and self-control
* resisting over-scheduling and over-indulgence


The Blessing of a Skinned Knee guides us toward effective, enlightened parenting in an increasingly speedy, material, and competitive age.

Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Praise for THOU SHALL PROSPER

"Rabbi Daniel Lapin's wisdom has helped untold numbers of people, including me, grow in our business, family, and spiritual lives. In Thou Shall Prosper, Rabbi Lapin has done it again. This book tells it like it is in a helpful, honest, hopeful, informative way. He offers valid, useful information based on ancient wisdom and modern experience."
-Zig Ziglar, author and motivational teacher

"Is it practical to apply spiritual lessons to the hardheaded world of business? In this potentially life-changing book, Rabbi Daniel Lapin proves that it's impractical not to use those lessons-and to bring ancient, timeless wisdom to contemporary problems. This unique approach provides an organized, supremely useful view of the world, combining common sense and unexpected, even startling insight. No matter how successful or sophisticated you may be, this remarkable work will enrich your understanding of the important, exciting process of building wealth."
-Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio host and author of Hollywood vs. America

"Rabbi Daniel Lapin is a light unto the nations. A risk-taking rabbi of immense wisdom, his books have already influenced countless Jews and non-Jews with the eternal truths of the Hebrew Bible. Now, in this highly insightful and controversial new book, Rabbi Lapin unearths the golden nuggets of Jewish business genius. By emphasizing the unique talents of the Jewish way of life, Rabbi Lapin demonstrates how Judaism's spiritual regimen can be translated into tangible material rewards, with the bottom line being directly affected. A thoroughly engaging, enriching, and thought-provoking book."
-Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of Kosher Sex and Judaism for Everyone

"Rabbi Lapin is an unorthodox Orthodox rabbi. He understands the Biblical nature of economic freedom as well as he understands the Bible: uniquely well. Prosperity must have a purpose and Rabbi Lapin explores the wellsprings of the Judeo-Christian heritage to elucidate those purposes. In so doing, he also illuminates the road to greater prosperity for all. I really enjoyed this book and I heartily recommend it to people of all faiths."
-The Honorable Jack Kemp

The Jewish Study Bible: featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation

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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Reference -> Commentaries -> Old Testament

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Jewish Study Bible presents the center of gravity of the Scriptures where Jews experience it--in Torah. It offers readers the fruits of various schools of Jewish traditions of biblical exegesis (rabbinic, medieval, mystical, etc.) and provides them with a wealth of ancillary materials that aid in bringing the ancient text to life. The nearly forty contributors to the work represent the cream of Jewish biblical scholarship from the world over. No knowledge of Hebrew is required for one to make use of this unique volume.
The JSB uses The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation, whose name is an acronym formed from the Hebrew initials of the three sections into which the Hebrew Bible is traditionally divided (Torah, Instruction; Nevi'im, Prophets; and Kethubim, Writings). A committee of esteemed biblical scholars and rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism movements produced this modern translation, which dates from 1985.
Anyone interested in acquiring a fuller understanding of the riches of the Bible will profit from reading The Jewish Study Bible.

The Feasts Of The Lord God's Prophetic Calendar From Calvary To The Kingdom

Kevin Howard, Marvin Rosenthal

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Beautifully done, beautifully written! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is one of my absolute favorites! Not only is the information within EXTREMELY well written, there are many photographs and the artwork is among the best I've ever seen.

There are overviews of the Spring Feasts and the Fall Feasts and an explanation of Jewish Time, broken down into the Jewish Day,Week and Month. There are chapters on The Feasts Of Leviticus 23 (the 7 feasts) as well as Additional Observances.

Each of the Feasts are covered in DETAIL, with wonderful illustrations, charts and artwork.

Even if you never read a word of this book (which would be a shame, because it is so very informative) you will be blown away by the artwork and the photography. There is a two page spread on The Passover Table which shows each item with an explanation, which is worth the price of the book alone!

Each Feast is covered with THE BIBLICAL OBSERVANCE and also the MODERN OBSERVANCE, and each ceremony is explained in interesting, never boring detail. The illustrations and photographs draw you in and you really start to "get it."

I am so thankful I purchased this book. It is one of my favorites and one which I refer to often. It is well worth the price and you won't regret your purchase.

Editorial Review:

Isreal's feasts are infinitely more important than just a series of cultural observances. These feasts are appointed by the Lord, and they are owned by the Lord. He calls them "my feasts." Together they form God's prophetic calendar, outlining the work of history's most important person...Jesus, the Messiah. As such, few themes are more timely or rewarding for God's people today.

The Feasts of the Lord covers all aspects of the biblical feasts...historical background, biblical observance, and prophetic significance. Yet, this book is not just another reference book on the feasts. It is written from the Hebrew Christian viewpoint, helping you to see the feasts through Jewish eyes.

The words of the Savior, His messianic claims, and Bible prophecy will all take on a rich, new relevance for you against the exciting backdrop of The Feasts of the Lord.

The Sabbath

Abraham Joshua Heschel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

the Sabbath 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This is a thoughtfully written reflection on the meaning of the Sabbath that is appropriate for both Christians and Jews. The book is wonderful for spiritual reading and reflection. It adds depth and meaning to our worship and praise of God. Written by a deeply spiritual man the Sabbath is a great resouce for anyone who wants to deepen and expand their relationship with God.

Editorial Review:

Elegant, passionate, and filled with the love of God's creation, Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath has been hailed as a classic of Jewish spirituality ever since its original publication-and has been read by thousands of people seeking meaning in modern life. In this brief yet profound meditation on the meaning of the Seventh Day, Heschel introduced the idea of an "architecture of holiness" that appears not in space but in time Judaism, he argues, is a religion of time: it finds meaning not in space and the material things that fill it but in time and the eternity that imbues it, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals."

Who Wrote the Bible?

Richard E. Friedman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 84 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Important For Those Who Like Postmortem 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Most of this book concentrates on a hypothesis for how the Torah, not the bible as a whole was written (regardless of what the book's name or some of the reviewers say)- it is the origin of Torah that is attributed to Moses, not the bible as a whole.

Torah in its own right, if this hypothesis is correct, is a) an omelet and b) has a history. I don't know why for Christians it is important that the written Torah was revealed to Moses all at once, for the Orthodox Jews, this is important because Torah is the covenant between the Suzerain - God and a King - the people Israel. This relationship between God and Israel is at the core of Judaism. Also, it is important for the Orthodox that Torah is attributed to Moses because of the position that the Orthodox hold that the ancient state of Israel had to find its justification in the Torah - not the other way around. Israel only has one ruler and law giver - God.

I will leave it to the reader of this review to look at the other reviews to see what the book is talking about. In my review, I would like to raise a few questions about the validity of some of what the author of "Understanding The Bible" wrote.

Firstly. The author Richard Friedman, wrote in Chapter 14 about how the various pieces that sometimes contradicted and were totally unrelated were put together and that they created something that the originators could never have imagined. I argue that this is not correct. There are major themes in the Torah that are constants that are seen throughout and have been preserved all throughout the "merges".

1) The theme that leads from the creation story to the Tabernacle and the first temple. The idea is that the first temple represented Eden.
2) The moral growth of humans as well as the moral changes in the conceptions by God. This leads us from Cain who killed his brother, but was tolerated by God to the dictum made by God that all those who shed the blood of man will die by man's hand. As well as that God will demand a reckoning from every beast for killing men. This was a legal principle that Israelites used from the earliest time (even if the writing down of this principle is attributed to a later age). Additionally, we go from Adam and Eve who are children, to Noah who is the most righteous of his generation, but doesn't attempt to change God's mind about killing all people and animals, to Abraham who tells God not to dare to destroy an entire city.
3) The covenental formulary is preserved throughout all the so called modifications, "arbitrary additions", political feuds, etc. To learn what covenental formulary is and why it is important, please read the book Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible by Jon Levenson.

Here is another thing that one has to watch out for. The so called contradictions. On page 229, the author lists two "contradictory" passages.

(1) "Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it...because in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it."

(2) "Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it...and you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day"

The author claims that (1) and (2) above are somehow contradictory and yet people who read them seem to be able to reconcile them. Let me suggest that (1) states why the Sabbath day is sanctified while (2) states why you should keep it sanctified. Had the author understood that the story of the bringing out of the land of Egypt is the reason for why we as Jews obey God's commandments, he would have understood the reason for (2). (1) simply states that given that you will obey God and keep Sabbath holy, here is an explanation for why it is holy. Contradictory? Perhaps in the author's imagination.

In any case, the bible is a living book. It is the way in which one communicates with a living God. Perhaps the reason that so many people object to the kind of study that leads to the documentary hypothesis is the notion that it is like cutting up a dead frog in order to do a postmortem. Instead, you can use the book to create a relationship with God that has been described by many as a relationship between lovers.

Editorial Review:

"J," "P," "E," and "D" are the names scholars have given to some authors of the Bible, and, as such, they are very important letters to a lot of people. Churches have died and been born, and millions of people have lost faith or found it, because of the last two centuries of debate about who, exactly, wrote the canonical texts of Christianity and Judaism. Richard Elliott Friedman's survey of this debate, in Who Wrote the Bible?, may be the best written popular book about this question. Without condescension or high-flown academic language, Friedman carefully describes the history of textual criticism of the Bible--a subject on which his authority is unparalleled (Friedman has contributed voluminously to the authoritative Anchor Bible Dictionary). But this book is not just smart. Perhaps even more impressive than Friedman's erudition is his sensitivity to the power of textual criticism to influence faith. --Michael Joseph Gross

Hebrew-English Tanakh Student Edition

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 56 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Hebrew-English tanakh 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

As a rare user of Amazon I have been hesitant to order items since I cannot SEE or FEEL the product. However, I took a(nother) chance and was very pleased with the speed of delivery and the quality of the book. I now am a proud owner-finally- of an English0 Hebrew tanakh/Hebrew Bible! This experience will encourage to puchase more items from Amazon.com.

Excellent Tanakh 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I'm learning hebrew and the roots of judaism. This Tanakh is superb for that objective.

Beautiful book for any Christian seeking the truth of our Lord 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a must have for anyone seeking Yeshua. I'm not a scholar by any means. I'm just a new babe in Christ looking for true scripture from the Jewish Bible. This Bible has been with me for every Bible Study I have done since I bought it, and I wouldn't give it up for anything. It's a wonderful addition to my other Bible. Make this purchase! You will never regret it!

Editorial Review:

The classic J.P.S translation is married to a clear Hebrew text. Already gaining acceptance as the definitive Bible for scholars and laymen alike. Standard text for 99per cent of last year's Melton students, the easiest to read Tanakh on the market.

The Torah: A Women's Commentary

Edited by Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea Weiss

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The five daughters of Zelophehad in the Book of Numbers approach Moses, the leaders of the people, and the entire community. They draw near because they see a problem that needs a solution: they have not been given an inheritance that they believe is due to them. They refuse to be left out and demand their rightful share. And so they dare speak to Moses, the priest Eleazar, all the other leaders, and the entire edah (congregation or formally constituted assembly). They say: 'Give us a holding among our father's kin. Give us a share of our heritage, why should we be left out?' They get what they want a share, a large share I should add. Moreover, as a result of their courage, a new Torah law is created, one that intends to benefit future generations long after them. Their story is the story of the WRJ's The Torah: A Women's Commentary. The Women of Reform Judaism said: 'Give us a share among our brothers. We are no longer willing to be left out.' Instead of land, WRJ asks for something even more enduring - 'Give us a share of our Torah.' The result is a Torah commentary that we trust will benefit all of us. With this commentary we will continue as sisters to empower the women - and men - who come after us for generations to come." Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi Professor of Bible, HUC-JIR/LA The Torah: A Women's Commentary will incorporate these perspectives:

A Reader's Hebrew Bible

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A great resource 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I've got both the first and second editions of the Reader's GNT companion volume. Either is a great value for the money, but neither comes close to the quality and usefulness of the Reader's GNT published by UBS -- the real deal. So I was a bit hesitant to purchase Zondervan's Reader's Hebrew Bible.

My hesitation was overcome by the fact that I use my UBS RGNT on a daily basis for devotional use, but don't read the Hebrew text in the same way as frequently because of the need for a lexicon nearby. A reader's lexicon helps, but it's still a clunky way to read, and because Hebrew vocabulary is so much larger than NT Greek, there are few of us who will ever be able to simply read with no lexicon around. So seeing what a reader's GNT did for me, I ordered this.

I'm very pleased. It hast the same cheap binding and paper as the companion RGNT, but the fact that it's duo-tone (basically PVC plastic) does mean that despite being flimsy, it should hold up for a long time. They seem to have overcome the typeface problems present in both editions of the RGNT. This font is very easy to read. I have not found the proper names being in gray instead of black to be a problem -- they're not that light and the purpose is to make proper names used less than 100 times stand out so that the newbie doesn't waste time trying to parse them. That's the whole point: to gloss the words so the reader doesn't have to. The more you read, the more you learn, and the more often you read and learn the more Hebrew sticks in your mind.

The fact that this text is that of the Westminster edition of Leningradensis is great. They essentially cut and pasted from Bibleworks 4. There are minor variants between this and BHS/BHQ, but nothing significant and all differences are listed in the appendix. I also like the way they've dealt with Kethib-Qere readings -- something that should serve good training for the student just learning his way around the Hebrew Old Testament.

If Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft ever prints a readers edition of BHS or BHQ it will probably leave this in the dust just as the UBS RGNT leaves the Zondervan RGNT in the dust, but until then this is a great tool.

Editorial Review:

Following in the footsteps of the popular A Reader’s Greek New Testament, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible includes features that make this a time-saver for studying the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament. It comes in Italian Duo-Tone™ binding—attractive, durable, and affordable.

Jewish Literacy Revised Ed: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History

Joseph Telushkin

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

What does it mean to be a Jew? How does one begin to answer so extensive a question?

In this insightful and completely updated tome, esteemed rabbi and bestselling author Joseph Telushkin helps answer the question of what it means to be a Jew, in the largest sense. Widely recognized as one of the most respected and indispensable reference books on Jewish life, culture, tradition, and religion, Jewish Literacy covers every essential aspect of the Jewish people and Judaism. In 352 short and engaging chapters, Rabbi Telushkin discusses everything from the Jewish Bible and Talmud to Jewish notions of ethics to antisemitism and the Holocaust; from the history of Jews around the world to Zionism and the politics of a Jewish state; from the significance of religious traditions and holidays to how they are practiced in daily life. Whether you want to know more about Judaism in general or have specific questions you'd like answered, Jewish Literacy is sure to contain the information you need.

Rabbi Telushkin's expert knowledge of Judaism makes the updated and revised edition of Jewish Literacy an invaluable reference. A comprehensive yet thoroughly accessible resource for anyone interested in learning the fundamentals of Judaism, Jewish Literacy is a must for every Jewish home.