Orthodox Books

Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Disciplines (Pocket Classics)

Lauren F. Winner

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What a Delight 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren F. Winner is a delightful instructional on applying practices from the Jewish tradition to Christian spirituality. Having finished seminary in 2001 and learning some of these practices in class, I was happy to be reminded of many practices I am apt to neglect. Her conversational way of weaving personal stories and old traditions make Mudhouse Sabbath a real joy to read.
Winner's call to live our daily lives more attentively is heard loud and clear. I was struck at how many spiritual practices Christians gave-up as Christianity moved west. As a Baptist and lacking very many sacraments, I appreciated her ideas for making some of the everyday activities of life more holy whether it is eating, resting, aging, or praying. Three chapters in particular, "Hospitality," "Body," and "Weddings," stand out to me as particularly good words. Her chapter on hospitality resonates with my desire to experience authentic Christian community. She compares the messiness of her apartment with the messiness of her own life. She confesses that an invitation for others to enter her life also invites others to see her as she really is. She states, "Having guests and visitors, if we do it right, is not an imposition, because we are not meant to rearrange our lives for our guests--we are meant to invite our guests to enter into our lives as they are." I became aware of my attempts to sabotage closeness with others by attempting to only presenting a sanitized version of myself.
Winner's confession of her struggle with her own body image is tender and assuring as she draws the reader in to her experiences as a woman. Calling us back to Scripture and tradition, many readers might be surprised and pleased at the opportunity to grow into a new way of thinking about the human body. She correctly calls Christians back to the creation story and to consider that Western Christians have been, "Enlightenment people who liked to live Christianity in their minds rather than in their bodies."
Though I already thought of marriage as a sacrament, I must admit there is little that is sacramental about how we have done it in my tradition. In her application of Jewish tradition toward Christian marriage, I found the examples of how "privacy gives way to community" thought provoking with regard to their potential for solving problems young Christians face, particularly evangelicals. I do a number of weddings and I began to immediately brainstorm ways to incorporate ways to "push married couples into their community."
I recommend this book to people young and old who have maxed out at the Christian bookstore and are looking to deepen their Christian walk through intentional practices. This is not a book that will fill your mind with tons of facts and figures for your consideration. But like the title suggests, Mudhouse Sabbath is creative invitation to intentional Christian living.

ORTHODOXY

Gilbert, K. Chesterson

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book called "Heretics" because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is unavoidably affirmative and therefore unavoidably autobiographical. The writer has been driven back upon somewhat the same difficulty as that which beset Newman in writing his Apologia; he has been forced to be egotistical only in order to be sincere. While everything else may be different the motive in both cases is the same. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with all the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence. -- G. K. Chesterton

Foreskin's Lament

Shalom Auslander

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Editorial Review:

A New York Times Notable Book, and a “chaotic, laugh riot”(San Francisco Chronicle) of a memoir— first time in trade paperback.

Shalom Auslander was raised with a terrified respect for God. Even as he grew up and was estranged from his community, his religion and its traditions, he could not find the path to a life where he didn’t struggle daily with the fear of God’s formidable wrath. Foreskin’s Lament reveals Auslander’s “painfully, cripplingly, incurably, miserably religious” youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. His combination of unrelenting humor and anger renders a rich and fascinating portrait of a man grappling with his faith and family.

Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir

Shalom Auslander

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Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Shalom Auslander was raised with a terrified respect for God. Even as he grew up and was estranged from his community, his religion and its traditions, he could not find his way to a life where he didn't struggle against God daily.

Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. Auslander remembers his youthful attempt to win the "blessing bee" (the Orthodox version of a spelling bee), his exile to an Orthodox-style reform school in Israel after he's caught shoplifting Union Bay jeans from the mall, and his fourteen mile hike to watch the New York Rangers play in Madison Square Garden without violating the Sabbath. Throughout, Auslander struggles to understand God and His complicated, often contradictory laws. He tries to negotiate with God and His representatives-a day of sin-free living for a day of indulgence, a blessing for each profanity. But ultimately, Shalom settles for a peaceful cease-fire, a standoff with God, and accepts the very slim remaining hope that his newborn son might live free of guilt, doubt, and struggle.

Auslander's combination of unrelenting humor and anger--one that draws comparisons to memoirists David Sedaris and Dave Eggers--renders a rich and fascinating portrait of a man grappling with his faith, family, and community.

Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels

Hella Winston

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

unintelligent and nasty look at Hasidim 1 out of 5 stars.
17 of 25 people found this review helpful.

I am a secular Jew with a great fascination and respect for Lubavitchers, and have read most of the available books on them, which I have found to be thoughtful, deep and illuminating, as well as honest. Hella Winston's book is the exception. The author seems not up to par in either intelligence, honesty or in an open-minded and respectful attitude towards the sub-culture she is supposedly researching as a sociology grad student.

I can especially recommend "Mystics, Mavericks and Merrymakers." (which also includes rebels, depite Hella's claim that she is the only author who has dared to do so.)

It is hard to believe she is an academic or earned a Phd, except that the liberal academic world is so bigoted about religious people that shoddy and superficial work like this was probably given a pass because it is so blatantly hostile to pious Jews.

One small example shows the undercurrent of hostility that distorts the entire book. Winston describes the apartment of a Satmar grandmother "whose walls boast several innocuous paintings of flowers (no graven images here)." Why is the author mocking one of the ten commandments? Why the sarcasm? Why the nastiness? Is this a serious or respectful way to discuss another culture and religion? No graven images here? It seems floral paintings don't meet Hella's standards for Jewish culture, as she explains in the introduciton, "it was still hard for me to fathom that there really could be Jewish peoplelllwho actually believed that viewiing art...could be a bad, even dangerous thing....Didn't Jews ...pride themselves on producing and consuming culture?" As an ex-Peace Corps volunteer, I have troulbe with her difficulty in fathoming that different Jewish sub-cultures are actually...well, different. And that being a New York culture-vulture is actually not central to 4,000 years of Jewish identity. Isn't she weird?

I also found winston less than honest. For example, she stresses the idea that the Hasidim are so strict because their rebbes planted the idea that if they fall away from strict observance, the holocaust could happen again. I will pass over how disrespectful this theory is, as if only fear of mass murder would make Jews observant...it is also dishonest, because she knows, but does not explain that the last Lubavitcher Rebbe taught that blaming Jews for the Holocaust was wrong. Instead she relegates his views to a footnote and disguises his strong stand against blaming Jews to a bland "we cannot know the reasons for the Holocaust."

I also wonder how honest she is about her own motives for doing this research and her own Jewish identity. In the introduction she has a dishonest and superficial discussion of the attitudes of non-Jews to the Hasidim. She lists "a kind of admiration' (it would be too positive for Winton to say simply that some Jews have admiration)... for an "authentic" Judaism (her quotes - yet another example of her palpable hostility - she can't even allow the word authentic when describing Jews who admire Chasids' religious practices). Second attitude of other Jews: 'romantic longing'. Third, that Hasids are primitive, backward, dirty. Lastly, anti-Zionist.

This list of other Jews' attitudes towards observant Jews leaves out any discussion of the truly vehement and irrational dislike of pious Jews by many secular and reform Jews who are threatened by Jews who remain 100% Jewish and are not trying to conform to and please and placate the majority culture. HOstility based on the pervasive fear of assimilated Jews of appearing 'too Jewish.' A fear that has been widely discussed in the sociological and historical literature, for example, in pre-war Germany. A fear and hostility towards Jews who are 'too Jewish' that perhaps our author shares.

The most shocking part of the book was the conclusion, which again leaves the scope of her research and any pretentions at academic objectivity. She expresses revulsion at a culture that demands conformity and depends on shame, fear and ejecting rebels ... as if there is any traditional society on earth that does not require conformity, and enforce it by these universal cultural measures. Is she really this ignorant about cultures?

The shocking part is that she then "concludes" ( my quotes - I suspect it was her initial motive to arrive at this conclusion, as it seems more like a held belief than a finding), she "concludes" that there is "a fundamental weakness in the belief system itself" and predicts "something might have to change sometime soon", quoting predictions of "the demise of these communities" because "so many" "are forced" out. (she makes no attempt to give us a number of her 'unchosen', but the only existing support group has a mere 200 members!)

Leaving one more glaring dishonesty in this book - her total silence on the huge demographic success of the Chasidim. One reason many secular Jews who care about Jewish continuity love the Chasidim is that they - along with the Modern Orthodox - are the only Jews who will exist in America by the nextcentury, according to the juggernaut population trends which show a rush to self-extinction by the other Jewish 'sects' (her term for chasidic groups)who base their Judaism on what fits into the mainstream culture.

The 2000 population study projects that for every 100 Yeshiva/Hasidic Orthodox Jews today, there will be 3,400 great-grandchildren. for 100 Reform Jews today, there will be 10 Jewish great-grandchildren. For 100 secular Jews today, there will be 7 Jewish great-grandchildren. These figures are well known and have resulted in heroic actions by non-observant Jews to try and reverse this death knell. And here is Hella, pretending it is the Chasidim who are in trouble.

Editorial Review:

When Hella Winston began talking with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn for her doctoral dissertation in sociology, she was surprised to be covertly introduced to Hasidim unhappy with their highly restrictive way of life and sometimes desperately struggling to escape it. Unchosen tells the stories of these "rebel" Hasidim, serious questioners who long for greater personal and intellectual freedom than their communities allow. In her new Preface, Winston discusses the passionate reactions the book has elicited among Hasidim and non-Hasidim alike.

Named one of Publishers Weekly's Ten Best Religion Books of 2005.

Hella Winston is pursuing her Ph.D. in sociology at the Graduate Center for the City University of New York. She lives in New York City.

Climbing Jacob's Ladder: One Man's Journey to Rediscover a Jewish Spiritual Tradition

Alan Morinis

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

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How can a person be generous to the poor when his own bank account is almost empty? Mussar, a thousand-year-old Jewish spiritual tradition, offers answers to this and many other questions regarding the distance between religious ideals and everyday realities, as Alan Morinis explains in Climbing Jacob's Ladder. Morinis, a Canadian baby boomer who grew up to become a Rhodes Scholar, anthropologist, and film producer, discovered Mussar teachings at the low point of his midlife crisis. After he made some high-flying business deals that crashed, Morinis found reassurance in the Mussar idea that human life is holy and people can improve themselves. And Mussar, a system of ethical discipline conceived by Orthodox Jews to help them meet the demanding requirements of observant life, does seem perfectly designed for readers seeking step-by-step instruction for building or rebuilding their spiritual lives. In Climbing Jacob's Ladder Morinis tells the story of how he used Mussar to climb back up to holy life and invites readers to come along on his ascent. --Michael Joseph Gross

Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox

Marc B. Shapiro

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Interesting, but too read into 4 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

Mainly, Shapiro's focus is on the history of the relationship of the general Orthodox leadership--i.e. The Council of Torah Sages (Moetzei Gedolei haTorah), Rabbinical Council of America, and The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada(Agudas haRabonim)--with Orthodox rabbis who worked for/with non-Orthodox institutions. Shapiro also devotes a few pages to the Conservative scholar, Dr. Louis Ginsburg, and his relationship with the Orthodox community (as long as Shapiro was at it, I would have been interested to see some information about Dr. David-Weiss haLivni, the talmudic genius who quit the Jewish Theological Seminary of America over the issue of women becoming rabbis and is currently attempting to forge a "Traditional" denominational road between Conservative and Orthodox). Shapiro largely dedicates the pages to Saul Lieberman (the G'RaSh), the ingenius Orthodox Talmudic scholar who had permission from two universally recognized rabbinical figures to work at the JTSA and, while there, composed an infamous treatise of the Tosefta. Although Shapiro's facts are quit interesting and do indicate Orthodoxy's fundamental shift to the right, I think he reads way too much into things. He quotes a lot of 19th century Chareidi rabbis as working with people who graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau as similar to the Saul Lieberman case. I don't think it's so simple to do so. Many rabbis probably considered the JTSB an "Orthodoxish" institution at the time (in fact, the first two presidents of the Orthodox Union were H.P. Mendes and Bernard Drachman, two JTSA stalwarts; it is especially worthy of notice that the latter was a graduate of JTSB and quit his shul when it got rid of the mechitza). One of his main focuses is on titles, which many would argue are not indicative of a rabbi's position on a person's philosophy; however, it is extremely interesting that some of the most respected right-wing rabbis addressed Ginzburg--who, by Orthodox standards, was undoubtedly a heretic--with some very respectful terms. That being said, Shapiro debunks many myths which are embedded in the book "Saul Lieberman", as well as introducing the reader to the following: the tremendous respect which the Orthodox community had for Lieberman (as opposed to Ginzburg and Dr. Mordechai Kaplan); recently found documents which reveal why Lieberman decided to work at the Seminary; Rabbi Samuel Belkin's alleged recommendation of Lieberman as a decisor of Jewish law; the constant respect showed by moderate left-wing Rabbis Joseph Soloveitchik and Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (the Seredei Ish) to Lieberman; an interesting story delineating somewhat the positions of the moderate right-wing Agudath Israel's Rabbis Yaakov Kaminetsky and Aaron Kotler; different decisions in Jewish law in relation to working at a Conservative institution (althogh, here too, I think Shapiro makes some mistakes. For example, he seems to believe that according to a certain opinion in Jewish law which feels that one cannot teach Torah to somebody who does not deserve to learn it, outreach would be impossible. But this opinion is not necessarily referring to a halachic "Jew captured in the land of Gentiles," but a student at a Conservative seminary.); how many Chareidi scholars have managed to quote Lieberman (including an Artscroll!), often while debasing/ignoring his rabbinical status; and more. All of this makes for a fascinating read.

Editorial Review:

One of the foremost scholars of the Talmud in the last century, Saul Lieberman (1898–1983) is also an intriguing and controversial figure. Highly influential in Orthodox society, he left Israel in 1940 to accept an appointment at the Jewish Theological Seminary, a Conservative institution. During his forty years at the Seminary, Lieberman served in the Rabbinical Assembly as one of the most important arbiters of Jewish law, though his decisions were often too progressive to be recognized by the Orthodox. Marc B. Shapiro here considers Lieberman’s experiences to examine the conflict between Jewish Orthodoxy and Conservatism in the mid-1900s. This invaluable scholarly resource also includes a Hebrew appendix and previously unpublished letters from Lieberman.

Gateway to Judaism: The What, How, And Why of Jewish Life

Mordechai Becher

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The values and practices of modern Judaism 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

GATEWAY TO JUDAISM: THE WHAT, HOW, AND WHY OF JEWISH LIFE is an insider's look at the values and practices of modern Judaism. Rabi Becher is a senior outreach expert with Gateways Seminars, helping thousands re-connect to their Jewish heritage. As such a leader, he was often asked for a single book to 'explain it all' - and GATEWAY TO JUDAISM is his answer, covering everything from Sabbath and traditional rituals in modern times to understanding both religious sentiments and social impacts of Judaism in everyday life.

Editorial Review:

Gateway to Judaism delivers an engaging insider look at the mindset, values, and practices of contemporary traditional Judaism. Rabbi Becher demonstrates that Judaism today is anything but anachronistic rites and disjointed rituals. Rather, his book opens a portal to a vibrant lifestyle that brings joy and meaning to Jewish living. Based on years of answering thousands of challenging inquiries, Becher's work blends elements of Jewish philosophy and law with an intensely practical explanation of how Jews actually live.

The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch

Sue Fishkoff

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Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

“Excuse me, are you Jewish?” With these words, the relentlessly cheerful, ideologically driven emissaries of Chabad-Lubavitch approach perfect strangers on street corners throughout the world in their ongoing efforts to persuade their fellow Jews to live religiously observant lives. In The Rebbe’s Army, award-winning journalist Sue Fishkoff gives us the first behind-the-scenes look at this small Brooklyn-based group of Hasidim and the extraordinary lengths to which they take their mission of outreach.

They seem to be everywhere—in big cities, small towns, and suburbs throughout the United States, and in sixty-one countries around the world. They light giant Chanukah menorahs in public squares, run “Chabad houses” on college campuses from Berkeley to Cambridge, give weekly bible classes in the Capitol basement
in Washington, D.C., run a nonsectarian drug treatment center in Los Angeles, sponsor the world’s biggest Passover Seder in Nepal, establish synagogues, Hebrew schools, and day-care centers in places that are often indifferent and occasionally hostile to their outreach efforts. They have built a billion-dollar international empire, with their own news service, publishing house, and hundreds of Websites.

Who are these people? How successful are they in making Jews more observant? What influence does their late Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (who some thought was the Messiah), continue to have on his followers? Fishkoff spent a year interviewing Lubavitch emissaries from Anchorage to Miami and has written an engaging and fair-minded account of a Hasidic group whose motives and methodology continue to be the subject of speculation and controversy.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Legend of the Baal-Shem

Martin Buber

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber spoke directly to the most profound human concerns in all his works, including his discussions of Hasidism, a mystical-religious movement founded in Eastern Europe by Israel ben Eliezer, called the Baal-Shem (the Master of God's Name). Living in the first part of the eighteenth century in Podolia and Wolhynia, the Baal-Shem braved scorn and rejection from the rabbinical establishment and attracted followers from among the common people, the poor, and the mystically inclined. Here Buber offers a sensitive and intuitive account of Hasidism, followed by twenty stories about the life of the Baal-Shem. This book is the earliest and one of the most delightful of Buber's seven volumes on Hasidism and can be read not only as a collection of myth but as a key to understanding the central theme of Buber's thought: the I-Thou, or dialogical, relationship.

"All positive religion rests on an enormous simplification of the manifold and wildly engulfing forces that invade us: it is the subduing of the fullness of existence. All myth, in contrast, is the expression of the fullness of existence, its image, its sign; it drinks incessantly from the gushing fountains of life."--Martin Buber, from the introduction