Synopses & Reviews
A publishing sensation long at the top of the best-seller lists in Israel, the original Hebrew edition of
Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism has been called the most successful book ever published in Israel on the preeminent medieval Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides. The works of Maimonides, particularly
The Guide for the Perplexed, are reckoned among the fundamental texts that influenced all subsequent Jewish philosophy and also proved to be highly influential in Christian and Islamic thought.
Spanning subjects ranging from God, prophecy, miracles, revelation, and evil, to politics, messianism, reason in religion, and the therapeutic role of doubt, Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism elucidates the complex ideas of The Guide in remarkably clear and engaging prose.
Drawing on his own experience as a central figure in the current Israeli renaissance of Jewish culture and spirituality, Micah Goodman brings Maimonidess masterwork into dialogue with the intellectual and spiritual worlds of twenty-first-century readers. Goodman contends that in Maimonidess view, the Torahs purpose is not to bring clarity about God but rather to make us realize that we do not understand God at all; not to resolve inscrutable religious issues but to give us insight into the true nature and purpose of our lives.
Review
“Calderons retelling of tales of the Talmud will be healing for those who have felt pushed to the Talmuds margins and exciting for those who have loved the Talmuds gift for a good story.”—Rabbi Jill Hammer, author of Sisters at Sinai and The Jewish Book of Days
Review
“A Bride for One Night is a treasure and made me eager to study more Talmud.”—Edgar M. Bronfman, president of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation Rabbi Jill Hammer
Review
"A welcome step in encouraging Jews of all stripes to engage with texts that hold values we wish to live by, and to find those values there."—Beth Kissileff, Tablet Magazine
Review
"Calderon's interpretation of classic Talmudic literature is like a breath of fresh spring air clearing out the cobwebs and is sure to be enjoyed by scholars and anyone interested in learning more about the rich Jewish heritage."—Sandy Amazeen, Monsters & Critics
Review
"Calderon has indeed realized her goal to teach and to promulgate the creative cultural traditions of the Talmud."—CJ magazine
Review
"A Bride for One Night highlights Ruth Calderon's remarkable skill in bridging the cultural gap between the rabbis and contemporary readers and the significant contribution she has made to demonstrating the relevance of rabbinic legends in the 21st century."—David C. Jacobson, Jewish Review of Books
Review
"Heartfelt, philosophical, imaginative, and religious, these stories offer new ways to read text."—Sharon Elswit, Jewish Book Council
Review
"Calderon's work offers seventeen gates to a richness of heart-in-mind–and, as the Talmud points out, the Holy Blessed One demands the heart."—Daniel Rosenberg, H-Judaic
Review
"A Bride for One Night is a book that lovers of Talmud must buy."—Jay Michaelson, Jewish Daily Forward
Review
“Micah Goodmans inspiring book is an important and profound contribution to the comprehension of the greatest, most complex work in the history of Jewish philosophy.”—Moshe Halbertal, Gruss Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Review
“Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism presents an exciting and relevant possibility: freeing the mind from the habits of religious discourse and returning the concept of God to the intellectuals thoughts.”—Ruth Calderon, author of A Bride for One Night, member of the Israeli Knesset, and founder of Alma: Home for Hebrew Culture
Review
“One of Israels brilliant next generation thinkers, Dr. Micah Goodman is an intellectual powerhouse. From academic settings to popular television lectures he makes lofty ideas accessible and relevant to contemporary life. While others discuss pluralism, Micah lives it, bringing secular and observant young Israelis together through the Ein Prat Midrasha in studying texts and living Jewish commitments such as Tikkun Olam. At the Shalom Hartman Institute I have been nourished by his electrifying lectures illuminating modern dilemmas through the minds of rabbinic sages and contemporary philosophers.” —Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism
Review
“With his characteristic skill and insight, Micah Goodman guides us through the beauty of Jewish philosophy, uplifting us from perplexity to enlightenment.”—Shimon Peres, former president of the State of Israel
Review
“After more than eight centuries Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed remains the Everest of Jewish thought, majestic and challenging at the same time. Micah Goodman, one of the brightest of contemporary Jewish thinkers, has provided a superlative introduction to this work. It is engaging, lucid, and a delight to read, enabling Maimonides’s masterpiece to speak compellingly to our perplexities. An outstanding achievement.”—Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, emeritus chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth
Review
“One of Israel’s brilliant next generation thinkers, Dr. Micah Goodman is an intellectual powerhouse. . . . I have been nourished by his electrifying lectures illuminating modern dilemmas through the minds of rabbinic sages and contemporary philosophers.” —Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism
Review
and#8220;
Houses of Study is the bildungsroman not only of a single individual, but also of a generation of women brought up in a not yet self-confident stream of Orthodoxy, a school of thought in the making. . . . The textand#8217;s tone reflects its subjectand#8217;s complexity, as it moves back and forth between the discursive and instructive and the poetic and intimate. The bookand#8217;s form embraces extreme variety, from snippets of poems, written by the author and others, to extended discourses on Hebrew and Talmudic phrases and concepts, streams of consciousness, and mini-stories that sound like extended metaphors.and#8221;and#8212;
HaaretzReview
“The characteristic diversity within Reform Judaism is underscored on virtually every page of Plaut’s volumes.”—Rabbi Howard A. Berman, executive director of the Society for Classical Reform Judaism
Review
“The work of Rabbi Plaut is not only crucial for an understanding of Reform Judaism; it is also indispensable for grasping the development and history of Judaism in the modern world.”—Rabbi David Ellenson, chancellor and past president of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion
Review
“This valuable collection of source materials is designed to acquaint the reader with the primary forces in the development of Reform Judaism in Europe. From a wide range of essays, articles, speeches, and other writings, Dr. Plaut judiciously selects those that best represent the thinking of the leaders as well as of the lesser, more obscure figures of the Reform movement.”—Commentary magazine
Review
“Here is a personal journey whose signposts are biblical tales and spiritual insights of the masters. Niles Goldstein asks ever-deepening questions, leaving the reader both uplifted and enlightened.”—Rabbi David Wolpe, Sinai Temple, Los Angeles, and author of Why Faith Matters
Review
“Weaving insights from personal experience with philosophical perspective and religious wisdom, Goldstein has provided a thoughtful, provocative, and accessible context in which readers can find their own way toward inner growth.”—Reverend Dirk Ficca, former executive director of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions
Review
"As Americans show increased interest in Jewish religion and culture in Israel, this English edition is likely to have great appeal."—Publishers Weekly
Review
"Goodman’s book, a guide to The Guide, is an astonishing achievement. There can be no Maimonides for Dummies, and thus Goodman’s presentation will challenge his readers mightily. It is a challenge very much worth taking."—Philip K. Jason, Jewish Book Council
Synopsis
Browse discussion questions
Ruth Calderon has recently electrified the Jewish world with her teachings of talmudic texts. In this volume, her first to appear in English, she offers a fascinating window into some of the liveliest and most colorful stories in the Talmud. Calderon rewrites talmudic tales as richly imagined fictions, drawing us into the lives of such characters as the woman who risks her life for a sister suspected of adultery; a humble schoolteacher who rescues his village from drought; and a wife who dresses as a prostitute to seduce her pious husband in their garden. Breathing new life into an ancient text, A Bride for One Night offers a surprising and provocative read, both for anyone already intimate with the Talmud or for anyone interested in one of the most influential works of Jewish literature.
"
Synopsis
"Heartfelt, philosophical, imaginative, and religious, these stories offer new ways to read text."--Sharon Elswit, Jewish Book Council
Ruth Calderon has recently electrified the Jewish world with her teachings of talmudic texts. In this volume, her first to appear in English, she offers a fascinating window into some of the liveliest and most colorful stories in the Talmud. Calderon rewrites talmudic tales as richly imagined fictions, drawing us into the lives of such characters as the woman who risks her life for a sister suspected of adultery; a humble schoolteacher who rescues his village from drought; and a wife who dresses as a prostitute to seduce her pious husband in their garden.
Breathing new life into an ancient text, A Bride for One Night offers a surprising and provocative read, both for anyone already intimate with the Talmud or for anyone interested in one of the most influential works of Jewish literature.
Synopsis
Browse discussion questions
Ruth Calderon has recently electrified the Jewish world with her teachings of talmudic texts. In this volume, her first to appear in English, she offers a fascinating window into some of the liveliest and most colorful stories in the Talmud. Calderon rewrites talmudic tales as richly imagined fictions, drawing us into the lives of such characters as the woman who risks her life for a sister suspected of adultery; a humble schoolteacher who rescues his village from drought; and a wife who dresses as a prostitute to seduce her pious husband in their garden. Breathing new life into an ancient text, A Bride for One Night offers a surprising and provocative read, both for anyone already intimate with the Talmud or for anyone interested in one of the most influential works of Jewish literature.
Synopsis
Houses of Study is an eloquent memoir of a Jewish womanand#8217;s life and her efforts to reconcile the traditions of her faith with her belief in womenand#8217;s equality and the pull of modern American living. Ilana M. Blumberg traces her path from a childhood immersed in Hebrew and classical Judaic texts alongside Anglo-American novels and biographies to a womanhood where the two literatures suddenly represent mutually exclusive possibilities for life. Set in and#8220;houses of study,and#8221; from a Jewish grammar school and high school to a Jerusalem yeshiva for women to a secular American university, her intimate and poignant memoir asks what happens when the traditional Jewish ideal of learning asserts itself in a woman directed by that same tradition toward a life of modesty, early marriage, and motherhood.
This Bison Books edition is updated with discussion questions.
Synopsis
This fiftieth anniversary edition of W. Gunther Plauts classic volume on the beginnings of the Jewish Reform Movement is updated with a new introduction by Howard A. Berman. The Rise of Reform Judaism covers the first one hundred years of the movement, from the time of the eighteenth-century Jewish Enlightenment leader Moses Mendelssohn to the conclusion of the Augsburg synod in 1871.
In these pages the founders who established liberal Judaism speak for themselves through their journals and pamphlets, books and sermons, petitions and resolutions, and public arguments and disputations. Each selection includes Plauts brief introduction and sketch of the reformer. Important topics within Judaism are addressed in these writings: philosophy and theology, religious practice, synagogue services, and personal life, as well as controversies on the permissibility of organ music, the introduction of the sermon, the nature of circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the rights of women, and the authenticity of the Bible.
Synopsis
Eight Questions of Faith is a spiritual exploration of some of life’s biggest questions—questions that have been asked by prophets and kings, mystics and sinners, and that continue to be asked by every one of us today. Niles Elliot Goldstein uses eight questions found in the Bible to explore the human journey from cradle to grave, confronting such important existential experiences and themes as mortality, responsibility, forbidden knowledge, sin, and the afterlife. By interweaving texts from the Bible, commentaries, philosophy, psychology, and literature with his own experiences, Goldstein also meditates on midlife. This book will appeal to believers and nonbelievers alike and is aimed at anyone who has ever faced a challenge or wondered what life is all about.
About the Author
Ruth Calderon has a PhD in Talmud from Hebrew University and was elected to the Israeli Knesset in January 2013. She became a national celebrity when she taught a page of Talmud in the Israeli parliament, arguing that the text was the heritage of the entire Jewish people. She is founder and former director of Elul Beit Midrash in Jerusalem and founder and chair of Alma: Home for Hebrew Culture in Tel Aviv.
Ilana Kurshan is the books editor of Lilith magazine. She is the author of Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? as well as several articles about Talmud, literature, and Jewish life.