This book examines the history of Jewish education from the Biblical period to the present. It traces how Jews have formally and informally transmitted their culture and worldview over the years, with particular attention to the shift from premodernity to modernity and to the unique opportunities and challenges of contemporary American Jewish education. Its authors combine historical background and insight with educational expertise to provide a robust portrait of the cultures and contexts...

"Irwin Kula shows us how to to live our humanness -- the pleasures and the challenges, the messiness and the triumphs -- with a profound acceptance of our desires and foibles and a joy that can only come from understanding." --Deepak Chopra"Yearning. After twenty-three years as a rabbi, I can think of no more defining human experience."Life can be messy and imperfect. We're all looking for answers. And yet, as renowned rabbi Irwin Kula points out, ...

From the bestselling author of The Red Tent and Good Harbor, a collection of intimate, autobiographical reflections on the milestones, revelations, and balancing acts of life as a wife, mother, friend, and member of a religious community.Before The Red Tent won her international literary acclaim, Anita Diamant was a columnist in Boston. Over the course of twenty years, she wrote essays that reflected the shape and evolution of her life, a...

Covenant & Conscience—A Groundbreaking Journey to the Heart of Halakha"Anyone curious about the Jewish way of life, yet dissatisfied with much of contemporary Jewish theology and practice—repelled, perhaps, by the cheap and vulgar apologetics of those who seek to justify and sustain some of the tradition's systematic immoralities, who smugly deny expression to any doubt or uncertainty, claiming a monopoly on absolute truth—is invited to join me on this pilgrimage."...

This is the story of a survivor, what he saw and felt during his Calvary from Antwerp to the Malin distribution camp in France and from there to the extermination camp of Buchenwald.To say that this book contains the scenes of a twentieth-century Inferno may sound commonplace. Yet, every page of this book reminds one of Dante's Inferno, with one exception: The Inferno, the author writes about consumed the lives not of the sinful whom divine justice cast into the immortality of suff...

In 1917 Czarist Russia collapsed during the catastrophe of the First World War, but the tensions that had accumulated inside the empire for a century due to the challenges that modernisation presented were the real seeds of her undoing. The 19th Century was a battle for the soul of Russia, and it decided whether she would embrace liberal democracy and industrialisation like her contemporaries in Europe, or whether she would retreat into the past. In fact, she did both, and the human legacy...

Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spino...

The Idea of a University illuminates St. John Henry Newman’s timeless and accessible defense of a Catholic liberal education.St. John Henry Newman and his influence on theology, religion, and education continues to benefit us today. The Idea of a University, one of his pinnacle works, collects his lectures about the intertwined strength of the Catholic Church and the liberal university. Within these discourses, Newman lays out arguments for the es...

ature has potentially endowed man with the faculty of delving deep into its secrets to be able to ensure N   good health, happiness and soul progression. The cultiva- tion is a never-ending process, though the momentum, de- pending upon several factors, keeps on changing. Vastu (v³stu) is one such field of occult knowledge that was recog- nized by the Indian sages (rishis) as the vibratory force of Nature hidden in one’s residence and its surroundings. Wit...

Thanks to these generous donors for making the publication of this book possible: David Lerman and Shelley Wallock; D. Walter Cohen, Wendy and Leonard Cooper; Rabbi Howard Gorin; Gittel and Alan Hilibrand; Marjorie and Jeffrey Major; Jeanette Lerman Neubauer and Joe Neubauer; Gayle and David Smith; and Harriet and Donald Young.Ever since Abraham’s famous argument with God, Judaism has been full of debate. Moses and Korah, David and Nathan, Hillel and Shammai, the Vilna Gaon and the...

In this special book, Rabbi Neil Gillman guides you through these questions and the countless different ways the Jewish people have related to God, how each originated, and what each may mean for you. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, or even Jewish, this nuts-and-bolts introduction will both answer your questionsand stimulate new ones.

This volume explores the reception of John Dewey’s ideas in various historical and geographical settings such as Japan, China, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Russia, and Germany, analyzing how and why Dewey’s thought was interpreted in various ways according to mediating local discursive and ideological configurations and formations.