AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) To Jewish Spirituality & Mysticism by Michael Levin ISBN: 002864347X Publisher: Alpha Books Pub. Date: 27 February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4

Rating: 4
Summary: Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish Spirituality and Mysticism
Comment: This book is both the oddest and possibly best of the "Complete Idiot's Guide" series. It takes the most complex Jewish mystical ideas and practices, many of which are hundreds if not thousands of years old, and explain's them in laymen's English(and Hebrew) in a way that makes Jewish spirituality accessible to the layperson. Levin quite thoroughly covers the Biblical basis of Jewish Mysticism, also known as Kabbalah(Received Tradition), then proceeds with a brief history of the rest of it's development and those Rabbis and Saints who make up it's principal guides over the past millenium.

He also discusses all the principal Jewish spiritual practices, such as Daily prayer, meditation, Torah study, and study of such mystical works as the Zohar. Lastly, he provides a mystical guidebook for those traveling to Israeli Holy sites in the context of the present violence, and the principal issues Jewish mysticism deals with currently, such as the coming of the Messiah, the nature of suffering, holidays, and more. In short, the author seems to have accomplished the impossible: a User Friendly Guide to Jewish Mysticism.

However, by it's nature, such a book covers it's subject "once over lightly" and does not deal with some of the concerns that have bedeviled deep Jewish thinkers and mystics since ancient times. These are the nature of Divine Providence, or why history, whether personal or collective, transpires the way it does; whether Jewish prayer and mitzvah have efficacy or actual effects in the "real world" or not, and the effect on Jewish practice and faith of the Holocaust.

While the author might say that his book is no place for these subjects, he mentions them very briefly and superficially, when it is good answers to these questions that motivate people to take up the Jewish spiritual practice he advocates. For solid well grounded answers to these issues within the context of Jewish tradition, the reader will have to look to works that especially deal with them. A strongly written treatment of these subjects by this writer, "Jewish History and Divine Providence: Theodicy and the Oddyssey" is available for review and purchase on this site.

Similar Books:

	Title: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture by Benjamin Blech ISBN: 0028627113 Publisher: Alpha Books Pub. Date: 23 December, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.95
	Title: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Judaism by Benjamin Blech, Richard M. Joel ISBN: 0028631919 Publisher: Alpha Books Pub. Date: 25 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95
	Title: The Bedside Torah : Wisdom, Visions, and Dreams by Bradley Shavit Artson, Miriyam Glazer ISBN: 0737305878 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 31 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95
	Title: Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Yiddish by Rabbi Benjamin Blech ISBN: 0028633873 Publisher: Alpha Books Pub. Date: 19 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95
	Title: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Hinduism by Linda Johnsen, Jody P. Schaeffer, David Frawley ISBN: 0028642279 Publisher: Alpha Books Pub. Date: 11 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95