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Woman
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A Bowl of Cherries
Lightning Has Struck
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No Longer Oppressed, Depressed, and in a Mess!
For the Love of God...in Your Marriage!
Staying Healthy God's Way
Staying Healthy God's Way
Upside Down Marriage
Upside Down Marriage
Counseling Before Marriage Is a Necessity, Not an Option
Anger: Get Rid of It

Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land

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Fantastic Journeys Through the Old Testament
Mining Torah's Riches
If you think "Torah doesn't relate to me or contemporary life", read this book!
How the Torah text reflects the text of our own lives

Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land
Rabbi Shefa Gold
Manufacturer: Ben Yehuda Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar

ASIN: 0976986264

Book Description

Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land promises to turn the year-long cycle of Torah reading into a journey of personal spiritual growth.

The first book by Rabbi Shefa Gold, the popular teacher of chant and meditation, Torah Journeys is designed to be meaningful for those at any spiritual level.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic Journeys Through the Old Testament.......2007-04-10

Anyone who has ever wanted to read the Old Testament but found it too difficult to understand or to apply to will discover Rabbi Shefa Gold's new book, Torah Journeys, the perfect tool for comprehending and using the messages hidden there. Her book provides a portal from a surface reading into the deeper significance of the stories and their relevance to our lives today.

The Old Testament, also called the Five Books of Moses, the Bible or the Torah, is read by many religions. Although written from a Jewish perspective and set up to be used as a guide to the weekly Torah portions traditionally read by Jews, Torah Journeys easily can be used by Jew and non-Jew alike to make their reading of this holy text a fulfilling experience. Rabbi Gold has a unique ability to get to the core of a portion and to make it applicable to our lives here and now. Beginning readers of the Torah often complain that the stories within its pages seem removed from modern life. They tend to ask, "What does this have to do with me, now?" Rabbi Gold points them towards the answer to this question with insightful interpretations and useful suggestions on how to use the text in a personal context. For each parsha (portion), Rabbi Gold offers readers the chance to glean both the blessing and the challenge of the text as well as a practice to apply the lesson in a concrete manner. The practices range from meditations to visualizations to chants, all of which are meant to foster spiritual and transformative experiences.

I often have perused Rabbi Gold's website to glean insight into Torah portions. Now, I use her book, a more detailed version of her website information, as a handy guide. I also have had the pleasure and honor of knowing Rabbi Gold, an approachable and inspirational teacher and leader, for several years. She has helped me create Shabbat services based on her lovely chants, offered me insights into subjects I am researching and taught me about chant and meditation. Thus, I can personally recommend her work. So, if you want to bring the Old Testament to life in your own life, read Torah Journeys. In its pages Rabbi Gold shares her wide range of knowledge of Judaism, Torah and other religious and spiritual traditions as well as her insightful and practical approach to Bible study.

Mining Torah's Riches.......2006-12-26

Torah Journeys represents Rabbi Shefa Gold's life work--not only the specific work of her own life, but also her template for a life of spiritual work based in the quintessential Jewish text, the Five Books of Moses, Chumash, or Torah, as it is variously known. As a student and teacher of Torah myself, I have long relied upon Rabbi Gold's fresh, embodied visions and powerful chants to take me deeper into Torah text, and then to turn me outward, back into my own life, with expanded awareness and with new spiritual tools.

Now she has gathered her years of teaching into a beautifully conceived and lovingly executed volume. Her writing is carefully crafted, poetic and evocative, bringing alive the spiritual qualities embedded in the Biblical text in a way that is both accessible and deep. Moving us through the year-long cycle of Torah readings, Reb Shefa reveals how, each week, we might wrest blessing, accept challenge, and receive guidance from words of sacred scripture that often seem, to our modern sensibility, opaque or even repulsive. There is great hope and great joy in this work, for it is predicated on the assumption that we human beings can grow, can expand our awareness, and move through difficult and painful patterns by mining layers of resonance already held in suspension within our own, time-honored traditions.

In fact, these pages dance alive the true meaning of the word "tradition"--from the Latin tradere, to "carry forward" or to "carry across." Indeed, Torah Journeys does carry us, again and again, into sparkling lands of clarity and grace, vast mind-spaces in which students and spiritual practitioners, Jew and non-Jew alike, can come to appreciate anew the riches of an ancient text through a lens that seeks always to transform challenge into blessing and questing into practice. This book can become a life companion, to be read and cherished year after year.

If you think "Torah doesn't relate to me or contemporary life", read this book!.......2006-11-10

I am amazed at how perceptive,thought provoking and user friendly this book is. If you or someone you know thinks Judaism and Torah are outdated & don't relate to contemporary life, then this book is just what you (or they) need to read. It makes the Torah accessable, understandable and relevant. Finally, it also connects to spiritual aspects of Judaism and shows how all these things can come together in today's world and life.

How the Torah text reflects the text of our own lives.......2006-10-10

For about two decades, Rabbi Gold has been gifting the world with memorable sacred songs and chants. This is her first book, and it's been worth waiting for. In it, she relates to Torah with the same artistic sensibilities that have infused her music. She has a gift for articulating inner conversations, giving voice to the Work of being true to one's highest self. Perhaps this is why the prose is relatively vivid for a book dealing with Torah, and why it excels in its genre.

This book looks unblinkingly at Torah through the eyes of an earnest and experienced traveler on spiritual paths. She does not set herself up as a guru telling us what to think; rather, she models for us a process of textual encounter and introspection that we can make our own. With the highest respect for Torah and with a straightforward style that is never preachy, she shows us how to employ the biblical text as a mirror that we can turn on our inner selves, to help us see more clearly what we sometimes hide from our own view.

Many urbane, contemporary Jews find certain parts of the Torah boring, unredeemably sexist, or otherwise primitive; it is most instructive to see what Rabbi Gold makes of those aspects: she challenges herself to embrace all of Torah, to read it in such a way that makes the text sacred to her. One anecdote that she relates (p. 18) sums up well the noble goal of this book. One afternoon, she was describing to a friend what the ongoing discipline of writing this book was like: "You can't sit back and criticize . . . what you don't like in the Torah. Instead, you must search for those same difficulties in yourself and then engage in a process of healing and purification. Instead of blaming, you have to take responsibility." And as she was expounding thus, she heard "a voice speaking every so gently yet firmly" in her ear: "And you could live your whole life that way."

The book is at the same time a highly personal interpretation of Torah and a spiritual manual. It contains one chapter for each of the fifty-four "parashot" (the Hebrew term for the traditional segments of the Torah nominally studied and read by Jews according to an annual cycle). Each chapter distills from that biblical passage both a blessing and a spiritual challenge for one's life; it also offers concrete guidance for spiritual practice(s) that promise to help us appreciate the former while facing the latter. A multi-layered introduction and several practically oriented appendices round out the book.

Although the author often draws upon concepts from other faith traditions, and although she has academic training in Bible, this book's enterprise is thoroughly Jewish and religious in both language and scope. For example, it engages "the Torah" rather than "the Pentateuch." And it pays no regard to questions of the historical origin or development of the biblical text, which it takes as a given.

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Young Tennessee man finds life isn't a bowl of cherries.

Bound for the Promised Land
Richard Marius
Manufacturer: Rutledge Hill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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The Coming of Rain
An Affair of Honor
After the War
Martin Luther: The Christian between God and Death
Thomas More: A Biography

ASIN: 1558532269

Customer Reviews:

Young Tennessee man finds life isn't a bowl of cherries........1996-10-15

This is an engrossing book detailing one man's hopes of getting to California from Tennessee during the 1800s and hooking up with his father, who set off 3 years earlier. As Adam Cloud prepares to leave Tennessee, he meets up with Harry Creekmore, a compulsive liar, con-man, and charlatan. Harry is escaping from the law, and takes up with Adam (who happens to have some money from the sale of his farm and looks like a reasonable meal ticket). Along their way, they meet up with the Jennings family, a bunch of northern psychopaths and idealists, out to set up a California commune without the slightest idea of the hardships ahead. Then they are joined by Clifford and Ishtar Baynes, a couple of opportunistic weasels. And life is very hard. For most of a year, the bunch deals with weather, food, illness, and Indian problems. The difficulties of living with strangers--people completely foreign in upbringing, values, and goals--are well described, and although Adam starts off as a naive do-gooder, by the end, he's sadly enlightened about human weaknesses (including his own). The scenery is vivid, and every character in this book is well developed, from their basic motivations to their dreams. I found myself noting that I've known people just like these people, and I'm pretty glad I didn't have to spend months crossing the country with them. What a pity that Adam didn't cross paths with the Ingalls family.

Lonely Planet Breaking Ranks: Turbulent Travels in the Promised Land (Lonely Planet Journeys (Travel Literature))

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Not so bad. . .not so good.
As informative as a guide, as pleasurable as a novel
You Can Taste the Hummous
Insightful Account of a Journey of a Person and of Peoples
Excellent material, well-written, and extremely useful !

Lonely Planet Breaking Ranks: Turbulent Travels in the Promised Land (Lonely Planet Journeys (Travel Literature))
Benjamin Black
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Travel | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1864503610

Book Description

Ben Black is like any other guy in his twenties: he switches between jobs, he lives on the rough, he travels off the beaten track. He smokes grass, he flirts with politics, he falls in love.

When Ben migrates from Scotland to Israel, his life takes a more exotic turn. He explores the lost city of Petra and a secret, secluded beach in the Sinai Desert. He goes camel racing with the Bedouin and feasts in the hummous parlours of Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Then there is the experience that could occur nowhere else: a suicide bomb blast on his bus route to work.

His life alters irreversibly one day when his military call-up papers arrive and Ben - having moved to Israel in the mid 1990s as the promise of peace seemed so close - is forced to choose between his conscience and his country.

As Ben tries to reconcile his belief in the inevitability of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the realities of military service, he brings into sharp, personal focus the meanings of war and peace in the Middle East.

Customer Reviews:

Not so bad. . .not so good........2002-04-27

I read this book in two sittings. Given current events, I was more motivated than I would have been otherwise. As I write this review, I'm conflicted because I was nauseated by the author's obviously convenient morality while enjoying his depictions of his time in Israel. If you just can't be bothered by your responsibilities to society, I can understand how fashionable it would be to present yourself as a secular, conscientious objector. In the final epilogue, Mr. Black attempts to reconcile his behavior vis a vis Israel's social contract.

I would've been more sympathethic if his rationalizations appeared more honest or if he wasn't a well-educated, well-traveled male, who should, by age 27, the speed at which 3 years passes. However, having read the previous chapters, it felt more like he, like the trust-funded, party boy who resists joining the family business, just couldn't be bothered with his part of the bargain. As I finish this paragraph, I wonder if my Jewish college friends would've dismissively labelled him with that nebulous Yiddish insult--nebbish.

Now with that largely feel-good rant complete, in the main, I enjoyed "meeting" the people he described to us (my personal favorite was the lady making that godawful stuff Turks call coffee). Furthermore, I especially enjoyed the section detailing the sport of Israeli politics during elections as well as the sections on life in the kibbutz. Finally, I got fine laughs out of his interactions with the driver's license examiner and the deferment board.

Bottom line: I enjoyed the book and the author writes well, but found his character unimpressive by the end of the book

As informative as a guide, as pleasurable as a novel.......2001-11-13

Black's debut sends the reader into a contradictory world of beauty and war, of passion and of aggression. To read it is to be there, yet yearn to experience the treasures of the middle east and learn the complexities first hand that make it such a fascinating place. Travalogues can be tedious when too informative and yet when too personal can be frustratingly useless to the traveller. Black, however, strikes a balance that both inspires the reader to go, offering useful advice, in a style that is compelling. The journey from the innocence of youth to the dawning realities of adulthood provides a perfect backdrop to the intricacies of middle-east politics and so opens the reader's eyes to the humanity of what one sees on the news. I was sad I finished it so quickly. I might just have to book a flight...

You Can Taste the Hummous.......2001-09-20

Black's first effort takes us to a time in our very near past when peace in the Middle East was almost reality.
Both a personal and objective account of the mid-late nineties in one of the most written about countries on the planet.
Black does not bog us down with history but takes us on a fresh and contemporary tour of a region so often divided by politics, religion and war. Whilst his own politics are obvious they are not imposed upon the reader and he presents a somewhat balanced view of all arguments in the conflicts.
However it must be noted that this is also a travlogue and Black often takes us off the beaten path to some of the gems and treasures hidden in deserts, moutains, chasms and alleyways. His desriptions of people places and events are so realistic that you can actually taste the hummous.

Insightful Account of a Journey of a Person and of Peoples.......2001-09-13

I have to be honest and say I suspect that "Ben Black" is not a first time writer but a more experienced and established name who for some reason is writing under a pseudonym. Why do I say this? Because it is rare enough to come across such a well-writen, insightful, humurous & ultimately human account of a journey in one of the world's most turbulent regions - let alone from somone with no experience of writing.

Having spent many separate months and years in the Middle East (many during the same periods as Black was there), I can honestly say that he has managed somehow to capture the feel and spirit of much of the region and peoples, and bottled it up in this gem of a book. This should be required reading for anyone thinking of spending any time in or around Israel, and is particularly poignant in the current climate. I can't reccomend it enough.

Come on "Ben", who are you really, and when is your next book coming out?

Excellent material, well-written, and extremely useful !.......2001-09-11

This book constitutes an extremely useful tool and pleasant reading, for those interested in Israeli and Middle East politics and society, as well as travelers to the region (especially during this turbulent time). It is excellent to have a view from the author about the current Middle East crisis. While clearly standing on one side rather than the other, the author remains extremely objective and without any bias, in examining the causes and perspectives of the present Middle East crisis - a topic he clearly feels very strongly about. The book is extremely well-written, ensuring pleasant and captivating reading for all. Likewise, it contains extremely useful and up-to-date information, which will be of immense value for the traveler. It is a book any traveler, especially if interested in politics and society, should take with herself / himself before leaving for the region.

The Promised Land: An Account of Sharecropping Families in Their Journey from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago

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The Promised Land: An Account of Sharecropping Families in Their Journey from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago
Nicholas Lemann
Manufacturer: Pan Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

The Message of Numbers: Journey to the Promised Land (The Bible Speaks Today Series)

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The Message of Numbers: Journey to the Promised Land (The Bible Speaks Today Series)
Raymond Brown
Manufacturer: InterVarsity Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

The Message Of Leviticus: Free To Be Holy (Bible Speaks Today)
The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (Bible Speaks Today)
The Message of Deuteronomy: Not by Bread Alone (Bible Speaks Today)
The Message of Samuel: Personalities, Potential, Politics, and Power (Bible Speaks Today)
The Message of Zechariah: Your Kingdom Come (Bible Speaks Today)

ASIN: 0830824286

Book Description

Numbers is one of the "lost" books of the Bible--lost because it is neglected by many Christians. Named for its two "numberings," or censuses, of Israel--the generation that left Egypt and the generation that entered the land of promise--Numbers frames a fascinating account of the pilgrim people Israel learning to trust God. Readers are frequently puzzled by the dazzling variety of literature that makes up this book and wonder how to make sense of the whole. But in this thorough exposition of Numbers, Raymond Brown discloses the careful design and message of Numbers. He shows how God provides for the basic needs of the ideal life: to be loved, to be free, to be certain. Further, Brown highlights the rich theological themes of Numbers, untangles its meaning for today's readers and shows its enduring relevance for God's people.

Why Not Us?: The 86-year Journey of the Boston Red Sox Fans From Unparalleled Suffering To The Promised Land Of the 2004 World Series

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Every baseball nut needs this one
Agony to Disbelief to Relief
Yawn
Poor moochie
Moochie the Jankee fan

Why Not Us?: The 86-year Journey of the Boston Red Sox Fans From Unparalleled Suffering To The Promised Land Of the 2004 World Series
Leigh Montville
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Sports | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Baseball | Sports | Subjects | Books

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A Tale of Two Cities: The 2004 Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry and the War for the Pennant
Reversing the Curse
Blood Feud: The Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Struggle of Good versus Evil
Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, with a Little Help from Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, and the 2004 Red Sox
Win it for...: What a World Championship Means to Generations of Red Sox Fans

ASIN: 1586483331
Release Date: 2004-12-17

Book Description

For 86 years, Red Sox fans have been hungry. Generation after generation has watched and hoped and prayed for victory. And generation after generation has turned away utterly despondent-after the crushing near-misses of 1946 (when the Sox lost the World Series in 7 games), '48 (lost a one game play-off to Cleveland), '49 (heartbreak to the Yankees), '67 (again, lost the World Series in 7), '75 (and again, lost the World Series in 7), Bucky in '78, Buckner in '86, Boone in 2003-then come back the next spring, wounded, yet hopeful again. The losing, the angst, the self-flagellation became so codified that it had even developed marketing names. The suffering was called "The Curse of the Bambino." The sufferers were called "Red Sox Nation"- the ultimate underdogs. Would it ever end?

And then it did.

Why Not Us? is not a book about how the Red Sox achieved their amazing victory in the 2004 World Series - an avalanche of books, and time, will take care of that nicely. It is a book about what that victory meant to the fans. It's a book about how it felt to be a Red Sox fan - not only at 20 minutes to midnight on October 27, 2004, but decades before. Leigh Montville has interviewed dozens of fans: friends, friends of friends, old sportswriters, ball-players, public figures, and plain folk. The resulting book is their stories - bittersweet stories of passion and pain, eternal hope and crushing despair, the seemingly endless agony and the strange ecstasy of being a Red Sox fan.

Customer Reviews:

Every baseball nut needs this one.......2007-01-13

Any sports fan knows that rivalries are what take a great game to the next level. Perhaps the greatest rivalry in modern sports is the Red Sox and the Yankees. Anyone who lived, drank, jumped up and down, and survived the 2004 series between the two knows the electricity in the air for that monumental series was never greater in a century of sports. This book is penned by one of the great sportswriters or our era, Leigh Montville. Leigh writes for the Boston Globe, and he is the master of describing the trials and tribulations of the great Boston teams that get oh so close to fame, but never seem to grasp the champagne. Quite a great perspective here from both the writer and sports fan at heart, covering the Sox and their troubles from 1918 to today. Pick this one up and kick back in the recliner. It's a great one.

Agony to Disbelief to Relief.......2006-10-05

I have lived in Boston since 1964 and am about the same age as Leigh Montville. Over those years, I've loved his wonderful writing in the Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated and now in his books. I think he's done an important service in writing this book because in future years the unbelievable experience of having been a frustrated Red Sox fan all those years will be lost. Yet that perspective was a dominant one in the area for the 42 years I've been here. In a sense, you cannot understand New Englanders unless you appreciate their long suffering with the Red Sox. It's like the way we put up with the winters . . . assuming that spring will follow. Those who take the easy road just head to Florida. It seemed ironic that the Florida Marlins quickly captured the World Series after being founded while the Red Sox continued to toil below the top.

Anyone who has been a Red Sox fan should read this book. You'll discover dimensions of fan-ship that you never expected.

I also recommend that the book be shared with young fans who don't know anything about the Curse of the Bambino, Buckner's fielding or Pedro's last stint in 2003. If you do share the book with younger people, I suggest you write out or record your own fan experiences during the 86 year drought to help extend the heritage of your loyalty in the face of frustration.

The book describes from a number of perspectives how the Red Sox went from 1918 to 2004 without any World Championships . . . and explores those tantalizing moments when they came close in the last 40 years. Leigh Montville also recounts his own career and connection to the Red Sox . . . and his feelings as a fan. He also tells how the 2004 championship came together. From there, he launches off into a number of other perspectives as fans reflected on what the past had meant. One of the longest sections is of posts to the Sons of Sam Horn website. If you are like me, you'll feel a tear or two start to form as you read some of those posts. Mr. Montville then expands to include some of the most unlikely fans you'll ever meet. Anyone who has ever visited Fenway has probably entered one of the local taverns. Mr. Montville enters the Baseball Tavern on Brookline Avenue to give you the view from behind the counter. In The Victory Story, he picks up threads of important precursors to the victory. Perhaps the most interesting one is of the Epstein family.

To me the most important section was called "The Moral of the Story" where he opined about what our long relationship with the Red Sox says about us.

The book ends on a slightly delirious and funny note as Mr. Montville tells us about his taunting relationship with a Yankee fan . . . and what 2004 was like for him. That section includes his essay for the Globe's special memento edition.

Yawn.......2006-05-31

Wow, a whole book of red sox fans talking about being red sox fans - some, no doubt, even in the offseason. A more narcissistic bunch of sports fans could hardly be imagined - their constant yapping makes me want to weep and vomit simultaneously and "unparallelled suffering"? Cry me a river, meatheads.

Poor moochie.......2005-10-13

I think I can speak for all Sox fans (and indeed all baseball fans) in saying how much I thoroughly enjoy seeing postings like the one below from "moochie" -- it just shows how fresh the pain still is, even a year after the fact!!!

Moochie the Jankee fan.......2005-10-12

Yes, the RedSox were swept in the post season playoffs of 2005...and who dropped out of the playoffs only 3 days later?...Why, none other than the highest paid team in baseball. You know who I mean, right? Here's another hint: I'm talking about the team that made the biggest choke in majorleague baseball history...the Yankees. In fact they were denied a championship by the Angels not once but TWICE in the past 5 years. Cry me a river, Moochie.

Journey Into the Promised Land (Daily Devotions for the New Millennium)

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Journey Into the Promised Land (Daily Devotions for the New Millennium)
Morris Cerullo
Manufacturer: Zondervan Publishing House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000BJUOKG

Voyage of Saint Brendan: "Journey to the Promised Land"

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Voyage of Saint Brendan: "Journey to the Promised Land"
John J. O'Meara
Manufacturer: Dolmen Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Medieval | Classics | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Ancient, Classical & Medieval | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Saint Brendan And The Voyage Before Columbus
The Brendan Voyage (Modern Library Exploration)
Brendan the Navigator
Pre-Christian Ireland: From the First Settlers to the Early Celts (Ancient Peoples and Places)

ASIN: 0851055044

From Plotzk to Boston: A Young Girl's Journey from Russia to the Promised Land

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From Plotzk to Boston: A Young Girl's Journey from Russia to the Promised Land
Mary Antin
Manufacturer: Markus Wiener Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Jewish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1558763104

Book Description

Mary Antin was born in Polotsk, Russia in 1881. Like many Jews in Russia, her family suffered under the progroms of the late 19th century and tried to emigrate to America. Leaving Russia was forbidden, and many Jews had to be smuggled across border to Germany before travelling by train to the port of Hamburg, where they were brought to emigration halls and put on ships to America.

When Antin was thirteen when her family completed this migration and settled in the slums of Boston. Despite many hardships, she attended the prestigious Boston Latin School and wrote her first biography which was published in 1894 under the title 'From Plotzk to Boston'. Told in a simple way, this story reveals Antin's acute powers of observation. In 1912 she wrote her famous and more scholarly autobiography' The Promised Land' and became a supporter of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party.

Average customer rating:

Excellent, tight, well-written, engaging!
This book was absolutely amazing.
Beautiful combo of earthiness and spirituality
An exciting page-turner that leaves you feeling full!
An exciting page-turner that leaves you feeling full!

The Promised Land
Ruhama Veltfort
Manufacturer: Milkweed Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Fiction | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1571310223

Customer Reviews:

Excellent, tight, well-written, engaging!.......2002-07-08

I loved this novel! The telling of the story from alternating points of view is engaging and well-done. I especially enjoyed the characters arriving in the US at New Orleans & going to St. Louis (during 1840s)-- a change from immigrant stories beginning in New York.

This book was absolutely amazing........1999-06-16

Ruhama Veltfort's The Promised Land should be added to the list of Great American Literauture of the 20th Century. As an African-American woman I was expecting (a friend recommended the book to me) to read a "good" novel about a group of people I know little about. I started the novel with an open mind and trust in my friends' choice in literature and finished the novel with a deeper understanding of myself. The depection of the Polish experience and the Jewish culture was sincere, exciting and riveting. I was able to recommend the book to several Jewish acqaintences who validated its authenticity. The development of the characters was powerful and Veltfort's insight into the human mind taught me more about how people can react to situations in fiction as well as in "real" life. I was glued to the book and read it in one sitting. I cannot say enough about Veltfort's mastery of her art.

Beautiful combo of earthiness and spirituality.......1998-11-17

This is a most beautiful and original book. I have never read one quite like it, but would greatly like to. The narrative line is strong, the characters very real, the places come alive in all their smells and sights, and it is a fine piece of storytelling. One has to say this up front, because this is a book about mysticism, about the experiences and ecstatic knowledge that lie beneath the forms and rules of a religion, and about how a creative spirituality can arise in individuals that leads them to break out of the boundaries of their inherited culture. In other words it is an intellectually serious book. It steers clear of sentimental spiritual claptrap. In the story, terrible things happen to people we have grown to love. But it is neither an `intellectual' book (i.e. inaccessible, hard work to read) nor a grim one. The narrative is strong because we care about these people and they are on a great quest, but also because the earthy details of their lives are as important to the author as their mystical experiences. One of the joys of the book is to look at a familiar scene - the American South and the frontier West - through unfamiliar eyes. E.g. Chana, the leading female character, only slowly understands that the black women with whom she does the chores in a rich Jew's house in St. Louis are slaves. The most terrible thing for these believers is not perhaps the pogroms or the starvation or the Indians, but the dangers inherent in the freedom and prosperity of the new land. "How am I to raise my sons here...?" asks one father. "Here there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, and all are gone to the devil in their crazy pursuit of riches." And the elder son himself says, "I ain't a Jew! ... I don't have to be nothin' I don't want to be. What else are we going West for?" If I have any criticism of the book it is that the ending, which brought tears to my eyes, nonetheless seemed to half-sidestep some of the issues raised about prosperity and keeping the faith. The beautiful spareness of the language of the book, without a wasted word, was too spare for me at the end. But perhaps, then what I really want is the sequel, about the survivors and their granmdchildren, and how they preserve the unity of body and spirit in the dangerously prosperous times in which we live.

An exciting page-turner that leaves you feeling full!.......1998-11-13

From the first sentence, I was hooked. Without warning, Veltfort deftly drops the reader into a tiny village in 19th Century Poland. This strange landscape, as alien as Dune, is made comfortable by its warm, vibrant characters with their universally human fears, aspirations, and ideals. It was empathy for these odd people, a reluctant Rabbi, his wife, and a few followers, that made it a pleasure to learn their language and religion, and a delight to behold the world through their eyes. There's lots of excitement as this often not-so-merry but always entertaining band struggles to survive the hazardous journey from war-torn Eastern Europe to the still untamed American West. With so much action and adventure to stimulate the imagination, and so much drama to tug the heart, it's easy to forget that how well the book re-awakens your spiritual core with every page. Although this is a story about Orthodox Judaism, with overtones of Jewish mysticism, its messages are transcendent, non-denominational, and full of understanding and love for God. Extremely well written, I literally couldn't put it down while I was reading it, and can't get it out of my head now that I'm done. My only disappointment is that this is a first novel-I can't rush out and get more by the same author.

An exciting page-turner that leaves you feeling full!.......1998-11-10

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