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Title: Climbing Jacob's Ladder : One Man's Rediscovery of a Jewish Spiritual Tradition by ALAN MORINIS ISBN: 0-7679-0645-4 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 12 March, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: How to Find Your Soul
Comment: In a world where spiritual materialism is rampant, it is refreshing to find the real thing. _Climbing Jacob's Ladder_ by Alan Morinis is an up close and personal introduction to Mussar, a little known, nearly obliterated form of Jewish Wisdom which aims in the most practical way to help anyone find his soul and then to cut through the clutter to balance and strengthen that soul by various techniques. There is no quick fix here, but what this book has to say jibes with as much as I have learned. Spirituality is largely a matter of practice. God helps those who work on their technique!
Rating: 5
Summary: Intoduction to Mussar
Comment: I stumbled on this book when it was reviewed in the Religion section of the Houston Chronicle. Like Alan Morinis I am a secular person. Once I bought the book I couldn't put it down. Then I reread it and started to study it. I learned to do some of the exercises. I use The exercise with the elastic band whenever I am stuck in a line anywhere. It calms me down. (You'll have to get the book to learn it.)
I find this book to be an excellent introduction to Mussar. It is almost painless but it does require effort and concentration.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Inspiring Journey
Comment: It's not often that one comes across a nonfiction book as smooth reading as "Climbing Jacob's Ladder." Alan Morinis has produced what might be called a spiritual autobiography, with a specific purpose, explained in the title as, "One Man's Discovery of a Jewish Spiritual Tradition." Underlying all is a searing honesty that is positively inspiring.
The tradition in question is Mussar, which has its roots in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. This so decimated Mussar practitioners that Mussar did not gain prominence in the study of Judaism as a whole. So, for Alan Morinis, after much research, it was a "find". His description of it is so impelling that it is hard to put aside. As an autobiography, the character of the author as a secular Jew comes through very clearly in all its ramifications during his journey towards spiritual fulfilment.
Also central to the book's treatment of Mussar is the character of the person who ultimately became Morinis' teacher. Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, living in New York to where the author travelled several times from Vancouver for study. Rabbi Perr, though orthodox himself teaches without imposing orthodoxy on the learner as the writer might have expected, since he found the subject grounded in orthodoxy.
However, Mussar is not only for studying, but for practising: its basic principles emanating from the soul of every practitioner, different as they are from every other practitioner.
I found the book positively exciting because of the honesty of expression about the author's feelings at every stage of the journey. The writing is imbued with a very human quality that draws the reader into the author's soul, which is the whole point of the exercise of Mussar: to develop the soul toward spiritual perfection as far as possible.
We are all different from each other with regard to the elements of our characters. Mussar calls these elements, "soul-traits". "We don't have a soul. We are a soul". Through the discipline of Mussar we are helped to improve these various soul-traits: for example, by working on our anger, impatience, etc. until we become more holy. Rabbi Perr side-steps a definition of holiness, saying that, "you'll know about holiness just from the experience."
There's a lot more to the book than can be described here, such as what the Mussar exercises consist of. Suffice it to say that the end result of the book is a beautiful document, the essence of it being the "soul-perspective", leading to the possibility of all who read it to face life with equanimity.
A. Naomi Katz
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Title: The Palm Tree of Devorah by Moshe Cordovero ISBN: 1568710275 Publisher: Feldheim Pub Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Sacred Therapy : Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness by ESTELLE FRANKEL ISBN: 1570629978 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 20 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Opening the Tanya : Discovering the Moral and Mystical Teachings of a Classic Work of Kabbalah by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz ISBN: 078796798X Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 08 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Vol. 1 by Daniel C. Matt ISBN: 0804747474 Publisher: Stanford University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Alan Lew ISBN: 0316739081 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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