Includes the text of selections from the Morning benedictions in Hebrew with English translation.

To reference death as sleep is commonplace. Indeed, so usual is the use of the terminology of rest, repose, and slumber to denote the process of dying and, indeed, death itself, that such linguistic turns barely call attention to themselves at all: to wish aloud that a deceased individual rest in peace could hardly be more ordinary a prayer even for moderns little given to lyrical expression or to the use of metaphor in daily speech. But to approach the equation from the other direction—and so to assert that, no less than death is sleep, sleep is death, or at least death dialed down sufficiently to deprive it of its permanence and awful finality—is less common a thing to say...and it is even less common than that actually to believe. Indeed, although the Talmud, speaking with strange precision, asserted long centuries ago that sleep is precisely one-sixtieth of death, it is hard to find moderns who comfortably or naturally think of awakening from a night’s sleep as a kind of daily resurrection.1 Consider, for example, the undeservedly obscure prayer of Sir Thomas Browne, the seventeenth-century English polymath, who movingly wrote:

A collection of blessings, poems, meditations, and rituals presented in English and Hebrew offers a traditional perspective to weekday, Sabbath, and New Moon festival observances.

Sammy Spider wants to taste the golden honey the Shapiros set out for a sweet New Year. Mom tells him to stick to spinning webs, but will curious Sammy listen?

Modah Ani means "I am grateful" in Hebrew and is inspired by Jewish prayers of gratitude for waking up to a new day. In this book children dance, jump and sing their gratitude.

A moving and revealing exploration of ultra-Orthodox Judaism and one man's loss of faith Shulem Deen was raised to believe that questions are dangerous. As a member of the Skverers, one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the US, he knows little about the outside world—only that it is to be shunned. His marriage at eighteen is arranged and several children soon follow. Deen's first transgression—turning on the radio—is small, but his curiosity leads him to the library, and later the Internet. Soon he begins a feverish inquiry into the tenets of his religious beliefs, until, several years later, his faith unravels entirely. Now a heretic, he fears being discovered and ostracized from the only world he knows. His relationship with his family at stake, he is forced into a life of deception, and begins a long struggle to hold on to those he loves most: his five children. In All Who Go Do Not Return, Deen bravely traces his harrowing loss of faith, while offering an illuminating look at a highly secretive world.

Join over fifty Jewish spiritual leaders from all denominations in a candid conversation about the why and how of prayer: how prayer changes us and how to discern a response from God. In this fascinating forum, they share the challenges of prayer, what it means to pray, how to develop your own personal prayer voice, and how to rediscover meaning and God's presence in the traditional Jewish prayer book. Book jacket.

In Bringing Heaven Down To Earth, Tzvi Freeman explored an original means to deliver the wisdom of a great sage of our times, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, known universally as simply "the Rebbe." Using pithy yet highly readable, brief meditations, that book unveiled for us a deeper meaning to life and provided practical guidance to weather its waves and storms. It is a book that changed tens of thousands of lives. Now, in Wisdom to Heal the Earth, Freeman continues with that winning format, this time along with complementary brief essays. But now he takes us yet further, peering toward the Rebbe's vision of a world towards which all humanity is headed, and demonstrating how the details of our everyday lives are vital, crucial, and today especially urgent in reaching that grand and ultimate destiny. In Jewish parlance we call this Tikun Olam"€"the notion that we all enter this world with a mission to accomplish: to repair and perfect our assigned share of the world, so that it can become the world its Creator meant it to be.

An Illumination Of Blessings is a collection of thirty-six illustrated blessings with hand calligraphy drawn from the Jewish tradition with commentary by the author, Ilene Winn-Lederer and introduction by Marc Michael Epstein. The book is a full-color perfect-bound trade paperback in an edition of 150.