For the first time in a stand-alone edition, the acclaimed poet's classic poem about his communication with Ephraim, a guiding spirit in the Other World, is here introduced and annotated by poet and Merrill scholar Stephen Yenser. "The Book of Ephraim," which first appeared as the final poem in James Merrill's Pulitzer-winning volume Divine Comedies (1976), tells the story of how he and his partner David Jackson (JM and DJ as they came to be known) embarked on their experiments with the Ouija board and how they conversed after a fashion with great writers and thinkers of the past, especially in regard to the state of the increasingly imperiled planet Earth. One of the most ambitious long poems in in English in the twentieth century, originally conceived as complete in itself, it was to become the first part of Merrill's epic The Changing Light at Sandover (1982), the multiple prize-winning volume still in print. Merrill's "supreme tribute to the web of the world and the convergence of means and meanings everywhere within it" is introduced and annotated by one of his literary executors, Stephen Yenser, in a volume that will gratify veteran readers and entice new ones.

Garments of Light is a collection of seventy revealing essays that take you on a deeper journey through the Torah and Jewish holidays. How could Adam have lived 930 years? Was Joseph really sold by his own brothers? Why is Rosh Hashanah the New Year? When is Mashiach coming? How do we deal with apparent contradictions between Torah and science? Find the surprising answers to these and other enigmatic questions in the pages of this book. Unravel ancient mysteries and prophecies, and explore the Jewish perspective on reincarnation and the afterlife, astrology, the Messianic Era, and more.

Batya's writings are causing a stir among Believers!. Her concise version of the best-selling classic, Who Is Israel? provides a quick overview of the hot new subject that everyone is talking about. Batya succinctly explains Israel, and the Biblical truths she presents are encouraging a reformation in the Body of Messiah! This Scripture-based book is inspiring Believers everywhere. It is helping Christian and Jews to see both the houses of Israel: Ephraim and Judah (Isa 8:14). It is helping them to understand how each fits into the Father's eternal plan and is thus helping to bring restoration to all Israel. Israel Revealed will encourage you. It will even change your life. It explains the fullness of the Gentiles and the blindness of Israel. If you have felt something is missing in your life, or have an unexplainable love for the Jewish people, or desire to celebrate the feasts of Israel, then this is the book for you. It lifts up Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) and shows Him to be the epitome of all that is Israel. The truths that unfold on these pages will enrich your relationship with the God of Israel. They will lead Jewish and non-Jewish Believers -- Judah and Ephraim -- to become the promised one new man. Includes maps, charts, and lists, that help to clarify misconceptions about Israel. Read and be blessed.

Mystical poems explore the author's experiences communicating with a spirit named Ephraim through an Ouija board

The title poem, a narrative tale for children and grown-ups alike, is accompanied by graceful odes, humorous limericks, artful acrostics, and elegant sonnets.

Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship. Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history and visual culture, Swarts also explores the important fin de siècle tensions between European and Oriental expressions of Jewish femininity. The work demonstrates that Lilien was not a minor figure in the European art scene, but a major figure whose work needs re-reading in light of his cosmopolitan and national artistic genius.

We do not simply interpret God's word. His word interprets us. Figural interpretation has been a trademark of Anglican devotions from the beginning. Anglican readers--including Tyndale, Cranmer, Hooker, and Lewis--have been figural readers of the Bible. By paying attention to how words, images, and narratives become figures of others in Scripture, these readers sought to uncover how God's word interprets all of reality. Every verse shines the constellation of God's story. Edited by David Ney and Ephraim Radner, the essays in All Thy Lights Combine explore how the Anglican tradition has employed figural interpretation to theological, Christological, and pastoral ends. The prayer book is central; it immerses Christians in the words of Scripture and orders them by the word. With guided prayers for morning and evening, this book invites readers to be re--formed by God's word. Become immersed in the riches of the Anglican interpretive tradition.

During the high Middle Ages, the tosafists flourished in northern Europe and revolutionized the study of the Talmud. These Jewish scholars did not participate in the philosophical and religious thought that concerned Christendom, and today they are seen as having played a limited role in mystical or esoteric studies. Ephraim Kanarfogel now challenges this conventional view of the tosafists, showing that many individuals were influenced by ascetic and pietistic practices and were involved with mystical and magical doctrines. He traces the presence of these disciplines in the pre-Crusade period, shows how they are intertwined, and suggests that the widely available Hekhalot literature was an important conduit for this material. He also demonstrates that the asceticism and esotericism of the German Pietists were an integral part of Ashkenazic rabbinic culture after the failure of Rashbam and other early tosafists to suppress these aspects of pre-Crusade thinking. The identification of these various forms of spirituality places the tosafists among those medieval rabbinic thinkers who sought to supplement their Talmudism with other areas of knowledge such as philosophy and kabbalah, demonstrating the compatibility of rabbinic culture and mysticism. These interests, argues Kanarfogel, explain both references to medieval Ashkenazic rabbinic figures in kabbalistic literature and the acceptance of certain ascetic and mystical practices by later Ashkenazic scholars. Drawing on original manuscript research, Kanarfogel makes available for the first time many passages produced by lesser known tosafists and rabbinic figures and integrates the findings of earlier and contemporary scholarship, much of it published only in Hebrew. "Peering through the Lattices" provides a greater appreciation for these texts and opens up new opportunities for scholarhship in Jewish history and thought.

The deepest and most significant aspect of the heritage of any nation lies in her people. A people’s dignity, worth and value can be measured by their human resources. More important than mineral wealth, more significant than financial capital and of more value than land and property, are the leaders of thought and character, that a communal or social group can lay claim to. Towering above the tallest buildings, reaching deeper than the roots of ancient trees, are society’s icons, doyens of a people’s life and culture. Often unrecognized in their lifetime, sometimes vilified or else silenced by political forces, these persons represent a people’s legacy and gift to humankind. Such was Dr. Ephraim Amu, native of Peki Avetile, son of West Africa’s “Gold Coast”, scholar, teacher, musician, ethicist, and preacher. In this book, Prof. Laryea has by careful and detailed research, rendered an invaluable service to posterity in unearthing and making available the life, works and public speeches of Dr Ephraim Amu. Thoughtfully selecting over sixty of Amu’s sermons spanning a period of 50 years (1937 - 1986), Laryea enables us to more deeply enter the inner thoughts and expressions of one of Ghana’s most illustrious sons, thus allowing us into the veritable engine room of the composer of Ghana’s national song, “Yân ara asase ni”, crafted by Amu in 1929. In doing so he has also opened up and thrown light upon very significant periods in the nation’s history.