“A book that looks at existence with equal measures of fear, humility and gratitude. In a time when novelists tend to be more concerned with psychology than the soul, that makes it a rare and valuable thing.” --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal From the author of Mr. Eternity, a darkly comic road novel about a millennial couple facing the ultimate question: how to live and love in an age of catastrophe. Young Miami couple Murphy and Eva have almost decided to have a baby when Yahweh, the Old Testament God, appears to Eva and makes an unwelcome demand: He wants her to be his prophet. He also wants her to manage his social media presence. Yahweh sends the two on a wild road trip across the country, making incomprehensible demands and mandating arcane rituals as they go. He gives them a hundred million dollars, but he asks them to use it to build a temple on top of a landfill. He forces them to endure a period of Biblical wandering in the deserts of the southwest. Along the way they are continually mistaken for another couple, a pair of North Carolina society people, and find themselves attending increasingly bizarre events in their names. At odds with their mission but helpless to disobey, Murphy and Eva search their surroundings for signs of a future they can have faith in. Through wry observations about the biggest things--cosmology and theology--and the smallest things--the joys and irritations of daily life--Thier questions the mysterious forces that shape our fates, and wonders how much free will we really have. Equal parts hilarious and poignant, The World Is a Narrow Bridge asks: What kind of hope can we pass on to the next generation in a frightening but beautiful world?

“A book that looks at existence with equal measures of fear, humility and gratitude. In a time when novelists tend to be more concerned with psychology than the soul, that makes it a rare and valuable thing.” --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal From the author of Mr. Eternity, a darkly comic road novel about a millennial couple facing the ultimate question: how to live and love in an age of catastrophe. Young Miami couple Murphy and Eva have almost decided to have a baby when Yahweh, the Old Testament God, appears to Eva and makes an unwelcome demand: He wants her to be his prophet. He also wants her to manage his social media presence. Yahweh sends the two on a wild road trip across the country, making incomprehensible demands and mandating arcane rituals as they go. He gives them a hundred million dollars, but he asks them to use it to build a temple on top of a landfill. He forces them to endure a period of Biblical wandering in the deserts of the southwest. Along the way they are continually mistaken for another couple, a pair of North Carolina society people, and find themselves attending increasingly bizarre events in their names. At odds with their mission but helpless to disobey, Murphy and Eva search their surroundings for signs of a future they can have faith in. Through wry observations about the biggest things--cosmology and theology--and the smallest things--the joys and irritations of daily life--Thier questions the mysterious forces that shape our fates, and wonders how much free will we really have. Equal parts hilarious and poignant, The World Is a Narrow Bridge asks: What kind of hope can we pass on to the next generation in a frightening but beautiful world?

Rebbe Nachman said, "The world is a very narrow bridge. The main thing is not to be afraid." This upbeat, down-to-earth book gives clear, detailed guidance for applying Rebbe Nachman's teachings to our everyday lives. Exploring a broad range of topics - from joy, peace and charity to earning a living, taking care of one's health, and raising children - this work answers many of the practical and technical questions that puzzle those who are making their first acquaintance with Breslov teachings.

A Japanese lacquerwork board inscribed with the name of each Dutch trading post opperhoofd and the number of ships from the Netherlands arriving in Japan each year; a Japanese gold coin stamped with the Dutch lion emblem; Japanese porcelain with a decoration based on a Dutch original design; and ribbons from the wreath laid by the emperor of Japan at the National Monument on Amsterdams Dam Square in honour of the victims of the Second World War: these are just a few of the objects in the Rijksmuseum collection connected with the shared history of Japan and the Netherlands. For almost 250 years the Netherlands was the sole Western nation permitted by Japan to conduct trade there. In the twentieth century tensions rose between these two colonial powers, and they went to war with one another in Indonesia; in the post-war period the restoration of old ties was a gradual and sometimes fraught process. The objects in the Rijksmuseum testify to this unique and turbulent history, one that has been characterized by admiration and interest, but also misunderstanding and mistrust. A narrow bridge is part of the Rijksmuseum Country Series published by the museums History Department. Each book in the series uses objects in the Rijksmuseum collection to explore the shared history of the Netherlands and one of the following countries: Indonesia, Japan, China, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Ghana, Suriname and Brazil.

This is why, although the process of genocide was proceeding at top speed, some Jews were diverted from the gas chambers and sent to work at Gross-Rosen. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the main provider of inmate slave laborers for the Gross-Rosen armaments, munitions, and other factories owned by giant private enterprises, such as Krupp, J.G. Farben, and Siemens. Jewish inmates were also used in the construction of Hitler's secret headquarters in the local Eulen Mountains and the secret underground tunnels used to store weapons.

From the team that brought you The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, a daily devotional of Stoic meditations—an instant Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller. Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms. By following these teachings over the course of a year (and, indeed, for years to come) you'll find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well.

"A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters passionately and compassionately wrestles with the question: "How does faith both unite and divide us?" and explores the often invisibility of faith, how we make unconscious assumptions about one other based on religion, and how often those assumptions are wrong. Inspired by oral histories, community events, and the circular structure of Schnitzler's play La Ronde, the play's 10 scenes include a Native American woman who teaches ESL to a class of immigrant senior citizens; two astronauts in crisis far away from home and searching for common ground; a man who meets the woman who received his mother's transplanted heart; and a journalist who interviews a family whose son has been killed in Iraq. A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters traces a joyous, restless and surprising path through a wide-open spiritual and American landscape. It is both intimate and epic--an expansive panorama that stages an interlocking chain of unexpected encounters between contemporary communities of faith. This play was the final play in Los Angeles-based Cornerstone Theater Company's nationally acclaimed four-year Faith Based Theater Cycle." -- Publisher's website.

Shortly after Orthodox Jewish Brooklynite Jacob Fischer puts his young family on a bus to visit relatives, the bus explodes in a stunning act of terrorism. HIs faith shattered, Jacob flees the comforts of his community and disappears. He lands up in a predominantly black town in rural Alabama, where he meets Rosie, the single mother of a young son. Their developing relationship, along with the rekindling of his love of music, precipitate events that will change both their lives. This debut novel is a powerful page-turner that follows a complex man on a journey of salvation after tragedy. J.J. Gesher is the pen name for co-authors Joyce Gittlin and Janet B. Fattal. Together, Janet and Joyce have won several prestigious screenwriting awards, including the Geller Prize and the Screenwriting Award at the Austin Film Festival. Their first screenwriting collaboration was produced as a Lifetime Television feature. Joyce Gittlin has written and directed such television shows as Wings, Frasier, and Everybody Loves Raymond and has written more than ten feature films for Disney, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox. She has an MFA from NYU. Janet B. Fattal has a masters in Comparative Literature from UCLA and has taught literature and writing at the college level. The editor of several memoirs, Janet leads many Los Angeles–area book groups, including for the Skirball Cultural Center, Hadassah, and the Brandeis alumni association. The co-authors both live in Los Angeles.

From the acclaimed author of The Jew in the Lotus comes an "engrossing and wonderful book" (The Washington Times) about the unexpected connections between Franz Kafka and Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav—and the significant role played by the imagination in the Jewish spiritual experience. Rodger Kamenetz has long been fascinated by the mystical tales of the Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. And for many years he has taught a course in Prague on Franz Kafka. The more he thought about their lives and writings, the more aware he became of unexpected connections between them. Kafka was a secular artist fascinated by Jewish mysticism, and Rabbi Nachman was a religious mystic who used storytelling to reach out to secular Jews. Both men died close to age forty of tuberculosis. Both invented new forms of storytelling that explore the search for meaning in an illogical, unjust world. Both gained prominence with the posthumous publication of their writing. And both left strict instructions at the end of their lives that their unpublished books be burnt. Kamenetz takes his ideas on the road, traveling to Kafka’s birthplace in Prague and participating in the pilgrimage to Uman, the burial site of Rabbi Nachman visited by thousands of Jews every Jewish new year. He discusses the hallucinatory intensity of their visions and offers a rich analysis of Nachman’s and Kafka’s major works, revealing uncanny similarities in the inner lives of these two troubled and beloved figures, whose creative and religious struggles have much to teach us about the Jewish spiritual experience.

Hardly anyone remains impartial upon hearing the words “the wisdom of Kabbalah.” One may mock it as esoteric nonsense, another might speak its praises and tell stories of formidable, enigmatic people who can set fire to people or turn them into a heap of bones with their very gaze, while yet another might mention secret, shady societies. The authentic wisdom of Kabbalah had been concealed for two millennia. Over the centuries, so many myths, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations of it have been formed that today face and palm reading, astrology, numerology, and countless other practices claim to be related to Kabbalah. Yet, the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah is not related to any of them. In fact, it is a scientific, empirical method for achieving lasting happiness through social unity. It had been fashioned and practiced by the ancient Hebrews before they were exiled from Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and now it is reemerging precisely because social unity is the only solution to our problems—be they personal, national, or global. A Very Narrow Bridge traces the roots of Kabbalah, Judaism, and the Jewish people, how they formed and for what purpose. It is a chronicle of the struggle of kabbalists to preserve the wisdom and pass it down through the ages until today, when it has become critical to humanity to reveal the truth about the people of Israel and the wisdom of Kabbalah. This book speaks of love, hate, and total dedication to the goal of saving the human race.