The most controversial prayer of the Jewish New Year—what it means, who wrote it, why we say it. Over forty contributors who span three continents and all major Jewish denominations examine Un'taneh Tokef’s theology, authorship, and poetry through a set of lively commentaries. Men and women, scholars and rabbis, artists and poets trace the history of Un’taneh Tokef and connect the prayer to its biblical and rabbinic roots. They wrestle with the personal and community impact of its deeply moving imagery, probe its haunting message of human mortality, and reflect on its call for sanctity, transformation and renewal. Prayers of Awe: A multi-volume series designed to explore the High Holy Day liturgy and enrich the praying experience for everyone—whether experienced worshipers or guests who encounter Jewish prayer for the very first time. Contributors Merri Lovinger Arian Rabbi Tony Bayfield, DD Rabbi Sharon Brous Dr. Marc Brettler Dr. Erica Brown Rabbi Ruth Durchslag, PsyD Rabbi Edward Feinstein Rabbi Elyse D. Frishman Rabbi Andrew Goldstein, PhD Dr. Joel M. Hoffman Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur Rabbi Elie Kaunfer Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar Dr. Reuven Kimelman Rabbi Lawrence Kushner Rabbi Noa Kushner Rabbi Daniel Landes Rabbi Ruth Langer, PhD Liz Lerman Rabbi Asher Lopatin Catherine Madsen Rabbi Jonathan Magonet, PhD Rabbi Dalia Marx, PhD Ruth Messinger Rabbi Charles H. Middleburgh, PhD Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum Rabbi Aaron Panken, PhD Rabbi Or N. Rose Rabbi Marc Saperstein, PhD Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso Rabbi Jonathan P. Slater, DMin Rabbi Brent Chaim Spodek Rabbi David Stern Rabbi David A. Teutsch, PhD Rabbi Gordon Tucker, PhD Dr. Ellen M. Umansky Rabbi Avraham Weiss Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig, DD Dr. Ron Wolfson Rabbi David J. Wolpe Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel Dr. Wendy Zierler

Who by Fire is a powerful, passionate novel about the march of "progress" and the environments, families, and ways of life destroyed in its wake. The heart of this moving story belongs to Tom Ryder--a man whose expectations for the future and assumptions about his own strength and power are persistently and devastatingly undermined by the arrival of a sour gas plant on the border of his southern Alberta farm in the early 1960s. The emissions from the plant poison not only his livestock but the relationships he has with his family, most especially with his wife, Ella. The family is left without viable legal recource against the plant, and Tom must watch his farm dwindle away, his sense of himself dwindling away with it. The novel moves into the present with the story of Tom's son, Bill, who reacts to his father's disappointments by rising through the managerial ranks of an oil company in Fort McMurray, hiding from his guilt in the local casino. Bill pushes himself towards a crisis in conscience through a relationship he has with a Native woman whose community is threatened by the actions of his company.

A wide sweeping yet intimate historical fiction account of Jewish resistance during the Spanish Inquisition and the lead up to Columbus’ voyage to the New World As political turmoil rages, a chancellor to the king must hide his romance with a Jewish woman as well as his own Jewish ancestry in order to survive Luis de Santángel, chancellor to the court and longtime friend of the lusty King Ferdinand, has had enough of the Spanish Inquisition. As the power of Inquisitor General Tomás de Torquemada grows, so does the brutality of the Spanish church and the suspicion and paranoia it inspires. When a dear friend’s demise brings the violence close to home, Santángel is enraged and takes retribution into his own hands. But he is from a family of conversos, and his Jewish heritage makes him an easy target. As Santángel witnesses the horrific persecution of his loved ones, he begins slowly to reconnect with the Jewish faith his family left behind. Feeding his curiosity about his past is his growing love for Judith Migdal, a clever and beautiful Jewish woman navigating the mounting tensions in Granada. While he struggles to decide what his reputation is worth and what he can sacrifice, one man offers him a chance he thought he’d lost…the chance to hope for a better world. Christopher Columbus has plans to discover a route to paradise, and only Luis de Santángel can help him. Within the dramatic story lies a subtle, insightful examination of the crisis of faith at the heart of the Spanish Inquisition. Irresolvable conflict rages within the conversos in By Fire, By Water, torn between the religion they left behind and the conversion meant to ensure their safety. In this story of love, God, faith, and torture, fifteenth-century Spain comes to dazzling, engrossing life.

Sohrab Ahmari was a teenager living under the Iranian ayatollahs when he decided that there is no God. Nearly two decades later, he would be received into the Roman Catholic Church. In From Fire, by Water, he recounts this unlikely passage, from the strident Marxism and atheism of a youth misspent on both sides of the Atlantic to a moral and spiritual awakening prompted by the Mass. At once a young intellectual’s finely crafted self-portrait and a life story at the intersection of the great ideas and events of our time, the book marks the debut of a compelling new Catholic voice.

An in-depth and up-close look at the ONE energy principle you need to know to take care of your health simply and naturally. What is the one thing you should know to have a lifetime of abundant health? Just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west due to Earth’s rotation, there are natural laws your body follows. One law, discerned by traditional Asian medicine, can decide the health of your body, mind, and spirit. Water Up Fire Down by New York Times bestselling author Ilchi Lee reveals this golden rule of health. Know it, feel it, and use it in your daily life to: -- Manage your stress -- Balance your emotions -- Maintain your focus -- See situations clearly -- Maximize your immunity -- Have abundant energy and passion -- Sleep soundly How can one rule affect all this? Because it is an essential principle of energy circulation in the body. No matter what physical or mental issues you may have, if you apply the Water Up, Fire Down energy principle in your daily life, you can make progress toward clearing them up. Ilchi Lee gives you proven mind-body exercises and lifestyle recommendations so you can apply this energy principle to your body and your life. These simple yet effective exercises are shown with full-color illustrations so you can easily do them on your own right away.

Sacred chants are Ada Franklin’s power and her medicine. By saying them, she can remove warts, stanch bleeding, and draw the fire from burns. At age twenty, her reputation as a faith healer defines her in her rural Pennsylvania community. But on the day in 1953 that her family’s barn is consumed by flame, her identity as a healer is upended. The heat, the roar of the blaze, and the bellows of the trapped cows change Ada. For the first time, she fears death and—for the first time—she doubts God. With her belief goes her power to heal. Then Ada meets an agnostic named Will Burk and his pet raven, Cicero. Fire Is Your Water is acclaimed memoirist Jim Minick’s first novel. Built on magical realism and social observation in equal measure, it never gives way to sentimentality and provides an insider’s glimpse into the culture of Appalachia. A jealous raven, a Greek chorus of one, punctuates the story with its judgments on the characters and their actions, until a tragic accident brings Ada and Will together in a deeper connection.

"While I'm writing these words I'm sitting next to my bed in a military hospital, wounded in my leg. Not only did I escape from the death march, but I am now a soldier in the Red Army and fighting at the front against my enemies, the enemies of all humanity." So writes Michael Goldmann-Gilead in the first entry of this extraordinary firsthand account of one of the most tumultuous periods in all of human history. Although the author kept a diary from his early youth in the 1930s, and even scribbled on pieces of paper in a labor camp in the Przemyśl ghetto during the war, he was unable to write during his time in Auschwitz-Birkenau or on the death march, and earlier writings were forever lost. This volume contains the extant portions of his postwar diary, supplemented with letters written in the immediate aftermath of World War II, covering his illegal immigration to Palestine, his arrest and detention in Cyprus, and his eventual arrival in the Jewish State of Israel. This is a remarkable witness to history.

Perhaps you know them for their deer dances or for their rich Easter ceremonies, or perhaps only from the writings of anthropologists or of Carlos Castaneda. But now you can come to know the Yaqui Indians in a whole new way. Anita Endrezze, born in California of a Yaqui father and a European mother, has written a multilayered work that interweaves personal, mythical, and historical views of the Yaqui people. Throwing Fire at the Sun, Water at the Moon is a blend of ancient myths, poetry, journal extracts, short stories, and essays that tell her people's story from the early 1500s to the present, and her family's story over the past five generations. Reproductions of Endrezze's paintings add an additional dimension to her story and illuminate it with striking visual imagery. Endrezze has combed history and legend to gather stories of her immediate family and her mythical ancient family, the two converging in the spirit of storytelling. She tells Aztec and Yaqui creation stories, tales of witches and seductresses, with recurring motifs from both Yaqui and Chicano culture. She shows how Christianity has deeply infused Yaqui beliefs, sharing poems about the Flood and stories of a Yaqui Jesus. She re-creates the coming of the Spaniards through the works of such historical personages as AndrŽs PŽrez de Ribas. And finally she tells of those individuals who carry the Yaqui spirit into the present day. People like the Esperanza sisters, her grandmothers, and others balance characters like Coyote Woman and the Virgin of Guadalupe to show that Yaqui women are especially important as carriers of their culture. Greater than the sum of its parts, Endrezze's work is a new kind of family history that features a startling use of language to invoke a people and their past--a time capsule with a female soul. Written to enable her to understand more about her ancestors and to pass this understanding on to her own children, Throwing Fire at the Sun, Water at the Moon helps us gain insight not only into Yaqui culture but into ourselves as well.

The High Holy Days -- Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur -- are for many Jews the highlight of the Jewish year. The liturgy for the Days of Awe are the longest and most complex of the year, leaving a large number of attendees without a complete understanding of the occasion's significance. Entering The High Holy Days provides historical background and interpretation of the ideas, practices, and liturgy and lends them contemporary relevance to today's Jews. Reuven Hammer received his ordination and doctorate in theology from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He is the former president of the Rabbinical Assembly and head of the Rabbinical Court of the Masorti Movement.

Comedy and tragedy collide in stories of family life in Soviet Russia and the complexities of the immigrant experience “We can’t stop turning the pages of this book.” —Ilya Kaminsky, New York Times Book Review From the moment of its founding, the USSR was reviled and admired, demonized and idealized. Many Jews saw the new society ushered in by the Russian Revolution as their salvation from shtetl life with its deprivations and deadly pogroms. But Soviet Russia was rife with antisemitism, and a Jewish boy growing up in Leningrad learned early, harsh, and enduring lessons. Unsparing and poignant, Mikhail Iossel’s twenty stories of Soviet childhood and adulthood, dissidence and subsequent immigration, are filled with wit and humor even as they describe the daily absurdities of a fickle and often perilous reality.