Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs PDF Download

Author: Pini Dunner
Publisher: Toby Press Limited
ISBN: 9781592645107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Profiles peculiar characters from biblical times to the present that have shaped the character of the Jewish people.

Author: Stephanie Wellen Levine
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814752403
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A rare look into the lives of Hasidic youth From the ardently religious young woman who longs for the life of a male scholar to the young rebel who visits a strip club, smokes pot, and agonizes over her loss of faith to the proud Lubavitcher with a desire for a high-powered career, Stephanie Wellen Levine provides a rare glimpse into the inner worlds and daily lives of these Hasidic girls. Lubavitcher Hasidim are famous for their efforts to inspire secular Jews to become more observant and for their messianic fervor. Strict followers of Orthodox Judaism, they maintain sharp gender-role distinctions. Levine spent a year living in the Lubavitch community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, participating in the rhythms of Hasidic girlhood. Drawing on many intimate hours among Hasidim and over 30 in-depth interviews, Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers offers rich portraits of individual Hasidic young women and how they deal with the conflicts between the regimented society in which they live and the pull of mainstream American life. This superbly crafted book offers intimate stories from Hasidic teenagers' lives, providing an intriguing twist to a universal theme: the struggle to grow up and define who we are within the context of culture, family, and life-driving beliefs.

Author: Pini Dunner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781736189009
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Matthew Fox
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 1577319532
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. Fox is uniquely qualified to comment on these profound, sometimes startling, often denounced insights. In 1998, this longtime member of the Dominican Order was silenced by Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, for his Creation Spirituality, an ecumenical teaching that embraces gender justice, social justice, and eco-justice. The daily readings he shares here speak to the sacredness of the earth, awe and gratitude, darkness and shadow, compassion and creativity, sacred sexuality, and peacemaking.

Author: Jacob Emden
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1612590012
Category : Jews
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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The autobiography of Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697-1776), now available for the first time in English translation. Translated directly from the original manuscript with notes.

Author: Paweł Maciejko
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812204581
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
In 1756, Jacob Frank, an Ottoman Jew who had returned to the Poland of his birth, was discovered leading a group of fellow travelers in a suspect religious service. At the request of the local rabbis, Polish authorities arrested the participants. Jewish authorities contacted the bishop in whose diocese the service had taken place and argued that since the rites of Frank's followers involved the practice of magic and immoral conduct, both Jews and Christians should condemn them and burn them at the stake. The scheme backfired, as the Frankists took the opportunity to ally themselves with the Church, presenting themselves as Contra-Talmudists who believed in a triune God. As a Turkish subject, Frank was released and temporarily expelled to the Ottoman territories, but the others were found guilty of breaking numerous halakhic prohibitions and were subject to a Jewish ban of excommunication. While they professed their adherence to everything that was commanded by God in the Old Testament, they asserted as well that the Rabbis of old had introduced innumerable lies and misconstructions in their interpretations of that holy book. Who were Jacob Frank and his followers? To most Christians, they seemed to be members of a Jewish sect; to Jewish reformers, they formed a group making a valiant if misguided attempt to bring an end to the power of the rabbis; and to more traditional Jews, they were heretics to be suppressed by the rabbinate. What is undeniable is that by the late eighteenth century, the Frankists numbered in the tens of thousands and had a significant political and ideological influence on non-Jewish communities throughout eastern and central Europe. Based on extensive archival research in Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel, Germany, the United States, and the Vatican, The Mixed Multitude is the first comprehensive study of Frank and Frankism in more than a century and offers an important new perspective on Jewish-Christian relations in the Age of Enlightenment.

Author: Ayala Fader
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400830990
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Mitzvah Girls is the first book about bringing up Hasidic Jewish girls in North America, providing an in-depth look into a closed community. Ayala Fader examines language, gender, and the body from infancy to adulthood, showing how Hasidic girls in Brooklyn become women responsible for rearing the next generation of nonliberal Jewish believers. To uncover how girls learn the practices of Hasidic Judaism, Fader looks beyond the synagogue to everyday talk in the context of homes, classrooms, and city streets. Hasidic women complicate stereotypes of nonliberal religious women by collapsing distinctions between the religious and the secular. In this innovative book, Fader demonstrates that contemporary Hasidic femininity requires women and girls to engage with the secular world around them, protecting Hasidic men and boys who study the Torah. Even as Hasidic religious observance has become more stringent, Hasidic girls have unexpectedly become more fluent in secular modernity. They are fluent Yiddish speakers but switch to English as they grow older; they are increasingly modest but also fashionable; they read fiction and play games like those of mainstream American children but theirs have Orthodox Jewish messages; and they attend private Hasidic schools that freely adapt from North American public and parochial models. Investigating how Hasidic women and girls conceptualize the religious, the secular, and the modern, Mitzvah Girls offers exciting new insights into cultural production and change in nonliberal religious communities.

Author: Dr. Martin Sicker
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1669802434
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
It has been asserted that monotheism, in the Jewish tradition, has long been understood both exoterically and esoterically. In the exoteric Scripture-based rabbinic tradition, monotheism is the belief in a one and only God, a belief which goes hand in hand with the affirmation of distinct individual and divine existences, so that there is a dualism between humanity and God. In the esoteric or mystic tradition, this dualism is overcome by a conception of monotheism in which God is One, not only in his ‘Lordship’ but also in his universal reality. That is, God is the only reality, so that everything which exists is in essence an aspect of divinity. Jewish mysticism has both a devotional or practical and an intellectual or speculative side. On its devotional side it emphasizes those aspects of the biblical precepts which serve to promote direct communion between the worshipper and God. On its speculative side it is especially concerned with outlining and bringing into relief the link or links between God and man, or more generally between the Creator and the universe. The focus of this study is on the questions of how and why Jewish mysticism arose and underwent a variegated evolution throughout much of the history of the Jewish people from remote antiquity to the present day.

Author: Simcha Jacobovici
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605987298
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 754

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Book Description
Waiting to be rediscovered in the British Library is an ancient manuscript of the early Church, copied by an anonymous monk. The manuscript is at least 1,450 years old, possibly dating to the first century. And now, The Lost Gospel provides the first ever translation from Syriac into English of this unique document that tells the inside story of Jesus’ social, family, and political life.The Lost Gospel takes the reader on an unparalleled historical adventure through a paradigm shifting manuscript. What the authors eventually discover is as astounding as it is surprising: the confirmation of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene; the names of their two children; the towering presence of Mary Magdalene; a previously unknown plot on Jesus’ life (thirteen years prior to the crucifixion); an assassination attempt against Mary Magdalene and their children; Jesus’ connection to political figures at the highest level of the Roman Empire; and a religious movement that antedates that of Paul—the Church of Mary Magdalene.Part historical detective story, part modern adventure, The Lost Gospel reveals secrets that have been hiding in plain sight for millennia.

Author: Osho
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9780312274061
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Understand the life and teachings of Osho, one of the twentieth century’s most unusual gurus and philosophers, in Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic. In 1990, Osho prepared for his departure from the body that had served him for fifty-nine years—in the words of his attending physician—“as calmly as though he were packing for a weekend in the country.” Who was this man, known as the Sex Guru, the “self-appointed bhagwan” (Rajneesh), the Rolls-Royce Guru, the Rich Man’s Guru, and simply the Master? Drawn from nearly five thousand hours of Osho’s recorded talks, this is the story of his youth and education, his life as a professor of philosophy and years of travel teaching the importance of meditation, and the true legacy he sought to leave behind: a religion-less religion centered on individual awareness and responsibility and the teaching of “Zorba the Buddha,” a celebration of the whole human being. Osho challenges readers to examine and break free of the conditioned belief systems and prejudices that limit their capacity to enjoy life in all its richness. He has been described by the Sunday Times of London as one of the “1000 Makers of the 20th Century” and by Sunday Mid-Day (India) as one of the ten people—along with Gandhi, Nehru, and Buddha—who have changed the destiny of India. Since his death in 1990, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers of all ages in virtually every country of the world.