Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580230423 ISBN 13: 9781580230421

Publisher: Jewish Lights, 1998

A treasury of insight from one of the most creative spiritual thinkers in America.
Whether you are new to Kushner or a devoted fan, this is the place to begin.

At once deeply human and profoundly spiritual, Lawrence Kushner's books are a treat for the soul. For nourishment and inspiration― Eyes Remade for Wonder opens wide the gates of Jewish mysticism and spirituality, helping us peel back the layers of meaning that animate our lives.

Few writers are more closely identified with the boom of spirituality in America in the past twenty-five years than Lawrence Kushner. With his first book―the now-classic introduction to Jewish mysticism, The Book of Letters―Kushner established himself as one of the most creative religious thinkers in America. He is now read worldwide by people searching to understand the connection between the sacred and the ordinary.

With an inspiring Introduction by Thomas Moore, author of the best-selling books Care of the Soul and The Soul of Sex, Eyes Remade for Wonder offers something unique to both the spiritual seeker and the committed person of faith, and is a collection to be treasured and shared.

Review:

Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader, by Lawrence Kushner, with an introduction by Thomas Moore, collects some of the best writings by one of the most insightful rabbis in America. Kushner writes with profound reverence for the silence that surrounds his words. He believes that the essence of religious seeking is to "devotedly, stubbornly, compulsively return again and again to that line between noise and silence, hoping against hope to find a way to say what finally cannot be said. If it could be said straight out, you wouldn't have to try to find a better way to say it. If you couldn't speak it at all, then you'd have to resort to such nonverbal modes of communication as art or dance or music. The thing about spiritual truth is that it wants to be spoken. It is too important, too transforming, to be left alone in silence. It seems to have speakable content." This book begins with a selection of writings on cultivating awareness of God, the self, and the world. It moves on to explore the bedrock of Jewish religion, sacred text. Later chapters describe mystical, ethical, and political aspects of Jewish spiritual life, concluding with an excellent selection of meditations on the revelatory power of daily life. Kushner sees divine light glinting off his eyeglasses, shining through telescopes, and beaming out from lighthouses. Eyes Remade for Wonder is excellent devotional reading, and a fine introduction to Kushner's wide-ranging mind and empathic spirit. --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description:

Opens wide the gates of Jewish mysticism with a series of hopegiving essays, insights into long-guarded secrets of the kabbalah, & traditional midrash (teaching stories) from history's greatest rebbes