Love and the Bible: And the Meaning of Everything

A book about love, because the Bible is all about love

The subject of Rami Shapiro’s new book is not simply the Tanakh (Torah, Prophets, and Writings)—what Christians call Old Testament. Rabbi Rami loves the New Testament and the Apocrypha as well. When he functions as a rabbi in a synagogue, he limits himself to those books Jews hold sacred, but when teaching Bible in a university setting he teaches it all. And as a seeker of wisdom, he refuses to be limited in his search for wisdom.

The Bible is one of the most, if not the most, important collections of human literature ever written. Its influence on the lives of billions of people over thousands of years is incalculable. For this reason alone, it demands our attention.

Shapiro shows how the wisdom of the Bible, unlike its various theologies, is testable. The purpose of wisdom is to help navigate the intricacies of life more effectively, to deepen our capacity for compassion and commitment to justice, and help us “walk through the shadowed Valley of Death” fearlessly, even tranquilly, and almost certainly fed by faith understood as the capacity to engage the world with an open heart and open mind regardless of what we encounter. Throughout these sometimes philosophical, sometimes deeply textual, and always profound reflections, Rami’s hope is that readers will see what he sees, and hear what he hears in these texts of love for people of all traditions.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro PhD is an award-winning author of forty books on religion, spirituality, and recovery. He co–directs One River Foundation (oneriverfoundation.org) and is contributing editor for Spirituality & Health magazine where he writes the advice column “Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler.” His recent books including Judaism without Tribalism and Zen Mind Jewish Mind. Rami was the 2020 recipient of the Huston Smith Award for Excellence in Inter-Spiritual Education.