Rekindling the Flame: The Many Paths to a Vibrant Judaism - Hardcover

Osherson, Samuel

9780151006335: Rekindling the Flame: The Many Paths to a Vibrant Judaism

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151006334 ISBN 13: 9780151006335

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001

Jewish leaders have been fretting for years over the threat assimilation poses to the American Jewish community. Psychologist Samuel Osherson looks behind the statistics and finds that Jewish values and practice are alive and well among the uncounted. All over this country, in big cities and small towns, intermarried, unaffiliated, and traditionally unobservant Jews are redefining their faith and returning in their own way to Judaism.

In a pioneering psychological analysis, Osherson looks at the parental and authority issues that drove many Jews away; and he describes the
circumstances that bring them back to a different form of Jewish practice-more open to other traditions, more accepting of imperfections in education and belief.
This is another chapter in the great story of the Jewish people, and a handbook for Jewish seekers and strivers who want to rebuild the bridges to their religious and cultural heritage.

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Review:

Why are there so many assimilated, unaffiliated, and disaffected American Jews? As psychologist Samuel Osherson argues in Rekindling the Flame, they may still call themselves Jewish, but they also think they are "not good enough Jews." In response to this widespread alienation, Osherson asks, "How can we be vibrant, engaged Jews without becoming more traditionally observant?" Then he breaks that question in three parts: "[C]an you be a good Jew and participate in other religions? Is intermarriage a betrayal of our Jewish heritage? How does Judaism fit with our work lives?" Osherson's answers to each question counsel readers to consider Judaism not only as a religious tradition, but also as a "family and life experience." His psychological discussion of Judaism, based on five years of extensive research and interviews, shows how religion helps people to "find ways to make peace with our parents or confront our own shame or anger, and in so doing open up new possibilities for ourselves." --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author:

Samuel Osherson is chair of the psychology faculty at the Fielding Institute, clinical associate at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and a psychotherapist in private practice. He is the author of the bestselling Finding Our Fathers and the critically acclaimed Wrestling with Love: How Men Struggle with Intimacy.

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