Ma Asei Avos

This comprehensive and accessible entrée into the world of Kabbalah covers 1,600 years of Jewish mystical thought and features a variety of thinkers—from the renowned to the obscure—unavailable in any other volume. It’s a fresh take on an ancient tradition compiled by Edward Hoffman, a psychologist and respected scholar of Judaism, who reveals how this supposedly esoteric material is relevant to a host of contemporary concerns, such as ethics, emotional health, intuition and creativity, meditation, social relations and leadership, and higher states of consciousness. Contributors include: Moses Chaim Luzzatto, Moses Cordovero, Abraham Abulafia, Maimonides, Nachmanides, The Maharal, Nachman of Breslov, The Baal Shem Tov, The Gaon of Vilna, The Netziv, The Ben Ish Chai, Yehudah Ashlag, Kalonymus Shapira, Baba Sali, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Adin Steinsaltz, Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi, Jonathan Sacks, and many others, along with excerpts from the Sefer Yetzirah, Sefer HaBahir, and Sefer HaZohar.

Relates the biography of Rabbi Soloveitchik of Brisk (then in Poland), including the suffering of his community, his family, and other Jews under the Nazis and under the Soviets, whose threat to the souls of Jews, as part of their general militant atheism, was considered more serious than the Nazi threat to Jewish bodies. Ch. 9 (p. 351-391), "Surviving World War II", includes descriptions of efforts to carry on with Jewish religious life under German occupation in 1939. Soloveitchik fled to Warsaw and then to Vilna, under Soviet control. Ch. 10 (p. 392-476), "In Vilna, the 'Jerusalem of Lithuania'", depicts Jewish suffering under the alternating German and Soviet occupations, including a pogrom by Lithuanians. While Soloveitchik succeeded in fleeing from Soviet rule to Eretz Israel, his wife and three of his children remained in Brisk. Ch. 13 (p. 535-576), "The Fate of the Jews of Brisk", recounts the liquidation of the ghetto there, where Soloveitchik's dear ones apparently perished.

A classic, groundbreaking work on the Torah commentary of Ramban. This book explores the Ramban's commentary in great depth, with incisive clarity and deep explanation, providing a window into Ramban's approach. This book carefully examines both individual Torah verses and chapters, as well as overall themes and ideas, all in clear, eminently readable English. Does not include the Chumash text or the Ramban's words in Hebrew.

Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt l was one of the gedolim of our time. His writings and thousands of recorded lectures continue to have a deep and lasting impact on untold numbers of people worldwide. He was tireless - in his learning, his