A Passover Haggadah

A Passover Haggadah: As Commented Upon by Elie Wiesel and Illustrated by Mark Podwal . With this Passover Haggadah, Elie Wiesel and his friend Mark Podwal invite you to join them for the Passover Seder — the most festive event of the Jewish calendar. Read each year at the Seder table, the Haggadah recounts the miraculous tale of the liberation of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, with a celebration of prayer, ritual, and song. Wiesel and Podwal guide you through the Haggadah and share their understanding and faith in a special illustrated edition that will be treasured for years to come.

Accompanying the traditional Haggadah text (which appears here in an accessible new translation) are Elie Wiesel’s poetic interpretations, reminiscences, and instructive retellings of ancient legends. The Nobel laureate interweaves past and present as the symbolism of the Seder is explored. Wiesel’s commentaries may be read aloud in their entirety or selected passages may be read each year to illuminate the timeless message of this beloved book of redemption. See details

30 Minute Seder: The Haggadah That Blends Brevity With Tradition

30 Minute Seder: The Haggadah That Blends Brevity With Tradition . This refreshingly brief, Rabbinically approved Passover Haggadah maintains the reverence of Passover while keeping the high points intact. The contemporary gender-neutral text, beautiful full-colour illustrations, and Seder songs make for a memorable Passover Seder that engages and entertains the entire family. 30minute-Seder’ contains simple directions and Passover Seder plate instructions. Hebrew prayers are also provided with transliteration. The treatment given to the four-children (traditionally the four sons) is simply brilliant. The four-questions and their answers are presented in a truly thought provoking way. This fun-to-read Passover Haggadah is perfect for the family on the go and appeals to new and experienced Seder participants alike. See details

Richard Codor’s Joyous Haggadah

Richard Codor’s Joyous Haggadah : The Illuminated Story of Passover. A concise modern Haggadah children’s haggadah, this is a great family haggadah for beginners or anyone who spends seder night with children. Illustrated in a cartoon style and written in a light humorous manner. Alan M. Tigay, Executive Editor, Hadassah Magazine:

No cartoonist can match Richard Codor for his whimsical sense of humor and his understanding of the Jewish world. His Haggadah promises to bridge the greatest divide in the Jewish world: between adults and children.

Peninnah Schram, storyteller and author of Jewish folktales

What a delightful romp through the seder via this Joyous Haggadah! The multi-layered narrative and rituals in this haggadah appeal to the eye, the imagination, the funny-bone, and the occasion. Beginning with the prequel of the Joseph story, continuing until the Israelites gain their freedom, and ending with more symbolic rituals and song, the combination of telling the story and conducting the seder is presented clearly with charming and wacky humor (in both words and visuals). The cartoon-like illustrations not only enhance the story but will also add to a memorable and joy-filled shared family experience! See details

New American Haggadah

New American Haggadah . Read each year around the seder table, the Haggadah recounts through prayer, song, and ritual the extraordinary story of Exodus, when Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to wander the desert for forty years before reaching the Promised Land.

Now, Jonathan Safran Foer has orchestrated a new way of experiencing and understanding one of our oldest, most timeless, and sacred stories, with a new translation of the traditional text by Nathan Englander and provocative commentary by major Jewish writers and thinkers Jeffrey Goldberg, Lemony Snicket, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, and Nathaniel Deutsch. Ravishingly designed and illustrated by the acclaimed Israeli artist and calligrapher Oded Ezer, New American Haggadah is an utterly unique and absorbing prayer book, the first of its kind, that brings together some of the preeminent voices of our time. See details

God in Search of Man : A Philosophy of Judaism

God in Search of Man : A Philosophy of Judaism . Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the most revered religious leaders of the 20th century, and God in Search of Man and its companion volume, Man Is Not Alone, two of his most important books, are classics of modern Jewish theology. God in Search of Man combines scholarship with lucidity, reverence, and compassion as Dr. Heschel discusses not man’s search for God but God’s for man–the notion of a Chosen People, an idea which, he writes, “signifies not a quality inherent in the people but a relationship between the people and God.” It is an extraordinary description of the nature of Biblical thought, and how that thought becomes faith. See details

God’s Favorite Prayers

God’s Favorite Prayers invites the reader into the heart of Jewish spirituality, to learn about its idiom and imagery, its emotions and its great sweeping dramas. It invites the reader to meet six ideal personalities of Jewish prayer and to get to know some of God’s favorite prayers.

Critical praise for the book:

“God’s favorite prayers have all been right in plain sight for centuries, though never before experienced like this. With his characteristic blend of chutzpah and humor, Professor Rav Zahavy makes finding spiritual experiences into a real page turner! A fun, fascinating and totally refreshing way to finally learn how to pray.”
–Dr. Arlene Rossen Cardozo, author of Sequencing, Woman at Home and Jewish Family Celebrations

“Tzvee Zahavy’s artful melding of memoir, analysis, and typology enriches our understanding of liturgical experience and encourages us to emulate him by reflecting more thoughtfully on our own prayer lives.”
–Rabbi Eliezer Diamond Ph.D., Associate Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, Jewish Theological Seminary. See details

The Jewish Gospels

The Jewish Gospels . In July 2008 a front-page story in the New York Times reported on the discovery of an ancient Hebrew tablet, dating from before the birth of Jesus, which predicted a Messiah who would rise from the dead after three days. Commenting on this startling discovery at the time, noted Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin argued that “some Christians will find it shocking—a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology.”

Guiding us through a rich tapestry of new discoveries and ancient scriptures, The Jewish Gospels makes the powerful case that our conventional understandings of Jesus and of the origins of Christianity are wrong. In Boyarin’s scrupulously illustrated account, the coming of the Messiah was fully imagined in the ancient Jewish texts. Jesus, moreover, was embraced by many Jews as this person, and his core teachings were not at all a break from Jewish beliefs and teachings. Jesus and his followers, Boyarin shows, were simply Jewish. What came to be known as Christianity came much later, as religious and political leaders sought to impose a new religious orthodoxy that was not present at the time of Jesus’s life.

In the vein of Elaine Pagels’s The Gnostic Gospels, here is a brilliant new work that will break open some of our culture’s most cherished assumptions. See details

Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies

Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies: Passing Your Beliefs and Blessings to Future Generations. This book shows women how to create an enduring document that expresses who they are, what they value, and how they want to be remember.

A spiritual-ethical will is a record of who you are—a link to your past and a gift to the future. In it you can articulate your values, impart your wisdom, bless your loved ones, and express how you hope to be remembered after you are gone.

Whether you are reclaiming your history or supplementing a legal will, Rachael Freed will guide you through each life-changing step in the legacy writing process. One day your descendants will hold your document in their hands and know who you were, what mattered to you, and what you contributed to the world. See details

Kosher Jesus

Kosher Jesus is a project of more than six years research and writing. The book seeks to offer to Jews and Christians the real story of Jesus, a wholly observant, Pharisaic Rabbi who fought Roman paganism and oppression and was killed for it. While many Christians will be confused by its assertion that Jesus never claimed divinity and not only did not abrogate the Torah but observed every letter of the Law, they will find comfort in my tracing most of Jesus principal teachings back to Jewish sources, this before he was stripped of his Jewishness by later writers who sought to portray him as an enemy of his people. This is especially true of Jesus’ most famous oration, the Sermon on the Mount, which is a reformulation of the Torah he studied and to which he was committed. A small sampling:

The Women’s Seder Sourcebook

The Women’s Seder Sourcebook: Rituals & Readings for Use at the Passover Seder . The complete sourcebook for creating your own women’s seder. The Women’s Seder Sourcebook provides the tools you need to bring women’s voices to your Passover celebration, create a women’s seder of your own, and share in the unique perspectives that contemporary Jewish women are bringing to our evolving understanding of this holiday. Organized according to the order of the seder, this comprehensive collection includes:

* Accessible and inspiring introductions to each part of the seder
* Overviews of how different aspects of the Passover ritual have been reinterpreted in a feminist context
* Readings, commentaries, blessings, and rituals from more than one hundred women, to serve as supplements to or substitutes for traditional passages of the haggadah
* Women’s writings that can be incorporated into the family seder to bring new, thought-provoking voices to the table

This practical guide also includes discussion questions, texts, and exercises for further study, to help you transform the planning process for your women’s or family seder into a Jewish learning experience.See details