Learn
Jewish Reading
www.artscroll.com
Everything Torah.
www.feldheim.com
American-based affiliate of Targum.
www.judaism.com
The web site started by Pinsker's, a venerable Jewish bookstore in Pittsburgh.
Tons of information, resources, and links.
www.targum.com
Jerusalem-based publishers of Letters to a Buddhist Jew and
other, seriously scholarly and Frum books.
Climbing
Jacob's Ladder: One Man's Rediscovery of a Jewish Spiritual Tradition by
Alan Morinis.
One man's spiritual journey brings him to the study of the Jewish character-building
discipline of Mussar. This is both a moving memoir and a practical book of instruction
from a man who has made Mussar his life's work.
Living
Inspired by Akiva Tatz
My esteemed co-author's take on staying in tune with the Divine through understanding
patterns in Torah thought and applying them to daily living.
God
Is A Verb by David Cooper
Wonderful exploration of the often-occluded meaning and presence of the Divine
through Kabbalistic text. A more serious and relatively early entry into the
now-crowded field of Kabbalah authorship
Judaism,
Physics and God: Searching for Sacred Metaphors in a
Post-Einstein World, by Rabbi David Nelson.
A thrilling look at ancient Jewish wisdom through the lenses
of Relativity, Quantum Theory, String Theory--and the relentless
searching and questioning that are the hallmarks of a wonderful
Jewish mind.
Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology, by Arthur
Green.
A scholarly and yet still fresh and urgent exploration of
how to understand the world, live one's life and relate to
God, through Jewish mysticism.
Jewish With Feeling: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice,
by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
The founder of the Jewish Renewal Movement reveals, with
a wisdom rooted in texts of the past, how much Judaism matters
in the present, and how to live it, questions and all.
This
Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe
as a Journey of Transformation, by Rabbi Alan
Lew.
The noted rabbi and teacher of meditation renews the sense
of spiritual urgency that can, and indeed should, accompany
the Jewish High Holidays. (ED: THIS SHOULD REPLACE LEW'S
OTHER TITLE, "ONE GOD CLAPPING.")
The
Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith of Israel, by
Jehuda Halevi.
A classic of Jewish literature, in which a rabbi converts
a prince, and his entire people, to Judaism, through a careful
and compassionate explication of Jewish text and practice.
Classes and Lectures
www.ohr.edu
Orthodox yeshiva. Great teachers here.
www.torahlearningcenter.com
The rabbis here are Orthodox, but they are teachers first. They teach any and
all, they teach Torah, Talmud, meditation, prayer, and menschlichkeit. They
introduced me to Rabbi Tatz.
www.udumbarazen.org
Where I learned what little I know about Buddhism. A great Zen sangha in Evanston,
IL.
Other Resources
www.bethsholomsf.org/CBS/pages/
Beth Shalom in San Francisco is run by Rabbi Alan Lew, an author and meditation
teacher well versed in Buddhism. He is helping Jews (re) discover meditation.
www.everydayzen.org
Zoketsu Norman Fischer, former abbott of the San Francisco
Zen Center, author, poet, Buddhist, Jew. Great site for the simple
beauty of Norman's Zen teachings
and writings.
www.literati.net/Kamenetz/
Rodger Kamenetz wrote the seminal work, The
Jew in the Lotus, about a group
of Jewish leaders going to visit the Dalai Lama, and about the increasing
cross-fertilization between Judaism and Buddhism. He's also a fine poet.
www.aish.com
An Orthodox site rich in study materials, links, short
movies, aimed at getting young Jews more interested in deeper levels
of observance and
study.
www.uscj.org
The Conservative movement's site. Lots of information about schools,
summer programs, charitable work, and affiliates
www.urj.org
The Reform movement has become more traditional in recent years but
still is very invested in social justice and volunteer work. A user-friendly
site that answers questions about Reform in a straightforward way.
www.aleph.org
Jewish Renewal is the most liberal in its political and spiritual orientation
of all the Jewish "movements." Sometimes loopy, but there are
great writers and teachers affiliated with this movement.
www.jrf.org
The Reconstructionist movement is more traditional in its observance
than Reform or Renewal, but eschews the concept of chosenness and focuses
on godliness rather than a belief in God. I think.
www.beliefnet.com
Everything you could possibly want to know about any religion, or any
sect or movement within any religion, is probably two mouseclicks from
here.
www.killingthebuddha.com
a site for people with a spiritual yearning who are turned off by organized
religion.
David's Reading List
An
End to Suffering by
Pankaj Mishra
A moving and well-researched interweaving of the author's
personal search with the
story of Siddartha Gautama, aka The
Buddha.
Constantine's
Sword by
James Carroll
A wonderful read, alternately thought-provoking and blood-curdling,
about the institutionalized anti-Semitism
of the Catholic
Church.
Meditation
and the Bible by Aryeh Kaplan
The late author, largely responsible
for today's resurgent interest in Jewish mysticism, takes
the reader on a thoughtful
and detailed tour of how the language of the Torah points
toward meditation practices
of the prophets, poets and Psalmists who wrote it..
Opening
to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms by Norman
Fischer
A Jewish-born Zen teacher's interpretation of the Psalmist's
work.
Field
Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul
of Kindness
by Marc Ian Barasch
The author focuses on the brain-altering
practice of compassion and its potential for altering our lives and our
world.
Buddhist Reading
Being
Upright: Zen Meditation and the Boddhisatva Precepts by Reb
Anderson
Clear and compassionate instruction on living the Zen path.
Zen
Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
Seminal work on the fundamentals of Zen thought and practice by the Zen teacher
who did so much to popularize Zen in the West.
The Noble Eightfold Path by Bikkhu Bodhi
A clear and detailed articulation of the Buddhist path
Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday
Life by Thich Nhat Hanh
This explanation of the practice of mindfulness in
clear, simple and moving terms, will move Buddhists and non-Buddhists
alike.