Discover how to make virtually any moment in your day a significant part of a meaningful Jewish life.

As we have discovered, and as our sages have long known, there is no experience in the life of a Jew that cannot be marked in Jewish ways . The book you hold in your hands is the result of the kinds of rituals we have sculpted together over the years. It is not a prayer book or even a compendium of obligatory Jewish rituals. Rather, it is a source for all to use creatively. from the Introduction

Decades of experience by CLAL The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in connecting spirituality with daily life come together in this one comprehensive handbook. In these pages, you have access to teachings that can help to sanctify almost any moment in your day.

Offering a meditation, a blessing, a profound Jewish teaching, and a ritual for more than one hundred diverse everyday events and holidays, this guide includes sacred practices for:
Lighting Shabbat candlesBlessing your parentsRunning a marathonVisiting the sickBuilding a sukkahSeeing natural wondersMoving into a new homeSaying goodbye to a beloved petMaking a shiva callTraveling ... and much more

Drawing from both traditional and contemporary sources, The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices will show you how to make more holy any moment in your daily life."

"If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." - 2 Chronicles 7:14

God invites His people to pray and promises healing and forgiveness in response to those prayers. But how many Christians pray as the Bible teaches? This practical guide delves into the discipline of praying, seeking to help you understand the privilege, power, and purpose that can be derived from prayer.

In The Uncommon Book of Prayer, Reverend Larry W. Ellis explores Jesus's model of prayer and why it must become our primary focus. Based on his belief that the ministry of prayer is no longer common among God's people, Reverend Ellis clearly explains how prayer has great power to change circumstances. Believers can improve their personal lives, change the condition of their communities, improve the economies of their nations, and ultimately bring hope to the world-all through prayer.

Each chapter includes questions for reflection and suggests ways to add discipline to prayer life. Making prayer a daily practice will ultimately bring you into a more intimate relationship with God.

How to manage the process with grace, joy and good sense.

A practical guide that gives parents and teens the "how-to" information they need to navigate the bar/bat mitzvah process and grow as a family through this experience. For the first time in one book, everyone directly involved offers practical insights into how the process can be made easier and more enjoyable for all. Rabbis, cantors and Jewish educators from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, parents, and even teens speak from their own experience. What's it all about? Preparation for Parent and Child Tutoring, stress, expectations, enjoyment, planning for children with special needs Negotiating the ceremony and celebration Designing a creative service, heightening the spiritual exercise, special issues related to divorced and interfaith families, planning a party that neither breaks the bank nor detracts from the inherent spirituality of the event."

Spiritual and ethical lessons for the workaday world: how to do well and do good.

How can I find greater satisfaction in my work?

How can I lead my employees through difficult times?

If you get up each morning to go to work, this guide contains the reminder you need to succeed: you can do well and, at the very same time, you can do good.

Rabbi Wayne Dosick gives us tools to solve both the major moral dilemmas and the day-to-day questions of life at work. He offers ten new commandments that can transform our work and work environment into places for accomplishment and satisfaction, honesty and integrity, decency and dignity and success.

Through stories, real-life business situations, and artfully chosen spiritual texts, "The Business Bible" reminds us that principles don t have to be sacrificed for profits, that value means more than net worth, and that spiritual ethics can lead to business excellence.

In the Lord I Take Refuge invites readers to experience the Psalms in a new and refreshing way, featuring devotional content written by Dane Ortlund.

Islam is the only biblical religion that still practices animal sacrifice. Indeed, every year more than a million animals are shipped to Mecca from all over the world to be slaughtered during the Muslim Hajj. This multi-disciplinary volume is the first to examine the physical foundations of this practice and the significance of the ritual. Brannon Wheeler uses both textual analysis and various types of material evidence to gain insight into the role of animal sacrifice in Islam. He provides a 'thick description' of the elaborate camel sacrifice performed by Muhammad, which serves as the model for future Hajj sacrifices. Wheeler integrates biblical and classical Arabic sources with evidence from zooarchaeology and the rock art of ancient Arabia to gain insight into an event that reportedly occurred 1400 years ago. His book encourages a more nuanced and expansive conception of "sacrifice" in the history of religion.

The study of Jewish converts to Christianity in the modern era has long been marginalized in Jewish historiography. Labeled disparagingly in the Jewish tradition as meshumadim (apostates), many earlier Jewish scholars treated these individuals in a negative light or generally ignored them as not properly belonging any longer to the community and its historical legacy. This situation has radically changed in recent years with an outpouring of new studies on converts in variegated times and places, culminating perhaps in the most recent synthesis of modern Jewish converts by Todd Endelman in 2015. While Endelman argues that most modern converts left the Jewish fold for economic, social, or political reasons, he does acknowledge the presence of those who chose to convert for ideological and spiritual motives. The purpose of this volume is to consider more fully the latter group, perhaps the most interesting from the perspective of Jewish intellectual history: those who moved from Judaism to Christianity out of a conviction that they were choosing a superior religion, and out of doubt or lack of confidence in the religious principles and practices of their former one. Their spiritual journeys often led them to suspect their newly adopted beliefs as well, and some even returned to Judaism or adopted a hybrid faith consisting of elements of both religions. Their intellectual itineraries between Judaism and Christianity offer a unique perspective on the formation of modern Jewish identities, Jewish-Christian relations, and the history of Jewish skeptical postures. The approach of the authors of this book is to avoid broad generalizations about the modern convert in favor of detailed case studies of specific converts in four distinct localities: Germany, Russia, Poland, and England, all living in the nineteenth- century. In so doing, it underscores the individuality of each convert's life experience and self-reflection and the need to examine more intensely this relatively neglected dimension of Jewish and Christian cultural and intellectual history.

In this beautifully written book, Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh explains how to acquire the skills of mindfulness. Once we have these skills, we can slow our lives down and discover how to live in the moment - even simple acts like washing the dishes or drinking a cup of tea may be transformed into acts of meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh's gentle anecdotes and practical exercises help us to arrive at greater self-understanding and peacefulness, whether we are beginners or advanced students. Irrespective of our particular religious beliefs, we can begin to reap the immense benefits that meditation has been scientifically proven to offer. We can all learn how to be mindful and experience the miracle of mindfulness for ourselves.

The Spiritual Traveler's Travel Guide "A must read before a trip." Escape "One of the greatest travel books I have ever read." Peter Feibleman, author of Lilly: Reminiscences of Lillian Hellman #1 Bestseller in Atlases & Maps The classic guide to making travel meaningful. The Art of Pilgrimage is a travel guide full of inspiration for the spiritual traveler. Not just for pilgrims. We are descendants of nomads. And although we no longer partake in this nomadic life, the instinct to travel remains. Whether we're planning a trip or buying a secondhand copy of Siddhartha, we're always searching for a journey, a pilgrimage. With remarkable stories from famous travelers, poets, and modern-day pilgrims, The Art of Pilgrimage is for the mindful traveler who longs for something more than diversion and escape. Rick Steves with a literary twist. Through literary travel stories and meditations, award-winning writer, filmmaker and host of the acclaimed Global Spirit PBS series, Phil Cousineau, shows readers that travel is worthy of mindfulness and spiritual examination. Learn to approach travel with a desire for risk and renewal, practicing intentionality and being present. Spiritual travel for the soul. If you're looking for reasons to travel, this is it. Whether traveling to Mecca or Memphis, Stonehenge or Cooperstown, one's journey becomes meaningful when the traveler's heart and imagination are open to experiencing the sacred. The Art of Pilgrimage shows that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered around us. Inside find: Inspirational stories, myths, parables, and quotes from many travelers and many faiths How to see with the "eyes of the heart" Over 70 illustrations If you enjoyed books like The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho, Unlikely Pilgrim, Zen on the Trail, or Pilgrimage The Sacred Art, then The Art of Pilgrimage is a travel companion you'll want to have with you.

Alfred Edersheim's well-researched account of everyday Jewish life at the time the New Testament Gospels took place remains one of the best texts on the subject ever authored. This edition includes the author's appendixes. The reader is taken back to Israel and the surrounding areas more than 2,000 years ago. How the society would appear to the casual traveler, what customs the people practiced, how everyday life proceeded in the Jewish homestead and towns, and how women were treated are topics which Edersheim examines. The author goes into much detail, presenting an evocative picture of a sophisticated ancient society. We also hear of the political landscape of the era, particularly concerning the Pharisees - the leading social and political movement of the time - and its interactions with rival movements such as the Sadducees and Essenes. Religious rites, the layout and ceremonies of ancient Jewish synagogues and temples, and the creation of the ancient religious Talmudic literature, are related.

Why prayer? Prayer is an expression of needs and faith, but also a way to build a long-lasting relationship with God. In this third volume of Faithful in Prayer, David Williamson shares a series of articles that encourage prayer that, with God's answers, can transform the seemingly impossible into something very possible.

Williamson is a regular speaker on prayer and Christian living and through personal anecdotes and applicable scripture leads others through the foundation of faith, ways to build faith for effective prayer, and how to make a stand through prayer. Intended to motivate others to think and dream big, Williamson's articles teach specifically how to:

Believe God over the evidence Deal with unforgiveness Protect the heart to keep out doubt Be bold in prayer and allow God to work Live how He says we should live

God is calling for men and women to join with Him in the work through prayer and action. Prayer: A Force That Causes Change provides the encouragement, empowerment, and grace so that others can be successful in prayer.

But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26 (NKJV)

How many times have you said to yourself, This is what I want to become!" ... "This is what I want to have!" NOW YOU CAN GET IT! Just by following the easy, step-by-step Secret Prayer Ritual, as revealed by the Reverend Ponder in this amazing book! "What kind of Prayer?" you ask. Is it Words? Is it Deeds? Is it Belief? Or is there something more that makes Prayer work? It is something more! It's the SECRET THAT MAKES PRAYER WORK! A Secret you'll find on the thrilling pages of this book! Yes, you can gain the wealth which you deserve. You can have the greater strength and energy that you need and the greater power to be made well and whole again ... if you're willing to let the most fascinating Cosmic Force in all the world seek you out!

Horse of Karbala is a study of Muharram rituals and interfaith relations in three locations in India: Ladakh, Darjeeling, and Hyderabad. These rituals commemorate an event of vital importance to Shia Muslims: the seventh-century death of the Imam Husain, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the battlefield of Karbala in Iraq. Pinault examines three different forms of ritual commemoration of Husain’s death--poetry-recital and self-flagellation in Hyderabad; stick-fighting in Darjeeling; and the “Horse of Karbala” procession, in which a stallion representing the mount ridden in battle by Husain is made the center of a public parade in Ladakh and other Indian localities. The book looks at how publicly staged rituals serve to mediate communal relations: in Hyderabad and Darjeeling, between Muslim and Hindu populations; in Ladakh, between Muslims and Buddhists. Attention is also given to controversies within Muslim communities over issues related to Muharram such as the belief in intercession by the Karbala Martyrs on behalf of individual believers.

This volume addresses the means and ends of sacrificial speculation by inviting a selected group of specialists in the fields of philosophy, history of religions, and indology to examine philosophical modes of sacrificial speculation - especially in Ancient India and Greece - and consider the commonalities of their historical raison d'etre. Scholars have long observed, yet without presenting any transcultural grand theory on the matter, that sacrifice seems to end with (or even continue as) philosophy in both Ancient India and Greece. How are we to understand this important transformation that so profoundly changed the way we think of religion (and philosophy as opposed to religion) today? Some of the complex topics inviting closer examination in this regard are the interiorisation of ritual, ascetism and self-sacrifice, sacrifice and cosmogony, the figure of the philosopher-sage, transformations and technologies of the self, analogical reasoning, the philosophy of ritual, vegetarianism, and metempsychosis.

The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants. While some papers in the book address Luther's antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.

God doesn't demand hectic church programs and frenetic schedules; he only wants his people to know him more intimately, says top-selling author D. A. Carson. The apostle Paul found that spiritual closeness in his own fellowship with the Father. By following Paul's example, we can do the same. This book calls believers to reject superficiality and revolutionize their lives by embracing a God-guided approach to prayer. Previously published as A Call to Spiritual Reformation, this book has now been updated to connect more effectively with contemporary readers. A study guide, DVD, and leader's kit for the book are available through Lifeway and The Gospel Coalition.

Talk about Prayer is an experiment in writing ethnography, a commentary on a conversation with Mama Regine Tshitanda, the leader of a Charismatic prayer group (groupe de priere) in Lubumbashi (Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and members of her family in 1986.

A NYT Bestseller, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by former Muslim Nabeel Qureshi provides an intimate window into American Muslim life, describing how a passionate pursuit of Islam led him to Christ through friendship, apologetics, dreams and visions.

Providing an intimate view into a loving Muslim home, Qureshi shares how he developed a passion for Islam before discovering, almost against his will, evidence that Jesus rose from the dead and claimed to be God. Unable to deny the arguments but not wanting to deny his family, Qureshi struggled with an inner turmoil that will challenge Christians, Muslims, and all those who are interested in two of the world's greatest religions and the quest for truth.

Qureshi - with great courage and intimacy - wrote this book with three major purposes in mind:

• To tear down walls between two of the world's major religions by giving non-Muslim readers an insider's perspective into a Muslim's heart and mind.
• To equip the reader with facts and knowledge, showing the strength of the case for the gospel contrasted with the case for Islam.
• To portray the immense inner struggle of Muslims grappling with the gospel, including all the sacrifices and doubts that rise up along the way.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is more than the memoir of a man's pursuit of answers to the most important issues of life and faith. Ultimately, it's the story about the transformative grace and mercy of the one true God.

This edition has been expanded to include:

• A revised foreword and introduction