Fresh translation and facing-page annotations bring the compelling wisdom of the Hebrew prophets to life. Hundreds of commentaries and dozens of Bible translations make the Hebrew prophets available to modern-day readers, but most often these sources focus on history or apologetics, losing the reader who is searching for spiritual insight. The Hebrew Prophets: Selections Annotated & Explained makes the wisdom of these timeless teachers available to readers with no previous knowledge of the prophets. With fresh, contemporary commentary, Rami Shapiro reveals the central themes covered by all the prophets: moving from ignorance to wisdom, injustice to justice, cruelty to compassion and despair to joy. This unique look at the Hebrew Prophets sharpens the personal nature of their message and highlights their critique of the spiritual errors we all face in life, challenging readers to correct those errors and experience a life of awakening and joy.

The wisdom of Jewish spirituality and mysticism can be a companion for your own spiritual journey. Tanya, "It Was Taught," is one of the most powerful and potentially transformative books of Jewish wisdom. Written in 1797 by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Hasidism, Tanya sets forth the fundamentals of Jewish spirituality and mysticism. While a focus of daily study by tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews, Tanya is little known outside the world of Jewish mysticism. Until now, its kabbalistic terms and esoteric language have made this essential text of Jewish spirituality inaccessible to most readers. In this engaging volume, Rabbi Rami Shapiro offers a contemporary English translation of key selections of Tanya coupled with commentary designed to clarify and amplify the wisdom it contains. He also outlines the philosophical and spiritual framework on which Tanya is based—God's nonduality; the five dimensions of reality and their corresponding intelligences (body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit); the purpose of mitzvot, the practices of Jewish life, as catalysts to God realization and the hallowing of all life through godliness—to help you understand the selected Tanya translations in a way that enhances your own spiritual development. Now you can benefit from the wisdom of Tanya even if you have no previous knowledge of Judaism or Hebrew terminology. This SkyLight Illuminations edition presents the core teachings of Tanya, with insightful yet unobtrusive commentary that will deepen your understanding of the soul and how it relates to and manifests the Divine Source from which all life comes, in which all life lives and to which all life returns.

Although Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) is well-known today-as a philosopher, a Jewish theologian and a social activist-Heschel the poet is not. Nevertheless, those who have read his writings in English, spiritual classics like The Sabbath and Man is Not Alone, and have been moved by the power of his prose and the subtlety of his expression, will not be surprised to find that in his youth he had actually published a volume of Yiddish poetry in the heyday of Yiddish literature before the Holocaust. The 66 precious poems of Der Shem Ham'forash-Mentch, published by Indsel Verlag in Warsaw in 1933, remained close to Heschel's heart all of his life, though few people knew of their existence. It was more than a decade after his passing before most of his admirers learned of them, being treated to a few tantalizing snippets in Samuel Dresner's anthology, I Asked for Wonder (a line taken from the dedication of Der Shem Ham'forash-Mentch). But what was unknown to most of Heschel's readers was that a complete translation of his poetry in English already existed in his lifetime; and still more amazing, it had been made by his younger contemporary, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (b. 1924), who would himself become a towering figure in Jewish and world spirituality, but who at the time was just coming into his own and looked to the older Heschel as a mentor. As we learn in the introduction, the first drafts of these translations were given as gifts to Heschel after his heart attack in 1969 to cheer him through his convalescence (sometimes accompanied by recordings of Schachter-Shalomi reading both the Yiddish originals and the English translations ) Schachter-Shalomi notes that Heschel was satisfied with some of these early drafts and unsatisfied with others. The poems were deeply personal to him and the translations would need to be revised. Unfortunately, Heschel died before he and Schachter-Shalomi could come together to discuss a revision and the translations were put on a shelf. But now, in honor of the 40th anniversary of Heschel's passing, Schachter-Shalomi has taken them down again and completed his own revision for the modern reader of sacred poetry. Thus, we have in this volume something truly unique-the combined work and vision of two of the 20th century's greatest Jewish spiritual luminaries and master's of Yiddish

Dr. Edward Hoffman, a world-renowned thinker and writer in humanistic psychology, reveals how the Kabbalah exerted a profound influence on the establishment and growth of Western psychological thought through such towering thinkers as Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Abraham Maslow. With a new introduction and updated bibliography, The Way of Splendor: The 25th Anniversary begins with an historical presentation of Kabalistic metaphysics and cosmology, then discusses the psychological dimensions of Kabbalah on such topics as dreams, meditation, sexuality, community, health and emotions. The Way of Splendor is a classic yet timely book that shows how to integrate spirituality with counseling, emphasizing the day-to-day relevance of the visionary experience.