When, if ever, should lying be permitted? If you've damaged a
person's reputation unfairly, can the damage be undone?Is a person who
sells weapons responsible for how those weapons are used?if the fetus
is not a life, what is it? How, as an adult, can one carry out the
command to honor one's parents when they make unreasonable demands?What
are the nine biblical challenges a good person must meet?
What
do the great Jewish writings of the last 3,500 years tell us about
these and all other vital questions about our lives? Rabbi Joseph
Telushkin has devoted his life to the search for answers within the
teachings of Judaism. In Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Telushkin, the author of
the highly acclaimed Jewish Literacy, weaves together a tapestry of
stories from the Bible and Talmud, and the insights of Jewish
commentators and writers from Maimonides, Rashi, and Hillel to
Einstein, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Elie Wiesel. A richer source of
crucial life lessons would be hard to imagine.
Accompanying this
extraordinary compilation is Teluslikins compelling commentary, which
reveals how these texts continue to instruct and challenge Jewsand all
people concerned with leading ethical livestoday As he discusses these
texts, Rabbi Telushkin addresses issues of fundamental interest to
modern readers: how to live with honesty and integrity in an often
dishonest world; how to care for the sick and dying; how to teach
children to respect both themselves
and others, how to
understand and confront such great tragedies as antisemitism. and the
Holocaust; what God wants from humankind. Within Jewish Wisdom's ninety
chapters the reader will find extended sections illuminating Jewish
perspectives on sex, romance, and marriage, what kind of belief in God
a Jew can have after the Holocaust, how to use language ethically, the
conflicting views of the Bible and Talmud on the death penalty, and
much, much more.
Jewish Wisdom adds a new dimension to the many
widely read contemporary books that retell the stones and reveal the
essence of classic religious and secular literature. Possibly the most
far-ranging volume of stories and quotations from Jewish texts, Jewish
Wisdom will itself become a classic, a book that not only has the
capacity to transform how you view the world, but one that well might
change how you choose to live your life.