Kesher Talk

This week's Pintele Yid recommendation - For our gentile friends and Jews who want to rediscover their heritage - recommending quintessentially Jewish cultural works (books, TV specials, CDs, Torah teachers, poets, websites, and more) which transport you inside a Jewish skin and show you the world through Jewish eyes.

Last week's recommendation.
Week 8 recommendation.
Week 7 recommendation.
Week 6 recommendation.
Week 5 recommendation.
Week 4 recommendation.
Week 3 recommendation.
Week 2 recommendation.
Introduction to the series and first recommendation.

Down to Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life, Arthur Waskow.
This book is about Jewish practice as a life path, by a tirelessly inventive liturgist, a prolific poster to many Jewish email lists, and a passionate progressive activist who dearly loves his tradition and people. You could call Waskow the anti-Douglas Rushkoff. His suggestions can be very radical, but they are always built firmly on tradition and a close reading of original sources, and he works within the mainstream Jewish community (albeit on its left wing) instead of positioning himself as an iconoclastic gadfly. It's not hard to understand which approach I have more respect for.

Whatever you think of Waskow's politics, this book embodies the very Jewish tradition of reinterpreting sacred texts with respect for both tradition and contemporary life. This is the kind of invigorating God-wrestling (the literal Hebrew meaning of Yisra-el) that has kept Judaism vital for centuries.

posted by Judith @ 9/01/2003 07:21:43 PM