Essential Judaism: Updated Edition: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs & Rituals

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, Apr 12, 2016 - Religion - 704 pages
You’ll find everything you need to know about being Jewish in this indispensable, revised and updated guide to the religious traditions, everyday practices, philosophical beliefs, and historical foundations of Judaism.

What happens at a synagogue service? What are the rules for keeping kosher? How do I light the Hanukah candles? What is in the Hebrew Bible? What do the Jewish holidays signify? What should I be teaching my children about being Jewish?

With the first edition of Essential Judaism, George Robinson offered the world the accessible compendium that he sought when he rediscovered his Jewish identity as an adult. In his “ambitious and all-inclusive” (New York Times Book Review) guide, Robinson illuminates the Jewish life cycle at every stage and lays out many fascinating aspects of the religion—the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, the evolution of Hasidism, and much more—while keeping a firm focus on the different paths to living a good Jewish life in today’s world.

Now, a decade and a half later, Robinson has updated this valuable introductory text with information on topics including denominational shifts, same-sex marriage, the intermarriage debate, transgender Jews, the growth of anti-Semitism, and the changing role of women in worship, along with many other hotly debated topics in the contemporary Jewish world and beyond.

The perfect gift for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah or anyone thinking about conversion—this is the ultimate companion for anyone interested in learning more about Judaism, the kind of book its readers will revisit over and over for years to come.
 

Contents

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
7
The Role of the Rabbi
17
The Daily Services
24
The Shabbat Services
41
Festival Services
46
Mezuzah
53
Havurah
66
Shul Etiquette
73
O You Scribes and Pharisees
324
Primary Subject
330
Tosefta and Baraita
337
Halakhah and Aggadah
347
Proliferation and Persecution
353
Some Important Midrashic Texts
362
Sefer Yetzirah
371
The Zohar
377

CHAPTER 2
79
The High Holy Days
94
Sukkot
103
Shemini Atzeret
110
TubShevat
117
Counting the Omer
127
Tisha bAv
133
CHAPTER 3
140
Brit Milah
147
Parent and Child
154
Confirmation
160
Divorce
173
Illness
184
CHAPTER 4
197
Whos Counting?
204
151
209
Why Observe?
222
Opponents of Halakhah
232
TzedakahDoing Justice
239
Tikkun OlamRepairing the World
246
KashrutDietary Laws
254
CHAPTER 5
263
The Torah
269
Torah Comes First
284
The Role of the Prophets
294
Reading the Book
304
Who Wrote the Hebrew Bible?
311
From the Pairs to the Tannaim
318
Shabbateanism
388
Kabbalah in the Twentieth Century
396
The Lasting Influence of Jewish Mysticism
404
Philo Judaeus 20 B C E 50 C E
410
Maimonides c 1135 C E 1204 C E
419
Judah HaLevi 1075 C E 1141 C E
424
Moses Mendelssohn 1729 C E 1786 C E
432
Abraham Joshua Heschel 1907 C E 1972 C E
449
From the Writings of Joseph Soloveitchik
456
The Jews in the East
463
Enlightenment and Emancipation
470
Reform and Orthodox
476
The Zionists
483
The Evolution of AntiSemitism
492
Exiles Return
497
The Temptations of Assimilation
503
An Open or Shut Case?
512
Who Are We Now?
519
APPENDIX 1
525
Conservative Judaism
536
Reconstructionism
548
Orthodoxy
554
APPENDIX 2
561
APPENDIX 3
575
GLOSSARY
595
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
647
Copyright

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About the author (2016)

George Robinson is the author of the critically acclaimed Essential Judaism, as well as Essential Torah: A Complete Guide to the Five Books of Moses (2006). The recipient of a Simon Rockower Award for excellence in Jewish journalism from the American Jewish Press Association, Robinson is a senior writer for The Jewish Week, the largest Jewish newspaper in North America. He is a contributor to the new edition of Encyclopedia Judaica and has written frequently for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsday, and Hadassah Magazine.

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