Book Description
ates of Repentance with services, readings, meditations and songs for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, now contains contemporary, gender-inclusive language throughout and will replace the existing edition as the High Holy day prayerbook of the Reform Movement.
Customer Reviews:
It's printed backwards!.......2007-01-20
It completely threw me! I bought it so as to not take up prayerbooks that might normally be used by people from out-of-town, but I was so thrown off and it felt a little....weird to read the thing from front to back. Maybe it was just my copy; I bought it ages ago so I'm not sure if I got used or new from Amazon.
Just go to a bookstore and pick one up; then you know if it's been printed to your liking.
Book Description
“RICH AND SONOROUS PROSE . . . There’s plenty of reason to hope for the future of a fiction that welcomes writers with such a passionate sense of the past.”
–San Jose Mercury News
On New Year’s Day, 1959, Alejandra San José was born in Havana, entering the world through the heart of revolution. Fearing the turmoil brewing in Cuba, her parents took Ale and fled to the shores of North America–ending up in Chicago amid a close community of Cuban refugees. As an adult, Ale becomes an interpreter, which takes her back to her homeland for the first time. There, she makes her way back through San José history, uncovering new fragments of truth about the relatives who struggled with their own identities so long ago. For the San Josés, ostensibly Catholics, are actually Jews. They are conversos who converted to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition. As Alejandra struggles to confront what it is to be Cuban and American, Catholic and Jewish, she translates her father’s troubling youthful experiences into the healing language of her own heart.
“Lyrically written, Days of Awe reflects the way Cuban Spanish is spoken with poetic rhythm and frankness.”
–Ms.
“An ambitious work . . . A deft talent whose approach to sex, religion, and ethnicity is keenly provocative.”
–Miami Herald
“With intelligent, intense writing, Obejas approaches . . . the heady climes of Cuban American stalwarts Oscar Hijuelos and Cristina Garcia.”
–Library Journal (starred review)
Customer Reviews:
Verging on terrible.......2006-04-14
I've read a lot of novels by Latina writers, looking for writing that rings true about the Latina experience, writing that will finally give a voice to the millions of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, writing that will bring acceptance to Latina authors trying to make it in the literary world. Unfortunately, besides a handful of great writers like Sandra Cisneros, it doesn't seem like there's much out there. The few Latina novels that exist give you a cynical and humorless impression of the world: all men are machista, all white people are racists, all fathers are distant/abusive, etc. "Days of Awe" is a perfect example of this. It's downbeat in a meaningless, Lifetime Original Movie kind of way. Here is an author with the opportunity to discuss what it's like to be female, lesbian, Cuban, American, an exile and a Crypto-Jew. It could have been a fascinating tale, but instead it was simply bleak. Not one of the characters was likeable. The sex scenes were shocking (including a very unsexy fisting scene, among other things), irrelevant to the plot, and completely broke up what little flow the author could muster. There were loose ends that made the ending very unsatisfying. Ultimately, the most important theme in this novel is love, but you never see the love between the characters, only the tensions and the pervasive unhappiness. Unless you are Cuban or Crypto-Jewish and are looking desperately for literature that is related to your experience, don't waste your time on this.
Superb........2005-05-19
This book is lyrically written, emotionally wrenching, and an excellent guide into the mysterious ways of both the Cuban Jewish community and its history as well as the Cuban Revolution. It's a challenging novel, full of poetry and questions about life and how we maneuver our way through it. It's also a deeply spiritual book, with insight about how religions work, and the true meaning of faith. As to the sex scenes, well ... they're delicious.
Days of Awe isn't quite awful, but it's close..........2005-03-21
What started out as a (potentially) fascinating look at a Cuban exile's perspective on Cuba and the discovery of her Judaism, quicky became a novel of gratuitious sex, unanswered questions and a book sorely in need of an editor! Obejas' story might have been interesting in her head but it didn't translate well to paper. There were several bright spots, such as when she discusses linguistics and how the meaning of a word can be changed in the translation, but overall the story jumped around so much that it was difficult to tell what was going on. The main character's obsession with an older, flabby man who is married to a distant relative is pretty pathetic, and there is no motivation for her affair with him. Some characters (Seth, the boyfriend, for example) are never fully explored and seem almost an afterthought as if the editor told Obeajs, "I need more pages...write stuff!" The sex is almost disturbing, it's never wonderful and lovely. And suffice it to say that I wil never look at a glass of milk the same way again!
Days of Awe's story is all over the place, the characters aren't developed and the exploration of the writer's Judiasm is not particularly well done. All in all, put this one back on the shelf!
Brilliant book.......2003-10-02
I am a Cuban raised in Miami where there are 1 million Cubans and hardly any Cuban literature. I went to the bookstore last week after reading an article in EL NUEVO HERALD about a beautiful Spanish/English bilingual Cuban-American picturebook, DRUM, CHAVI, DRUM!/TOCA, CHAVI, TOCA! set in Little Havana, written by a Cuban (Mayra L. Dole) and illustrated by a Cuban (Tonel). To my surprise I also found Memory Mambo and Days of Awe! There are close to 40 million hispanics in the United States and just a handful of books written by Latinos about the Latino experience; it is as if we did not exist. I am greatful to have found Achy Obejas. She brillianty weaves history and fiction in such a way that Days of Awe becomes hard to put down. I am looking forward to her next book and highly recommend Days of Awe to anyone interested in history/fiction/literature and brilliant writing. I am hooked!
Days of Awe.......2002-02-12
I just finished reading A. Obejas "Days of Awe". What a
wonderful blend of fiction and history! As a Cuban-American I'm
happy such a fine writer as Ms.Obejas has written about the often
forgotten Cuban Jewish community. A very impressive work, I
recommend it to anyone interested in contemporary Hispanic Fiction. Or to anyone interested in the Jewish experience in
Latin America. Or to anyone at all who just wants to read a
really good story.
Book Description
The second in a series of prayerbooks for preschoolers.
Customer Reviews:
Must Reading.......1999-03-01
Rabbi Orkand, and his wife, Joyce, an elementary school teacher, write on a level that will be enjoyed, and understood by children. Generations should share this book.
Book Description
There are moments in life when one is caught utterly unprepared: a death in the family, the end of a relationship, a health crisis. These are times when the solid ground we thought we stood on disappears beneath our feet, and we turn to faith to help us find our way back. The Days of Awe encompass the weeks just preceding Rosh Hashanah up to Yom Kippur, a period in which Jews take part in a series of rituals and prayers that reenact the journey of the soul through the world from birth to death. Like the days of Lent or Ramadan, the purpose of these rituals is to experience this brokenheartedness and open one's heart to God. The acclaimed Rabbi Lew has taken the beauty and power of these rituals and made of them a journey of seven distinct stages that will touch the spirit of all readers in search of inner transformation. Rabbi Lew weaves together Torah readings, Buddhist parables, and Jewish fables and stories from his own life, to lay bare the meanings of this ancient Jewish passage. Drawing on both his rabbinical training and his scholarship in Buddhism, Lew leads readers on a journey from confusion to clarity, from doubt to belief, as he opens a path to self-discovery that is accessible to readers of all faiths.THIS IS REAL AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED unveils the deeper meanings of the High Holidays, enabling Jews and believers of all kinds to reconnect to their faith with a vibrancy and intimacy that will resonate throughout the year.
Download Description
"There are moments in life where one is caught utterly unprepared: a death in the family, the end of a relationship, a health crisis. These are times when the solid ground we thought we stood on disappears beneath our feet, and we turn to faith to help us find our way back. The Days of Awe encompass the weeks just preceding Rosh Hashanah up to Yom Kippur, a period in which Jews take part in a series of rituals and prayers that reenact the journey of the soul through the world from birth to death. Like the days of Lent or Ramadan, the purpose of these rituals is to experience this brokenheartedness and open one's heart to God. The acclaimed Rabbi Lew has taken the beauty and power of these rituals and made of them a journey of seven distinct stages that will touch the spirit of all readers in search of inner transformation. Rabbi Lew weaves together Torah readings, Buddhist parables, Jewish fables and stories from his own life, to lay bare the meanings of this ancient Jewish passage. Drawing on both his rabbinical training and his scholarship in Buddhism, Lew leads readers on a journey from confusion to clarity, from doubt to belief, as he open a path to self-discovery that is accessible to readers of all faiths. THIS IS REAL AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED unveils the deeper meanings of the High Holidays, enabling Jews to reconnect to their faith with a vibrancy and intimacy that will resonate throughout the year."
Customer Reviews:
Someone with a passing interest in spiritual development.......2005-10-06
This is a powerful book about opening your heart. Rabbi Lew combines Eastern philosophy with Jewish wisdom so that the reader enjoys the best of both worlds. The basic approach is that the Jewish High Holy Days provide us with an annual opportunity to acknowledge the dark shadows in our soul, accept our inevitable flaws, failings and transgressions, and emerge from the process fresh, whole and reinvigorated. Rabbi Lew writes beautifully and the message hits home. Highly recommended.
Book Description
This complex, compelling and exquisitely wrought novel-from a National Book Award and Pen-Faulkner Award finalist-evokes one of the most profound realizations that eventually come to us: the real understanding that we and all those we love are going to die.
Artie Rubin, author of illustrated books of mythology, has reached the age of 67. His friends are beginning to deteriorate one by one, and his beloved wife of forty years is at high risk for a heart attack. He pops a Viagra once a week to sleep with her and happily plans their 40th anniversary trip to Venice. And then an unforeseen tragedy strikes and Artie's comfortable world, his views on morality, mortality and God all begin to unravel.
Hugh Nissenson writes with elegance, sensitivity and a lovely dry humor. Reading him, Cynthia Ozick writes, is as if we are eavesdropping on life.
Customer Reviews:
I didn't get it........2006-12-19
I read this book because of an awesome review I thought it'd received in THE WASHINGTON POST book section. I must have read the review for a different book, because this was not the emotionally moving book the review claimed it to be. The writing was engaging enough, but I sort of forced myself to stick with it to get to the part that would blow my mind as the review had promised. It never happened. It was a moderately interesting insight into a older age persons life. I never got to the emotionally moving part. I really wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
A trove of conflicts..........2006-09-05
To this non-Jewish reader, "The Days of Awe" presents a trove of conflicts, both as a literary work and as to its subject matter. I would not characterize this novel a masterpiece, as some have, because I agree to a certain extent with another amazon reader's review that this book could have been more than it is. The domestic ordinariness of Muggs' three walks per day, breakfast foods, the abiding health worries of senior citizens, etc., began to wear me down as I worked my way toward September 11 and then proceeded into its aftermath. Also, there is that the vulgar treatment of sex that diminishes Artie and Johanna rather than believably humanizing them. Earthiness is one thing, crudity dropped on the pages for seeming shock value is another.
Stylistically, the novel's habit of skipping into and out of characters' minds at the drop of the proverbial hat reduces readability. Author Nissenson remarks in the book's-end conversation (that offers valuable context) that he experimented for the first time with switching points of view between characters in the middle of scenes. That experiment unfortunately leads to narrative confusion and density this reader would rather have done without.
Returning September 11, I had gotten the impression from reviews I had read prior to opening the book, that "The Days of Awe" turned on this event. It doesn't. Nissenson says that he began writing in the spring of 2001 and when September 11 happened, he had to include it. He did, but it is clearly an inclusion, not a seminal anchor, and I think that was an opportunity for germane and thorough character exploration lost.
However, I'm glad I read the entire novel. It provides remarkable food for thought. Not only does it inform convincingly about the lives of well-to-do New York West End Jewish (and to some degree, Protestant) people, but it explores the reality -- common to all people -- of grappling with the meaning of life and death. Secularity has encompassed and largely defined Artie, his family and most of their friends. Yet, as is so often the case with human beings, when he is faced with the threat of loss through death, he turns to a form of religious expression. Despite his lifelong interest in other cultures' myths (Greek, Navajo, Nordic), Artie Rubin seeks a kind of sanctuary in the faith of his fathers. He convinces himself that garbing himself in "tefillin" and praying according to Jewish tradition will keep death at bay. In so doing, Artie makes the human error of converting religious ritual into a superstitious formula. He isn't really doing what Rabbi Klugman advises; he isn't letting himself be a conduit for prayer's ends, he is using prayer as a means to his own obsessive-compulsive ends. That this results in bitter consequences for Artie and leads him to resume living in the secular world "from which there is no appeal" is perhaps the consummate message of "The Days of Awe," in my opinion.
Both Artie's personal and professional life zero in on death. Artie is writing and illustrating a book about the god, Odin. He spends a lot of time assembling a digital image of Odin's face at the pivotal moment when he (Odin) realizes he must die. The finished image is the only picture in "The Days of Awe," and it is quite stunning. It encapsulates the raw and primitive, uncomprehending disbelief that we mortals feel too about life's finite essence.
Despite its imperfections, this book says something rich and yet ineffable about the struggles we all have with the meaning of life and its inevitable end. I recommend it highly for precisely that discussion.
a real disappointment.......2006-03-24
I am compelled to add my review of this book, if only because I feel so misled and betrayed by the others who wrote such glowing reviews. I found this book to be so disappointing because it COULD have been so much better. The writing was choppy,rambling and disjointed. It was almost impossible to follow the italisized running commentary by Artie who was attempting to write another fable. What was most disconcerting to me (and I swear I'm not a prude) is the crude description of sex acts as well as the continual use of the "f" word. So, so unnecessary, so gratuitous, so out of place. The plot could have moved along so well without it. I was going to promote it to my book club -- until I read it. We won't be discussing this book.
A masterful story of life, love, and death.......2006-01-24
This is book to read and reread as one absorbs the meaning of life, tragedy, and love. Funny, heartbreaking, and humane.
"Happiness lies in feeling part of ordinary things.".......2006-01-01
"The Days of Awe," by Hugh Nissenson, is set on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the months before and after 9/11. The protagonist is sixty-seven year old Artie Rubin, who is working on his twentieth book, "Norse Myths Retold and Illustrated." Twelve of Artie's books on world mythology are still in print and some are considered cult classics. However, he is feeling old and tired, and fears that his talent may be waning. Still, Artie is grateful for the companionship of his loving wife, Johanna, and their married daughter, Leslie, who is expecting her first child.
Nissenson's writing style is a blend of disparate elements--third person narrative, emails, diary entries, the inner thoughts of each character told in the first person, and snippets of Artie's book in progress as he struggles to perfect both his text and illustrations. There are no clear-cut chapters, just demarcations by date, starting in August 2001 and ending three months later. If this style sounds messy and disorganized, it is, but it works well.
The author explores a whole host of themes, including whether religious belief has any value, how people cope with their fear of infirmity and death, the importance of family ties, the pleasure and fulfillment of work, and the ephemeral nature of happiness. Yet, "The Days of Awe" is not heavy and ponderous. There are many witty and humorous scenes along with some dark and heartbreaking ones, and the narrative is both fast-moving and engrossing.
The characters are beautifully delineated. Although Artie has never been an observant Jew, he longs to reconnect with his dead father, Samuel, by rediscovering his Jewish roots. Johanna scorns religion, and wants her husband to come to his senses. After the tragedy of 9/11 and a series of health crises that afflict his friends and family, Artie experiences an emotional meltdown that forces him to reevaluate what is really important to him. "The Days of Awe" is a deeply moving kaleidoscope of all the ordinary events and relationships that makes life beautiful, intolerable, unpredictable, and wonderful.
Book Description
A religious commentary to help High Holy Day worshippers unlock the message behind the liturgy.
Book Description
Compiled by one of the greatest Hebrew writers of the 20th century and first published in 1948, Days of Awe is the long-acknowledged classic companion to the High Holy Days prayer book. Here in one volume are readings and meditations from the Bible, the Talmud, the Midrash, and the Zohar, to deepen the spiritual experience of the holiest days of the Jewish year.
Customer Reviews:
A holy book for study before and during the High Holy Days .......2004-10-05
This is a remarkable collection of commentaries on the High Holy Days and the month of Elul leading up to them . Agnon acts as a Talmid Chachim ( a wise scholar) and as a master creator of literature in putting these commentaries, stories , insights together.
The reading of this work makes reading a religious act. The work could not be more highly recommended.
Customer Reviews:
Repentance, prayer and charity.......2001-09-07
Kimmel provides three winning tales for the most solemn days of the Jewish calendar, one for each mitzvah, or good deed, a Jew must perform to obtain forgiveness for wrongs done during the previous year. He opens with the longest, on charity, or Tzedakah--the requirement for which Jewish tradition is most uncompromising.
The glovemaker's wife Rivka prepared for Rosh Hashonah, placing two loaves of round hallah into her oven next to a pot of scraps of meat and some potato--hardly enough to be called stew. But she was grateful, as times were hard and others had even less.
After a knock at the door, she expected a beggar, to whom she was embarrassed to have little to give. Instead, an elegant officer appeared. He asked her to care for his samovar--a family heirloom--during his seven-year posting to a distant land. She unwrapped the samovar to find it black with tarnish and covered in cobwebs, and polished it, with no effect.
Another beggar knocked and she gave him a coin. The samovar brightened. She puzzled and polished it again. A poor old woman, barely able to pay her rent, passed in the street. Rivka ran to give her the larger of her two hallahs.
She returned to find the samovar again strangely brighter still.
Rivka's husband then then rushed in, excited that a nobleman had bought a pair of leather gloves for which a widow had refused to pay. When Haskel asked for five crowns, the nobleman offered 100 and gave the glovemaker 900 crowns more to make nine more pairs.
The couple, confused, turned to their rabbi, who advised them that they had been visited by the Prophet Elijah himself. At the end of seven years, they would have to give the samovar back, and everything would be as it was before. "You have been given seven years of good luck. Use them well."
Rivka rushed back to the market, buiying a fish for the widow, and bread, meat and vegetables for the other poor people. The samovar was now nearly clean. After the holidays, all the money was gone but Haskel sold gloves as fast as he could make them. Of this wealth, they used only what they needed and gave the rest to others. After seven years, the officer returned to find the samovar shining perfectly.
"This samovar is older than the world," he explained, his eyes beaming with kindness and wisdom. "In all the years of its existence, no one has taken better care of it than you. I believe you have earned the right to keep it."
Rivka and Haskel refused, but as they turned to take the samovar down for the officer, he disappeared. They lived for many years, and the samovar remained on their shelf, gleaming brighter than 1,000 suns.
Kimmel's stories of prayer and repentance gleam as well. Alyssa A. Lappen
Book Description
A new edition to Reform Liturgy containing an evening service adapted from ates of Prayer.
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Gates of Prayer: The New Union of Prayer
Paths of Faith: The New Jewish Prayer Book for Synagogue and Home : For Weekdays, Shabbat, Festivals & Other Occasions
Gates of Prayer: The Union Prayer Book
Entering Jewish Prayer: A Guide to Personal Devotion and the Worship Service
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