Ancient Secrets:: Using the Stories of the Bible to Improve Our Everyday Lives [Hardcover]

Levi Meier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1996

Using the Five Books of Moses as his guide, Rabbi Levi Meier shows readers how the Torah's metaphors and parables apply to contemporary existence. Meier employs a straightforward and engaging style to teach readers how to better fulfill their own lives--and those of their families, friends, and colleagues.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Meier is hardly the first author to apply the lessons found in familiar Bible stories to modern situations. What sets this book apart, however, is the author's background: a rabbi, a practicing psychotherapist, and a hospital chaplain, Meier is able to call on all three of these aspects of his professional life as he looks for meaning in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Joseph, and others (the women's stories are strangely absent). Meier's deceptively plain writing style, peppered with anecdotes, makes for easy enough reading, but he also provides plenty of intriguing questions for those who want to stop and think: God commands us to "love the stranger," but Meier asks how many of us love the people we know, much less those we don't know. Acknowledge God within yourself, he counsels, and you will be better able to see God in your fellow human beings. Good advice from a master at finding the echoes of long ago in today's ordinary events. Ilene Cooper

Review

"A beautifully written, spiritual book providing a path toward a more productive-as well as peaceful-life. . .A sheer delight from start to finish. This is a joyous book, a celebration of life for everyone!" -- Faye Kellerman, author of Prayers for the Dead

"Speculative, psychospiritually useful interpretations of key selections from the Torah." -- M. Scott Peck, M.D., author of The Road Less Traveled

"Well written, easy to read, and easy to understand. . . .There is good advice in this book about the realities of life." -- Fred Rosner, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1 edition (September 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679449515
• ISBN-13: 978-0679449515
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,088,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A perfect guide to using the Torah to improve our own lives, March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ancient Secrets:: Using the Stories of the Bible to Improve Our Everyday Lives (Hardcover)

In these days where fundamentalist spiritual leaders demand to accept a simple interpretation of the Bible, Rabbi Meier uses his gifts as a rabbi and a Jungian analyst to open the Bible to all of us, not as a narrow document with one solution for all, but as a series of enduring stories which offer insight into our lives today. It proves that the reason the Torah endures is that it tells stories with universal meanings, that are as fresh today, millenia after the actual events, as they were when they were first told. Rabbi Meier shows how the Bible offers insight on a variety of issues from sexuality to honesty. He explains when the Torah instructs us not to bear false witness (that is, not to lie), it also allows us to lie--so as not to infflict pain. Perhaps, most important for the contemporary reader are the insights the Torah provides us on sexuality. Sex is not merely a means of pleasure, but one of communication and understanding. The Torah tells us that sexual intimacy MUST become a means of learning about our partner, not just for sexual intimacy, but also a means to spiritual intimacy. Rabbi Meier supplements this lesson from the Torah with lessons he has learned from his clients: the main cause of infidelity is a lack of communication between the partners. It is this ability to link the stories from the Torah to the knowledge he has gained in counseling clients (people seeing psychological help and spirtual guidance) that is the real strength of this book and it's why I recommend it highly. The language can be a little too simplistic at times, but at least that makes it easy to read. It's a good book and I dare say that it is one that I will continue to turn to for many years to come.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You don't have to be Jewish to digest this book, October 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Ancient Secrets:: Using the Stories of the Bible to Improve Our Everyday Lives (Hardcover)

There are three R's on the menu of Bible study...Reading, Reciting, and Remembering...but they are a mere apértif in the quenching of an enduring spiritual thirst. In this provocatively titled book, Levi Meier serves up a main course which serious Bible students, both kosher and Christian, can dig into with relish. With scholarly and insightful interpretations from the first five books of the Old Testament, Rabbi Meier sprinkles his book with such observations as, "Spiritual transformations take place more often in the gutter than in a soft bed," and "Joseph's brothers sold him into slaveryŠwe don't do thatŠwe sue." There are other tasty tidbits to savor (did you know that, in Hebrew, an angel is called an ISH?), but he is seriously informative addressing difficult subjects, such as the ambiguities of life, the significance of biblical paradox, and the usefulness of evil in the world. (His comments on page 182 about death are particularly poignant in light of the worldwide reaction to the recent loss of Princess Diana.) Can we expect a 249-page book to deliver more? This one does. In his own review, the author emphasizes his modern-day applications of Bible truths, but for me, his real-life anecdotes as a clinical psychologist and hospital chaplain were icing on the cake, not the meat-and-potatoes of his book. Through the courses of each chapter, Rabbi Meier delivers a nourishing, inspirational meal.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ancient Secrets, May 31, 2002

By 

Deborah (aliso viejo, california United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ancient Secrets:: Using the Stories of the Bible to Improve Our Everyday Lives (Hardcover)

An incredible book, Rabbi Levi Meier captivates me with his words. There is so much "life" wisdom in these pages, it is a book I will keep forever!