Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) To Jewish Spirituality & Mysticism

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This book is both the oddest and possibly best of the "Complete Idiot's Guide" series. It takes the most complex Jewish mystical ideas and practices, many of which are hundreds if not thousands of years old, and explain's them in laymen's English(and Hebrew) in a way that makes Jewish spirituality accessible to the layperson. Levin quite thoroughly covers the Biblical basis of Jewish Mysticism, also known as Kabbalah(Received Tradition), then proceeds with a brief history of the rest of it's development and those Rabbis and Saints who make up it's principal guides over the past millenium.

He also discusses all the principal Jewish spiritual practices, such as Daily prayer, meditation, Torah study, and study of such mystical works as the Zohar. Lastly, he provides a mystical guidebook for those traveling to Israeli Holy sites in the context of the present violence, and the principal issues Jewish mysticism deals with currently, such as the coming of the Messiah, the nature of suffering, holidays, and more. In short, the author seems to have accomplished the impossible: a User Friendly Guide to Jewish Mysticism.

However, by it's nature, such a book covers it's subject "once over lightly" and does not deal with some of the concerns that have bedeviled deep Jewish thinkers and mystics since ancient times. These are the nature of Divine Providence, or why history, whether personal or collective, transpires the way it does; whether Jewish prayer and mitzvah have efficacy or actual effects in the "real world" or not, and the effect on Jewish practice and faith of the Holocaust.

While the author might say that his book is no place for these subjects, he mentions them very briefly and superficially, when it is good answers to these questions that motivate people to take up the Jewish spiritual practice he advocates. For solid well grounded answers to these issues within the context of Jewish tradition, the reader will have to look to works that especially deal with them. A strongly written treatment of these subjects by this writer, "Jewish History and Divine Providence: Theodicy and the Oddyssey" is available for review and purchase on this site.

This is the first of the "Idiot's Guide" genre that I have read where the author really did assume the readers would be idiots. Spirituality was treated at the depth one uses when teaching Sunday School. The greatest detail was saved for "loshan hora" or politically correct speech.

The most annoying portion of the book was his treatment of Kabbalah. In essence, the author said "Kabbalah is very difficult to learn and you wouldn't understand it anyway." Then I bought "Practical Kabbalah" by Rabbi Laibl Wolf and received a very good introduction to the subject. I HIGHLY recommend Rabbi Laibl's book.

My question is "why did the author include the words 'and mysticism' in the title if he had no intention to cover it?" My guess is that the editor thought the inclusion of those two words would greatly increase sales. I hope reviews like mine have thew opposite effect.

This book, "Jewish Spirituality and Mysticism" manages to take a very complex topic and simplify it -- without "dumbing it down" -- so that the layman can understand it.

While the areas it covers are brief, this book explains them very well. This book is best angled towards people with no background on the subject, or with a little background who are looking for a basic reference or memory refresher.

Worth buying. :)

The book touches on all the major spiritual aspects of Judaism, within the confines of a one volume book that is intended as an introduction to the general public.

It is not a 'New Age' book or a 'Let's Do Kabbalah and Feel Good' book. The book is based on the traditional spiritual beliefs of Judaism as they are reflected in the written law, the Torah and the oral law, the Talmud. I found the book very refreshing when compared to the many books written by anyone and everyone about Kabbalah and Zohar. Kabbalah was never taught or written about in the past for financial gain, it was taught to the most worthy of students who had a strong background in Torah and Talmud - and without that - real Kabbalah is impenetrable. Judaism has a very strong emphasis on ethical issues and a student of Kabbalah had to be someone worthy, someone honest and upstanding - a very religious Jew and someone of great integrity. Sure we can all buy a book on Kabbalah, but I'd make sure the author is a religious Jew, a real Rabbi and he is not making a business out of it - and no offence, but not a Christian or New Ager unless you want New Age or Christian Kabbalah which is an oxymoron..

There are five main parts to the book:

1. Out of The Bible - the bible as a spiritual workbook.

2. From Isaac to Sinai - from the binding of Isaac to the Exodus and giving of Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

3. Between God and People - examines the spiritual ways that Jews and God contact one another.

4. Revelations - exploration of Kabbalah and Zohar as well as Jewish concepts of afterlife, 'The World to Come' and the Messiah according to Jewish belief and also explanation of 'Shechinah' God's presence in the world.

5. Spiritual Sidenotes - Some very interesting topics including Gematria - which is the study of the numerical values of each Hebrew letter and their application in Jewish mysticism as well as exploring the role of angels in Biblical times and ours.

All in all, a very enlightening, informative, enjoyable and easy read. Not a dummies book but also not an academic book - but it does not claim to be that.

Salutations to Michael Levin for all his hard work - thank you for a very good book.

I wanted to love this book. I would have been happy to like it. Unfortunately, I can say neither.

Yes, it is an easy read, and cute. But I know too much, and there are just too many blatant errors of fact in this book, to make it worthy of reading.

Usually, if I get a book that doesn't do anything for me, I donate it to the local library. Not this time. This time, I am putting it into the recycling bin...a painful decision, indeed. But I cannot be a part of continuing to disseminate what is written here.

Please note, it isn't that I just "disagree" with what is written. It is that there are simply too many errors of fact. Meanwhile, I tried to avoid dumping this book, or writing this review for a year or more. I'd open the book, and read some more, hoping to not read more errors of fact, and yet, the more I read, the more errors I found.

I cannot recommend this book for anybody, for any reason.