Customer Reviews

Finding God in the Garden: Backyard Reflections on Life, Love, and Compost

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This book was an unexpected pleasure to read. When I first saw it, there was some hesitancy on my part to read it. I thought it would be filled with cliche metaphors, but in reality, there was a deep spiritual wisdom that blossomed with the unfolding of each page. Rabbi Brickner makes beautiful comparisions betweeen that which we have in our guardians, on the one hand, and that which we have in our hearts and spirits as Jews on the other. I became enlightened on both matters of botany and the Bible. This book was a true joy and will be satisfying to anyone who reads it.

Highly recommended ...

FINDING GOD IN THE GARDEN is for everyone who digs in this earth of Eden, who has ever wondered what that First Garden & its First Gardeners might have been like.

A man in the autumn of his life, speaks about his decades as a spiritual coach, as an interpreter of things Biblical & religious & as a newcomer to gardening both in the micro- & macrocosmic sense.

From how sex became sinful & how it never was meant to be; of how weeds are the manifestations unwanted evils & how we humans do differ from our animal cousins. Of how to think about God within the context of our lives as well as how to think of the land as a primal learning place.

Woven between Rabbi Brickner's memories of gardens he has tended, are his musings of philosophies both Judaic & Christian as he playfully & seriously explores the meaning of soul & prayer, of compost & death, free will & miracles, fertilizers & sacred human activities, of sitting & thinking, healing.

Easily accessible, charmingly written, Rabbi Brickner has poured into this gentle & fascinating book, a host of kind wisdom & offers us bouquet after bouquet of joyous soulful & healing thoughts.

Very well done, one of those books you will keep for each season of your garden & your life.

This is an incredible book that speaks to many issues we confront today -- from the meaning of life and death to sex and love -- to social activisim -- with a little gardening as well!

Offering humor and wisdom Brickner welcomes us into his world - and shows us how to better manage and live our own lives with more meaning and purpose.

I purchased this book based on the Amazon reader reviews and although in some ways the book didn't live up to some of the accolades, in other ways, it did provide some interesting food for thought. The author is a Rabbi; I am a Christian who was brought up in a traditional middle of the road denomination. Going into the book, I knew there would be differences of opinion, yet I'm always interested in another's perspective, and this book does provide that in an very readable, charming, and insightful way.

I'm also not a gardener, but that didn't prevent me from seeing the connection between what grows and dies in the garden and our everyday lives. Most times, I felt the author did an excellent job of comparison (although there were a few places that it seemed as if the "garden comparions" were just added at the end of a straightforward theological essay).

Although this book may be directed to those of the Jewish faith, I would recommend it to anyone looking for some spiritual food for thought. Rabbi Brickner has real respect for a wide spectrum of other spiritual leaders and writers. In short, this isn't something that changed my life, but it is a book that I would go back and reread certain chapters when I was in the mood for "something short and interesting."