Customer Reviews

An Open Heart: The Mystic Path of Loving People (The Jewish Spirit Booklet Series, 2)

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A pomegranate of a book where each seed of truth plants itself within your heart as living awareness: person to person, moment to moment. Again and again I have read, reread, absorbed, mulled, contemplated and meditated upon the fruits contained within the covers of this book. Buxbaum reveals and explains insights "found at the beginning of the Torah and at its very heart." An Open Heart: The Mystic Path of Loving People holds significant teachings for every human being. This is a very important book to have and to share with others.

I have never found such a rich synthesis of loving God and loving one's fellow, and the teachings this little book brings together - so much, taught so clearly and concisely - will, I am sure, continue to nourish me; a book to go back to.

In many ways, this is Yitzhak Buxbaum's finest book -- the purest, the holiest. He's done scholarly work before this, deep research -- his Jewish Spiritual Practices is monumental, the Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov and The Life and Times of Hillel gave us a trove of information that was simply unavailable -- but really, if someone wants to know, "What was Buxbaum's torah? -- what was his deepest truth?" An Open Heart is the book I'd send them to.

All through my second (or third) reading of this book, I kept thinking how valuable it would be to keep returning to it, slowly absorbing everything it has to offer. In a short and very accessible and inspiring style, Buxbaum helps the reader who wants to establish a regular practice of seeing the Divine moment to moment in one's life, through relationship with others as well as with oneself. This is a wonderful contribution to the literature of modern mysticism and modern Judaism.