Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment [Hardcover]

Marc Gafni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2001

A brilliant, charismatic American philosopher currently living in Jerusalem, Marc Gafni has become an important new voice on religion and spirituality. His weekly television program, which speaks powerfully to people from every background and walk of life, has become enormously popular in Israel. Offering creative and passionate insights into timeless Biblical and other wisdom traditions, spiritual teacher Gafni has become an inspirational force for unity and personal growth abroad; now, his universal message comes to America, fully realized, in his first book.

Marc Gafni follows in the tradition of M. Scott Peck and Ram Dass, bringing compassion and wisdom to everyday experience. Addressing our age-old desire to feel connected, he uses spiritual stories to teach us how to live fuller, happier lives. The secret is to "live your story," and we do this by identifying our true, unique selves -- what he calls our "soul prints." Only then can we connect on a far deeper level with the world and with those sharing it alongside us.

While based in the realm of spirituality and philosophy, "Soul Prints" speaks to all readers, regardless of religious beliefs or practices -- or lack thereof. Using the power of myth -- Biblical and folk -- and drawing on his own personal highs and lows, Gafni offers advice on how to form bonds based in truth and love, along with penetrating analyses of our obstacles. In an increasingly disconnected world, it is still possible to make the connections that matter most: those that will banish loneliness; those that bring us satisfaction, passion, and joy; those that begin with our true selves.

Live your story. Here, a dynamic new voice shows the way.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Rabbi Marc Gafni is a Kabbalist, someone who studies the mystical interpretations of biblical books, handed down over many generations. Through his studies Gafni became fascinated with the power of biblical myths to awaken the soul while also helping us understand our earthly purpose. The more he delved into the Kabbalah, the more he became interested in the individual blueprint of the soul--how each person seemed born to a different soul-driven destiny.

"Your soul print is your personal signature," explains Gafni. "It is the contour and content of your soul--it's character.... It is even more singular to you than your genes and chromosomes."

In blending his two passions, "soul prints" and myths, Rabbi Gafni created an ambitious spiritual self-help book filled with sage advice on living in connection with the soul. Don't be squeamish about the self-help mission. Gafni's narrative reads more like a personal counseling session in a rabbi's private office--intelligent, warm (expect lots of chuckles), occasionally tangential, but mostly filled with practical guidance. He also inserts numerous sidebars that offer "Soul Print Practices," such as "Make a list of the seven wonders of your world" or "Take sensual risks. Be creative with your senses in how or what you eat, or make love." --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

Just as fingerprints are unique, so, too, says Rabbi Gafni, are soul prints: each human soul has an individual mark that it leaves behind on everyone it touches. Gafni, dean of the Merlitz Public Culture Center in Israel, weaves together autobiographical reflections with tips and exercises designed to help readers discover their soul prints and find fulfillment. Gafni begins with the premise that everyone is lonely and many people look for cures in places where they will never find them, such as sexual encounters. Many of the exercises in this splendid book are designed to help readers confront, and then cure, that loneliness. Gafni suggests that readers share what they learn while reading this book with a lonely person they know. Readers are then asked to make a "Soul Print box" that contains the things that are most important to them, and then to show the contents of that box to one other person. Gafni advocates the practice of random acts of kindness: "Bring happiness to one person each week, for no apparent reason." His tremendous breadth distinguishes this volume from so many spiritualized self-help tomes. He draws on the fantasy novella Flatlands and the teachings of Talmudic rabbis, on psychologists and prophets. He tells his own stories and biblical stories. Though steeped in Jewish wisdom, this book will be accessible and helpful to readers of many faiths. Gafni occasionally states the obvious (as when he notes that if "after a long day of living your life, you feel as if you are on the verge of tears," something might be amiss). But those few banalities can't ruin this insightful book. (Mar.)Forecast: This book is being published in conjunction with a major PBS special by the same title, scheduled to air in early March; this should have a significant impact on book sales. Gafni will be doing a 10-city author tour later that month.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Atria; First Edition edition (February 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743416996
• ISBN-13: 978-0743416993
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,307,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars soul prints - an invitation into yourself !, May 3, 2001

By 

alfalfa (planet Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment (Hardcover)

Marc gafni is a rabbi, a kabbalists, and a wise teacher of the spiritual tradition- But must importantly before all of this things he is a warm, joyful, hopeful, brilliant, passionate and striving human being.

"Soul prints" is not a book. It is a journey. A journey to the most exciting, beautiful, funny, some times sad and lonely, wondrous, deep place- Our soul.!!! Here gafni is sharing with the world the truth about human specialness. The uniqueness of each and every one of us- our soul prints.

"Just as in the physical world you have a fingerprint that is unique to you, so in the realm of the spirit You have soul print that belongs to you alone. That print, like the print of your finger, is an identification marker of the deepest kind, with curves and swirls of its own - all your own."

In this journey you are not alone. Marc is there sharing intimately with you your story as well as his own story - his soul print. He shares with you the little moments in life, the big ones, the sad and happy. The most beautiful thing about it is that in every word you somehow find yourself there- you'll discover a beautiful and unique story, your own story.

Gafni is inviting you into yourself- hold on tied because this journey will change your life!!!!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Treasure Chest, March 26, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment (Hardcover)

This book's a Gold Rush - Rush out to Read it! Soul Prints - What a treasure chest of stories and teaching and guidance! My husband and I are both voraciously reading it - fighting over who gets to read it when! Gafni is one of those alchemist authors who knows how to turn the written word into gold. Every page sparkles-whether it be through spell binding stories, transformative "soul print practices", or deep mystical insights. Gafni draws from what seems to be a fathomless reservoir of wisdom, and knowledge of the mystical mechanics of the world. And yet, he expresses these depths and mysteries in the most accessible of ways. Making the complex, quite simple. Likewise he can take the most common of ideas and cast it in a new light. Making the seemingly simple, quite complex. For instance, he returns us to the beauty of the most basic of Biblical texts, taking Biblical stories we have heard a dozen times and revealing in them insights we never would have imagined-insights that can revolutionize the way that we live in the world. This book is the perfect read for the mystical initiate, or for the business man, for a person searching, or for a person who has found, yet wants deepening. This alchemist author helps us bcome alchemist readers - able to turn our most common characteristics into Soul Prints of gold. Eureka!!!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To read again and again, December 27, 2001

By 

Patricia Niehoff (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment (Hardcover)

Soul Prints is a wonderful book. I've read it twice already, and every time, I find something new in it. Each story or bit of advice leads you step by step towards a clearer view of your own soul print -- the real self that unfortunately so often gets hidden by daily life.

The stories and bits of philosophy are told in exactly the right tone: neither the over-simplistic and gratingly cheerful attitude of pop psychology, nor the rather elitist, obscuring sort of Kabbalistic references that you have to be a Kabbalistic scholar already to have any hope of understanding.

I first read this book over half a year ago, and I can myself say that it has changed me -- sent me down different, better paths. Definitely, read it!