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Open Secrets: The Letters of Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael
 
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Open Secrets: The Letters of Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael (Paperback)

by Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

". . . a rare jewel, a powerhouse of spiritual wisdom that you can read and reread."-Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. author of A Woman's Journey to God and Seven Paths to God

"[Open Secrets] invites us into the most intimate of settings, the whispered wisdom passed from an authentic Hasidic master to his student. It radiates warmth, passion for the divine, and earthy confidence in sacredness. A treasure for the spiritual seeker of any tradition." -Judith Simmer-Brown, Naropa University, author of Dakini's Warm Breath

"Open Secrets is my favorite way to introduce readers to the essence and depth of Judaism."-Bo Lozoff, author and founder of the Human Kindness Foundation

"A master teacher."-Thomas Keating

"A prophetic voice for a 21st-century Judaism"-Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

The fictional East European Hasidic Master Reb Yerachmeil writes to his hasid Herschel who has moved to America, in response to his student's perennial questions about God, what it means to be Jewish, whether all religions are true, about death, the soul, good deeds, intermarriage and more. The rebbe writes, "My Judaism seeks only the heart of the teaching and the essence of the practice and leaves the details to others." At the urging of his own rebbe, Shapiro, through these letters, creates a ". . . a Judaism for people who wish to learn from it as they do from Buddhism or Sufism, a Judaism for everyone."

Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro is regarded as one of the most creative voices in contemporary American Judaism. He is an award-winning poet and essayist, and his liturgies are used in prayer services throughout North America. His previous books include Minyan: 10 Principles for Living a Life of Integrity and The Way of Solomon: Finding Joy and Contentment in the Wisdom of Ecclesiastes.



About the Author
Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award winning poet and essayist, whose liturgical writings are used in prayer services throughout North America. He has written over a dozen works of poetry, liturgy, short story and nonfiction. He is a graduate of the Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion and holds a doctoral degree in religious studies from Union Graduate School. A congregational rabbi for 20 years, Rabbi Shapiro currently directs both the Simply Jewish Foundation and the One River Foundation. His most recent books are Minyan, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages, The Wisdom of Solomon, The Way of Solomon, and Hasidic Tales Annotated and Explained.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing (September 1, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0974935921
  • ISBN-13: 978-0974935928
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #296,322 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Open your heart with Rami Shapiro's, Open Secrets., October 6, 2004
Open Secrets is a celebration of the unfolding story in everyone. More important than the wisdom shared in Open Secrets, is the depth of understanding shown in the letters. Even after completing Open Secrets, I find myself regularly rereading different sections. The heartfelt messages in this book continually teach me what I need to know on a daily basis. I would highly recommend this book.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Nondual Judaism, May 18, 2007
By Jerry Katz "Nonduality.com" (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) - See all my reviews
Open Secrets is really a collection of letters by Rami M. Shapiro to his son, Aaron Hershel. However, Shapiro has turned the writings into decades-old hand-written letters from the fictional Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael to Shapiro's fictional great-grandfather, Aaron Hershel. Got that? The twist in time, place, and participants gives the book a timelessness, a sense of striking Judaic modernity, and lots of human interest.

Shapiro talks about Judaism as being characterized by the inseparable qualities of tikkun (right action) and teshuvah (right attention). This is basic and practical nondual Judaism, as the following quotation demonstrates:

"You and I and all living things are the vessels of God, the embodiment of Elohut (Godhead). In this we are one with God, yet we imagine ourselves to be separate from God and this creates in us the idea of brokenness. The brokenness of the world starts as a process in the mind, but it doesn't end there. We go about the world breaking it up into smaller and smaller segments, each often at war with the rest, without ever realizing we are warring with ourselves.

"Tikkun is the process of putting things back together again."

If you want to learn about nonduality itself, or the nondual side of Judaism, read this book, and be entertained while you're at it.

Jerry Katz
One: Essential Writings on Nonduality
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Thou of Reality, April 14, 2006
By Peter M. Schogol (Lexington, KY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This is my second review of OPEN SECRETS. I deleted the first because it struck me as glib, frivolous, and didn't give the prospective reader any idea what to expect.

According to The Alliance for Jewish Renewal (ALEPH) "Jewish renewal seeks to bring creativity, relevance, joy, and an all embracing awareness to spiritual practice, as a path to healing our hearts and finding balance and wholeness--tikkun halev." Rami Shapiro's writings are perhaps unique in the literature of the Renewal in their particular relevance to non- or post-halakhic Jews. Rami emphasizes principle over practice, spirit over letter, and does not make idols of God, Israel, and Torah.

Rami's writings also embody the basic principle of Reconstructionism that Jewish people invent Jewish religion. In Rami's case, he brings his experience of the non-dual Advaita, Zen, and Taoist traditions to his reading of Hasidism, the Prophets, and the Wisdom literature. For those of us who meditated or chanted our way through the late 60s and 70s, Rami's approach will feel familiar and his Judaism both natural and compelling.

OPEN SECRETS is a series of letters written by a fictitious Old World rabbi of the late 1800s or early 1900s to a student who has emigrated to America. The letters from "Reb Yerachmiel ben Israel" cover such matters as God, creation, human nature, evil, Torah, mitzvah, prayer, death, other religions, even Jesus! They are short letters, at most a few pages, and they are written in a homey style by a rabbi who who likely would have been impossible in his time and place but one we would all have loved to know and learn from.

Reb Yerachmiel is the rabbi Rami Shapiro says he would like to be, and therefore to whatever extent already is. All of Rami's books are worth reading, but OPEN SECRETS is one you will want to read and read again as its soul speaks to yours.

I can't recommend this book highly enough for Liberal Jews who perceive and relate to God as the Thou of Reality and who wish to repair the brokenness in themselves and in the world in a spirit of peace and joy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the GREAT spiritual books
Everything about this book is perfect. His life affirming point of view, the format of "letters", the richness of spirit and the liberating approach to the religious aspects of... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Doug Pell

3.0 out of 5 stars Give Me That Old Time Religion...
I came to this book in a very circuitous way. In searching for sources describing authentic Jewish meditation practices, an Amazon search came up with a quote from one Reb... Read more
Published on May 30, 2007 by Leonard Moskowitz

5.0 out of 5 stars Open Secrets
It's an amazingly beautiful book, that will touch your heart and your soul.
Published on July 20, 2005 by V. Furth

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