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This Is Real and You Are Completely Umprepared | This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation | Alan Lew

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	• This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation Alan Lew Little, Brown and Company, 2003 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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An invaluable book for preparation for the High Holidays, or anytime.

This is an invaluable book for preparation for the High Holidays; I think non-Jews would also benefit from Rabbi Lew's ideas. We go through life trying to shield ourselves from the inevitabilities of disappointment, death, and decay, at the same time insulating ourselves from joy and from the needs of others. Rabbi Lew focuses on the time from Tisha B'Av, the fast day commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple and other tragedies, to Sukkot, the harvest holiday where we acknowledge our vulnerabilities and celebrate joyfully in roofless shacks, having examined our lives, admitted our brokenness, forgiven slights against us and also forgiving ourselves. With additional Buddhist perspective that never falls into Buddhism Lite, this is a profound book that should be read over and over again.

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Someone with a passing interest in spiritual development

This is a powerful book about opening your heart. Rabbi Lew combines Eastern philosophy with Jewish wisdom so that the reader enjoys the best of both worlds. The basic approach is that the Jewish High Holy Days provide us with an annual opportunity to acknowledge the dark shadows in our soul, accept our inevitable flaws, failings and transgressions, and emerge from the process fresh, whole and reinvigorated. Rabbi Lew writes beautifully and the message hits home. Highly recommended.

This Is Real and You Are Completely Umprepared

Thoroughly worthwhile read before and during the High Holidays and after. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a fuller understanding of what's possible for the mind and heart at this time.

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There are moments in life when one is caught utterly unprepared: a death in the family, the end of a relationship, a health crisis. These are times when the solid ground we thought we stood on disappears beneath our feet, and we turn to faith to help us find our way back. The Days of Awe encompass the weeks just preceding Rosh Hashanah up to Yom Kippur, a period in which Jews take part in a series of rituals and prayers that reenact the journey of the soul through the world from birth to death. Like the days of Lent or Ramadan, the purpose of these rituals is to experience this brokenheartedness and open one's heart to God. The acclaimed Rabbi Lew has taken the beauty and power of these rituals and made of them a journey of seven distinct stages that will touch the spirit of all readers in search of inner transformation. Rabbi Lew weaves together Torah readings, Buddhist parables, and Jewish fables and stories from his own life, to lay bare the meanings of this ancient Jewish passage. Drawing on both his rabbinical training and his scholarship in Buddhism, Lew leads readers on a journey from confusion to clarity, from doubt to belief, as he opens a path to self-discovery that is accessible to readers of all faiths.THIS IS REAL AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED unveils the deeper meanings of the High Holidays, enabling Jews and believers of all kinds to reconnect to their faith with a vibrancy and intimacy that will resonate throughout the year.

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