The Bible is the most sacred book of the Jewish and Christian religions. The Bible is the most widely read book in history. More copies have been distributed of The Bible than of any other work. It has been translated more times into more languages than any other book. Countless people have turned to the Bible for comfort, hope and guidance during times of trouble and uncertainty.

Unfortunately, few are actually familiar with its contents. In this phenomenal work, Philip Birnbaum creates an easy to read, translation of the Hebrew Bible-the Tanach , from a Jewish perspective, editing out repetitions in the translations and doing away with the obscurity and confusions created by 'Bible English'.

It is an invaluable account for anyone, Jew or Gentile, who wants the Hebrew Bible at their fingertips, and it is astonishing to see the remarkable relevance of this work to the world of today , where the same battles are being repeated.

Ha-Siddur ha-Shalem is a very good basic siddur. It has some good and not so good features I would like to share with others who are considering this siddur.

I like the completeness of this siddur. It takes me through the prayers of the day, week, month, and season with relative ease. Intertwined with the basic structure are the wonderful pieces of timeless teachings by the Sages and Rabbis, songs, and other writings that have helped steer the Jewish community over centuries. It has the following basic structure: Morning, afternoon and evening services; Welcoming of Sabbath; Evening, morning and afternoon services for Sabbaths; Ethics of the Fathers; Conclusion of Sabbath; Monthly rites; Yearly festival and memorial rites; Lifetime rites (death, birth, marriage); Blessings; Night Prayer.

I do not like the typesetting in this suddur. The Hebrew and Aramaic are of the classic Squares which are very hard on the eyes. No prayer stands out from any other prayer since the type used are all the same size with no shading of any text. Though this makes all prayers in this siddur stand in equal value of importance, the loss of distinction of the weekly, monthly, and seasonal prayer additions from the basic daily prayer can happen rather easily. However, the siddur has footnotes that give insight on how the prayers were constructed. I have found them to be very helpful and insightful. It is very refreshing to have an Orthodox siddur that is not polarised to extremists' opinions.

As usual, Rav Birnbaum renders a beautiful and accessible siddur for English and Hebrew readers alike. A master Hebraist!

I first discovered this book sitting in a dusty corner of my parents book shelf and fell in love immediately. the way this siddur is worded reaches the spirit and draws the mental out of evey day affairs. It does not distinguish prayers in bold or italics because "no one prayer is any more important than the next prayer. An most wonderful, fulfilling siddur I've seen.

First, I must state that I am a huge fan of Murakami and consider some of his novels to be among the greatest literature of the twentieth century. "Underground" is a departure from his unique brand of fiction and is a unique brand of non-fiction. It recalls the Tokyo subway attacks of 1995 and the cult behind the attack, all from the point of view of victims and cult members.

My problem with the book is that I read it without enough knowlege of the attacks and the cult, Aum Shinrikyo. Victim's accounts mention names and events that meant nothing to me. A preface would have been helpful; perhaps to preserve the tone of the book, it could have been culled from different press accounts or trial testimonies.

What is excellent about this book is that Murakami's interviewing style is not like a reporter--he allowed all interviewees to review and edit their testimonies and if in the end any decided they didn't want their piece printed, he honored their wishes. What results is not lacking in impact.

The victim stories, particularly the woman who is partially paralyzed and brain-damaged, are moving.

The accounts of Aum members, on the other hand, are chilling. Even after all that happened (and the sarin attacks were only one of many of Aum's crimes), many of them still belong. Most of them just don't get that they were/are part of a destructive cult that used them as worker ants after robbing them of all their money.

The book also gives insight into the Japanese mindset. As an American with no close Japanese friends, I was a little taken aback at some of the common reactions and beliefs stated in the book, such as people who have breathed sarin and can barely see or walk, and yet their only thoughts are "I have to get to work."

A very good book, moving and informative. Two stars demerit because there is way too much that the author assumes the reader already knows. My guess is that the book was written for Japanese readers.

Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, profoundly disturbed by the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by religious cult Aum Shinrikyu, set out to discover not only why it happened, but what elements of the Japanese psyche "allowed" it to happen.

Murakami readily admits not being a social scientist, and the brief analytical sections make that abundantly clear. Not that he does a bad job in summation of the interviews, it is just that the interviews largely speak for themselves.

In addition to roughly 60 interviews with survivors of the gas attack, there are a dozen or so interviews with former or current members of Aum Shinrikyu. The combination of testimonies by these two groups of people (victims and cult members) makes for incredibly compelling reading.

Murakami's esteem as a writer is surely what even allowed this project to get off the ground. Most people would've probably ignored an average journalist or more likely, the average journalist wouldn't have been able to spend the time and financial resources necessary for a project of this magnitude.

These fascinating accounts should interest any student of religion, history, psychology or Japan.

I'm a fan of Murakami's fiction so I decided to try out Underground for something different. I came away rather shaken and convinced that the man is a definite genius.

The book centres around the Tokyo subway gas attack that was perpetrated by members of the AUM "cult". They created a special "Science" division with some rather prominent people that, under the cult leader's directions, produced Sarin for the attack. Sarin, originally used by the Germans in WWII, was placed into plastic sacks that were then wrapped in paper. AUM specialists were trained to puncture these packages with specially-sharpened umbrellas on the subway line during morning rush hour. They then escaped at predetermined locations leaving the sacks (rapidly leaking their contents across subway car floors) in the subway.

A scary amount of effort by some rather intelligent people; a very interesting commentary on the complex interweaving of a moral-less science with a horribly-twisted psyche. The death toll was a lot less than it could have been considering the circumstances...

Murakami's genius lies in the fact that the reader is presented with the rather "simple" stories taken from interviews. Only a few interviews does Murakami actually intervene; everywhere else you have only the first person.

The emptiness of modern Japanese life that Murakami potrays so brilliantly in his other books hits home with disturbing force in these oral histories. People walk, much like robots, passed dying people in order to make it to work on time. People who are obviously suffering from the gas (partial blindness, breathing difficulties, etc.) "must get to work" and carry on as if the day was like any other. Scary. I'm not sure who I would pity or who I would feel angry at based on this book since the ordinary citizens seem to be at least as warped as the AUM cultists.

An excellent book that fully exposes the rotten core of modern society. Read it and pass it around...