I have owned this book for several years and it has become the most used book in my Judaica collection. It's excellent organization, conise format, and helpful drawings make it easy to use.

The How To Handbook For Jewish Living is as easy to use and straight-forward as the title would suggest. I am in the process of becoming Jewish and this is by far the easiest book I've found to get what I want. How To is to the point, you can locate prayers, rituals, dances and many other broad topics easily without sifting through voluminous chapters of prose. On each topic there are also handy lists of sources, keywords and suggestions for further reading. I only recently purchased How To but I can tell that it will be a useful source for years to come.

This book answers all the questions. The Sabbath, all Holidays, and many details are explained in easy to follow form. It takes all the "fear" out of the unknown for the "Jew by choice." I am able to teach our son and my Jewish husband with confidence. I have recommended this book to the local synagogue, Jewish federation and Temple, as a hand-out to families. I wish I would have found it 18 years ago.

I bought this book accidently picking it up at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage where there was a "Jews of the Wild West" exhibition. I am so glad that I found this book, after a hard days work, I look forward to read short essays and stories which help relax the soul, find meaning and introspection of everyday occurances. This book is a treasure, easy to read and therapeutic.

I purchased this book about 6 months ago and I've rarely enjoyed an anthology more. There is a short (5-10 paragraph) discussion on some aspect of religion and spirituality for each day of the year.

Although the book specifically discusses these topics from a Jewish perspective, the focus really isn't that narrow. I gave a copy to a Christian friend who loved it too.

Each reflection is a perfect way to wind down from a busy day and change your focus from an outward, task-oriented mindset to more of a relaxed, reflective mood.

A lot of people read inspirational books to start the day. I've found that I like to read Sacred Intentions at the end of the day, especially those days where I feel like the whole world is against me and nothing has gone right. The authors have done a masterful job of putting together something that is truly inspirational, not sappy and sentimental, that helps you to remind you of what is really important.

A wonderful calming and thoughtful book that will serve to inspire your quest for knowledge and harmony throughout the day and the year.

A perfect gift for anyone who is at a juncture in her life and looking for reflection, harmony, comfort and support.

Read it! You won't be sorry.

As the author, I found it to be a blessing not only to write this book but also to share it with others. And I continue to read it, as if it were written by another since the Jewish wisdom that it contains continues to inspire me.

I am so thankful that I came across this book soon after my mother died. The book presents a daily reading for the one-year mourning period, with an insightful reading for the week. It also has space on each page to record personal thoughts. I followed the divisions in the book, reading a selection each day. The readings truly helped me deal with, and work through, my grief. And I occasionally recorded my thoughts when the readings really struck a chord in my heart. I don't know if I could have dealt with my mother's death without having had this "Mourner's Kaddish Companion" to gently guide me.

As a reader with no biblical training apart from being brought up in a Judeo-Christian culture, I found this book accessible and relevant. It helps make the bible seem more like metaphors for modern life than I would have expected. This book could even be viewed as a self-help book with a "god" spin on it. There is thoroughness and simplicity in the presentation, with digestible sections addressing different aspects of the topic.

I prepared this volume because I wanted to provide those who look to the Torah for inspiration and guidance with a daily study companion that makes study sacred and raises the soul heavenward.

This book is designed for all those who want help from Jewish tradition in their struggle in recovery from alcohol and other addictions. It provides a Jewish context for Jews in recovery and reminds others of their Jewish roots. It dares to take people where they have never gone before!

"Pirke Avot" (the "Chapter of the Fathers") is a tractate of the Mishnah that collects not laws but sayings of the tannaitic Rabbis, mostly concerning the virtues of Torah study and the proper conduct of scholars. It is one of the classics of rabbinic literature, included (in whole or in part) in most prayer books, and the source of many familiar sayings. The picture it presents of Torah study as a democratic ideal, available to all and instilling a generous humility and respect for others, is a goal we can still admire and aspire to.

The translation and commentary presented here is helpful but leaves something to be desired. Each passage of Avot is followed by a brief commentary, generally identifying the rabbis quoted, providing some quasi-historical background on them and their relationship to other quoted rabbis, clarifying obscure phrases and summarizing the thoughts of Rashi, Maimonides and Bartinoro on many of the passages. (The introduction might lead one to think that the commentary also summarizes "Avot de Rabbi Natan" and Yom Tov Lippman Heller's commentary, but I found only a few references to either of these works.) This commentary is very helpful for understanding the plain meaning of the text, but seldom goes beyond the plain meaning to explore the theological or ethical significance of the passage. (A few passages that make the Reform editors uncomfortable are noteable exceptions -- here the commentary notes that "we modern Jews" look at things differently. While I agree with the modern conclusions, I found this condescending attitude annoying and unnecessary.)

Each chapter of Pirke Avot is followed by a section of brief essays (usually two or three paragraphs) by the editors on "salient themes." These often seemed more tangential than salient to me (a brief statement in Avot 3:1 that we return to dust leads to an essay on Jewish views on cremation), but they were interesting and provided further background on various aspects of traditional Jewish history, practice and thought. The brief essays are followed by section of somewhat longer "gleanings" from the works of various Reform or liberal Jewish thinkers. These tend to be quite tangential and are plainly intended to provide food for thought and discussion, not to answer questions. A few of them seemed more than a little out-dated, but in general the selection was interesting, if obviously slanted toward a Reform view of the world.

A final note on the translation, which is colloquial and inclusive. The former (particularly the use of contractions, which to my ear made too many passages sound like "don't be a don't bee") was irritating to me, but that's a matter of taste. The attempt to be inclusive (i.e., to use gender-neutral language), however, led on more than one occasion to translations that were so awkward they were a distraction ("everyone has one's moment"), which I find more difficult to forgive.

I have many different editions of Pirke Avot. I am, at this time, using this in a class I'm taking at our shul with the rabbi. The Kravitz/Orlitzky are very good.

If any book better documents the increasingly halachic turn of the liberal Jewish movements in Norht America, I would be hard pressed to find one. The editors, who also have written articles in the text, do an excellant job of providing, perhaps for the first time in a few decades, a guide to daily Jewish religious practice from a liberal, or more accurately, Reconstructionist, point of view. They include solid use of classical Jewish sources and a good basic bibliography with each section.

They discuss all the most important basic subjects, such as daily prayer, the rituals of laying on tallis, kippah and tefillin, daily Torah study, the Jewish dietary laws, use of the Ritual bath and the celebration of Shabbat. Equally critically, they talk about the psychology involved in these ritual observances, and their benefits from a spiritual point of view.
For anyone new to Jewish religious practice, this book is the place to start.

However, as with many books of this type, there is no effort made to show how the various practices so effectively described, fit into a more complete whole. While the authors and editors make repeated references to Jewish mysticism here and there, there is no even brief description of what it is, or how Jewish ritual serves as the foundation for Jewish mysticism. In addition, the authors stress psycological/spiritual benefits to Jewish practice, when there are those among us who have experienced many practical gains as well.

In order to find the connection between these practices and Judaism and its mysticism as a totality, the reader should combine reading the above work, with this writer's own critical description of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, entitled "Jewish History and Divine Providence: Theodicy and the Oddyssey," available for purchase here on Amazon. This work, the only progressive, critical discussion of Jewish mysticism in English, unifies "The Rituals and Practices of a Jewish Life" with their most potent rationale, and in history as well.

Collaboratively compiled and edited by Rabbis Kerry Olitzky and Daniel Judson, The Rituals & Practices Of Jewish Life: A Handbook For Personal Spiritual Renewal is a straightforward and practical instructional guide to the origin, manner, and modern-day practice of ten areas of Jewish ritual: Upon Rising and Going to Bed; Covering the Head; Blessings throughout the Day; Daily Prayer; Tefillin; Tallit and Tallit Katan; Talmud Torah; The Continuum of Kashrut; Mikvah; and Entering Shabbot. Enhanced with an informative foreword by Vanessa L. Ochs, and illustrations by Joel Moskowitz, The Rituals & Practices Of Jewish Life is a useful and "user friendly", easy-to-follow, step-by-step, guidebook which is most especially recommended for readers who may have little to no understanding of the proper ritual performance and what it means, yet who want to incorporate more of the Jewish traditions into their daily lives.