Rabbi Chaim Vital was the closest disciple of the great 16th-century kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria, also known as the "Holy Ari (lion) of Safed" or simply as "The Arizal." The Arizal's teachings were all given orally, and he himself wrote very little in print. His faithful disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital, recorded his master's teachings in several books which have come down to us. One of these is "Sha'ar Gilgulim" (The Gate of Reincarnations,") which forms the basis of the book I am now reviewing. Although "The Gate of Reincarnations" is a fundamental source text for Jewish mystics and scholars, until now, it was only available in Hebrew.

Rabbi Wexelman's book is the first I known of to present substantial amounts of material from "The Gate of Reincarnations" in English. He has also included a second section, "The Kabbalistic Concept of Creation," which is based on two other works by Chaim Vital, the "Sha'ar ha-Hakdamot" and the "Otsrot Hayim." Together, they give a fine presentation of the Arizal's teachings on the spiritual journey of the human soul.

But, as the subtitle says, this book is "based on" the writings of Chaim Vital. As such, it is not a complete word-for-word translation. As Rabbi Wexelman himself states in his introduction, he has "omitted sections that would cause confusion due to problems of translating difficult concepts suitable only for more advanced learners." At the same time, he has also "tried not to distort the meaning and ideas or to add [his] own thoughts on these topics." The result is a redaction that presents the basics of Vital's work in a form that is accessible to the educated English-speaking student of Jewish mysticism. (However, I myself would have prefered a complete translation.)

The book explains the five levels of the human soul, how souls come to be reincarnated, how the 613 mitzvot relate to the 613 parts of the spiritual body, the phenomenon of "ibbur" (temporary benign possession), soulmates, etc. Especially interesting are the sections on "who was who," which trace the various incarnations of biblical and Talmudic personalities, according to the insights of Vital's master, the Arizal. (In addition to being a great kabbalist, the Arizal was also a type of "past-life reader" who could see all the previous incarnations of a person and prescribe the proper "tikkun" or soul correction for each person.)

Make no mistake, however: this is not an intro how-to book on reincarnation. The original text was intended for advanced rabbinic scholars who were already steeped in Jewish law, kabbalah, and Orthodox Jewish practices for many years, and it assumes you have that background. It also assumes a working knowledge of specialized kabbalistic terms in Hebrew, such as the Four Worlds, the Sefirot and their different combinations, levels of the soul, etc. One glaring weakness of the book is that it has no glossary. Nor does it have any biographical materials on the various rabbis who's incarnations are recorded. If you don't already know Jewish history, they are only so many names.

So, I give this book five stars for what it is: a good redaction of an advanced kabbalistic source text in English. As such, it will be very useful to the advanced student. However, for the general reader who doesn't want to plow through so many technical terms, I would recommend Rabbi DovBer Pinson's book, "Reincarnation in Judaism: the Journey of the Soul," instead. Rabbi Pinson's book presents the same ideas, based on the same authentic sources, but in much more accessible language.

I would be thrilled with any book that so clearly outlines techniques for helping people with such a wide variety of ailments, aches and pains, but ENERGY MEDICINE goes several steps further. Eden describes the body's energy meridians, chakra balancing, and how to do the "celtic weave". As Eden explains, "The Celtic weave, as an energy system, laces through all your other energy systems and creates a resonance among them. It is the weaver of your force fields. It holds your entire energetic structure together. As an exercise, you use the Celtic weave to pulse your aura's energies outward and to strengthen them. The exercise also connects all your energies together so they operate as a single web. Touch one strand, anywhere, and your whole system reverberates in harmony."

I love the way ENERGY MEDICINE includes a vast assortment of fascinating real-life stories of energy healings that Donna Eden has been involved in, including her own recovery from being bitten by a poisonous insect in Fiji. The shamans in Fiji treated Donna for her bite by burying her up to her neck in sand for long stretches several times over a two day period, believing the toxins would be drained into the sand. Donna recovered her full health in Fiji, and shortly thereafter began her studies of energy healing.

I highly recommend ENERGY MEDICINE to anyone with an interest in energy healing. Experienced energy healers and novices can all find much of great value in this essential reference book.

She incorporates many ancient ways of healing, focusing on Chinese meridian theory, the chakras, the aura, the 5 elements, and four other systems. She explains our multi-layers, how to maintain them, and how to weave all the energy systems together. Her five-minute daily routine for "keeping your energies humming," for instance, is easy to follow and practice yourself.

She also shows how the body is a barometer. Even lack of joy shows up in the body. Eden is a highly developed intuitive, and you will find your own way to heal yourself with the guidance you find in this excellent,well-organized book.

A historian of Zionism and professor of history, Professor Vital on a guest teaching assignment in the United States from is home university in Tel Aviv, examines the steep rise in the tensions that exist between a large portion of the Jewish-American public and Israel. Through these observations and his historical background in the Zionist movement, he concludes that the old unity of the Jewish people on the topic of the Jewish nation has been damaged almost to the brink of no repair. This work is an impassioned viewpoint on the state of Israel as the Jewish state and provides an interesting prospective to counter many works that extol the pro-Israel stances of American Jewish organizations. This work is a very passionate, cohesive, and well argued statement on the direction that Professor Vital believes the Jews to be heading. However, it is purposely lacking in supporting material that would bring credibility to the argument. Furthermore the analysis seems, at some points, to suffer from a certain degree of tunnel vision. Despite these limitations this work provides an interesting, historical perspective on this issues and questions of nationalism and statehood that the Jewish people now must contemplate.

One of the most glaring examples of this partisan attitude is the fragment regarding the "pogrom" in Lvov in November 1918 (p.738). There exists a large literature on the subject in Polish, which presents a completely different picture; Mr. Vital supports his scathing condemnation of the Poles with a single quote from a propaganda brochure written by a Jewish author in French!

This selective attitude toward the sources is very visible in the bibliography. Although Mr. Vital's discussion of Polish Jewry takes several hundred pages, and the quoted publications number close to 500, I could find there just one(!) text in Polish, and even this one only tangentially related to the subject. If this was done because of the linguistic difficulties for the non-Polish reader, why quote dozens of works in Hebrew? In any case, Polish authors writing in French or English didn't fare much better (four or five references).

All in all, Mr. Vital's book, although rather monumental in scope, is quite parochial in perspective.

This is a demanding book, Vital likes long sentences, but doesn't waste words. Anyone who reads this book will be in a position to think more clearly about the position of the Jews in history and of minorities in the Western world. I wish every intelligent person would read this book.