<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A Rare Book - that may Change your Life!
Review: After being on my shelf to read for months, I found a need when I audited Nancy DeClaisse-Wolford's class in Old Testament at Mercer-McAfee. She guided our class thru the Hebrew Words in using them to parallel the Ugaritic texts! Needless to say, as a poor linguistic student at 70 yr. I was in too deep! But I did gain new interest in learning Hebrew aleph-beit. I also became caught up in Rabbi Kushner's "Book of Words and Book of Letters." The Hebrew words meaning most to me are, b'rahkah or blessing; hit-la-ha-voot or Ecstasy. Kushner stated: "There can be joy in silence or with tears...in their occasions joyous laughter turns out to be sacred." The word ecstasy also appears in Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, coming at a most dramatic moment! The word for prayer has meant much: t'fee-lah as the Rabbi uses the phonetic spelling. In his last page for each word he writes a Kavanah or Living Spiritual Talk: "In prayer you need to know a 'script' so well that you can recite the words on 'auto-pilot' but not so well that the words are habitual." In the beginning for each word there are cogent, potent words of description. On n'shah-mah or Soul: "You are (like everyone else ...not crazy) a barely coherent hodgepodge of contradictory thoughts, feelings and deeds! What keeps you 'together' is an imaginary center called a 'self.'" Of course he sprinkles along a few closely related verses of Scripture. After this "Book of Words," I passed onto "Book of Letters," and next, "God was in this Place and I, i did not know." Again, it was Awesome! A Mystery. What a forcefully creative writer! Retired Chap. Fred W Hood
Rating:
Summary: A Small Book With Enormous Impact!
Review: I thought I understood the meaning of the words presented here, but Kushner's definitions really startled me, challenged me, and engaged me! His unconventional definitions brought new light to so many words I thought I understood, and all too often took for granted. He poignantly demonstrates how words, and the way we define and understand them, affect more than our vocabulary! This is a small book, but it is far from a 'quick read' because its words will enter your thoughts over and over, often when you least expect it, each time offering a new insight, each time helping you understand how the very words we use--and the way we define them--affect our lives and the lives of those around us. It is a book whose 'words' continue to influence long after you close its cover, a book for which I greatly thank the author.
<< 1 >>
| 
