A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: The Jewish Life-Spiral as a Spiritual Path

By Arthur Waskow and Phyllis O. Berman

Book Overview

A new book that celebrates the Jewish life-spiral, fusing ancient teachings of the Bible and rabbis with new rituals for the twenty-first century More than twenty years ago, Arthur Ocean Waskow published a book, Seasons of Our Joy, that followed the flow of Jewish festivals through the year. It became a classic. Now, in A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven, Rabbi Waskow and his wife, Phyllis Ocean Berman, have brought us a book for the other great cycle of Jewish life--from birth to death. They have woven handbook and history, spiritual guide and their own personal experience, ancient ceremonies and those brought forward by Jewish women today, into the single pattern of a well-lived life--a unity. The book moves from a new "covenant of washing"--the ritual act of parents washing a newborn daughter's feet to celebrate her arrival--to an examination of how k'tubot, or marriage contracts, could be revised to affirm the commitments partners today need to make with each other, to ceremonies that celebrate the transformations of midlife, to enriching the rituals of grief in order to walk mourners through their own next spiral in the path of their lives. A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven will resonate both with observant Jews looking to broaden their experience of their fath and with those who are looking for new ways to reconnect with Judaism and make it a vital part of their lives again.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374277796
• ISBN13: 9780374277796
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Reaffirmation & Learning

I disagree with the other two reviewers - I find this book to be both a wonderful reaffirmation of many of the central tenets of our faith, and an instructive and insightful way of putting them into a new framework. I received it as a gift during a difficult time in my life, and have since given copies to many others. While not a scholarly exposition (which is not its intent), it is deeply rooted in our scholastic tradition. Highly recommended!