CANTOR'S CORNER

Suggested Reading List for BM Families

(source: MyJewishlearning.com)

TORAH STUDY

Teaching Torah

by Sorel Loeb & Barbara Binder Kadden,  A.R.E. Pub. Co.,  Denver, Co, 1997.

This book has excellent summaries of each week's portion followed by a selection of interpretive and explanatory material with questions for the reader. It also contains activities for analyzing the text, personalizing the text and suggestions for Bar/Bat Mitzvah projects.

B'shivtekha B'veitekha-When You Sit in Your House

by Sharon Halper, Torah Aura Productions, California 1994.

Designed for family education, this text includes a week by week study of the Torah portion including a multi-verse quote from the portion, short commentary and questions for the family members to share ways that they would have acted were they in the same situations as the Bible characters.

Zot ha-Torah: This is the Torah

by Jane Ellen Golub & Joel Lurie Grishaver, Torah Aura Productions, CA 1994.

This book was developed for Bar/Bat Mitzvah students and contains a quote from each week's Torah portion which is examined in depth. There is a focus on a mitzvah suggested by the portion which includes relevant do-able mitzvah projects.

Torah With Love: A Guide for Strengthening Jewish Values within the Family by Suzanne Stutman and David Epstein.  "Your ability to engage in conversation is the start of family Torah discussion.." 

GENERAL JUDAICA

Gates of Mitzvah – Shaarei Mitzvah, edited by Simeon J. Maslin

(Central Conference of American Rabbis Press, 1986).  Although this Reform movement guide to Jewish life is largely about lifecycle events, it contains essays on mitzvot in general and on sexuality, kashrut, the single parent family and divorce, Jewish ethical wills, tzedakah, and other topics.

The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life: An Interfaithfamily.com Handbook,

by Ronnie Friedland and Edmund Case (Jewish Lights, 2001).

Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Practice, by Mark Washofsky (Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 2001). A Reform scholar surveys the diversity of Reform practice today.

Jewish Family & Life: Traditions, Holidays, and Values for Today's Parents and Children, by Yosef I. Abramowitz and Susan Silverman (Golden Books, 1997).

Jewish Wisdom: Ethical, Spiritual, and Historical Lessons from the Great Works and Thinkers, by Joseph Telushkin (William Morrow & Co., 1994). A popular anthology of Jewish wisdom from ancient times to our own times.

Shabbat

The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, by Abraham Joshua Heschel (Noonday Press, 1996).The most recent edition of a 1951 classic, a paean to Shabbat by a major twentieth-century philosopher of Judaism.

Gates of Shabbat - Shaarei Shabbat : A Guide for Observing Shabbat, written and edited by Mark Dov Shapiro (Central Conference of American Rabbis Press, 1991). Shabbat as conceived and lived by Reform Jews in North America.

The Jewish Sabbath: A Renewed Encounter, by Pinhas Peli (Schocken Books, 1991) [original title: Shabbat Shalom]. A thematic exploration by an Israeli traditionalist thinker much influenced by Heschel.

A Shabbat Reader: Universe of Cosmic Joy, edited by Dov Peretz Elkins (Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1999). An anthology of articles by diverse writers exploring many aspects of Shabbat observance.

Tzedakah: Charitable Giving

The Challenge of Wealth: A Jewish Perspective on Earning and Spending Money, by Meir Tamari (Jason Aronson, 1995).

From Charity to Social Justice: The Emergence of Communal Institutions for the Support of the Poor in Ancient Judaism, by Frank Loewenberg (Dimensions, 2001). A historical study of biblical and rabbinic tzedakah laws and institutions.

To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics, by Elliot N. Dorff (Jewish Publication Society, 2002). See especially Chapter 6, "Substantive Justice: A Jewish Approach to Poverty."

Nature and Environment

Torah of the Earth: Exploring 4,000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought

(2 volumes), ed. Arthur Waskow (Jewish Lights, 2000). A collection of articles clustered chronologically, dealing with texts and issues from the Biblical period to our own.

Ecology and the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet, ed. Ellen Bernstein (Jewish Lights, 1998). Yet another collection of thought-provoking essays.

Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed World, edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Harvard U. Press, 2002). A wide-ranging anthology exploring both theory and practice.

The Way into Judaism and the Environment, by Jeremy Benstein (Jewish Lights, 2006). A sensitive introduction by a pioneer in Jewish environmental education.

Prayer

The Way into Jewish Prayer, by Lawrence A. Hoffman (Jewish Lights, 2000). An engaging and informative first look at Jewish prayer. Explores major themes without exhaustive detail.

Entering Jewish Prayer: A Guide to Personal Devotion and the Worship Service, by Reuven A. Hammer (Schocken Books, 1994). A scholarly but sensitive introduction to Jewish prayer and survey of the traditional liturgy.

My People’s Prayer Book, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman (Jewish Lights, ten volumes so far). This multi-volume work-in-progress brings together commentary on the classical liturgy by scholars from many disciplines (Bible, history, language, law…) and ideologies. A reader should be encouraged to consult more than one edition of the Jewish prayer book, but this unique set should be on everyone’s list.

Additional titles

B'shalom,

Cantor Ken Cohen