[.ca] The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living ... (ISBN 1580230202)

From Amazon.com:
The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living Spiritual Talk collects Rabbi Lawrence Kushner's inspiring, entertaining, unconventional definitions of 30 Hebrew words. "According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words," Kushner writes. "Not only are words the instrument of creation, in Judaism they are the primary reality itself." According to this belief, Kushner proceeds to meditate and play with spiritually charged words such as "Love," "Water," and some surprising choices such as "Garbage." Each short essay ends with a kavanah, or meditative exercise, designed to "help the reader 'live in the word.'" This book is among Kushner's best and is an excellent companion to Arthur Green's These Are The Words or to Kushner's own The Book of Letters. --Michael Joseph Gross

A Rare Book - that may Change your Life!:
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