"According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words. God just spoke and the world became reality. (The Aramaic for 'I create as I speak' is avara k'davara, or in magician’s language, abracadabra.) ... This does not protect words from the numbing effects of overuse in any religious tradition.... We need to dust off the words, shake away the accretions, wonder again about what they originally might have meant and enable ourselves to live in the word." ―from the Introduction
With creativity and poetry (and occasional heresy) Kushner dusts off thirty classical Hebrew words, shakes them free of the effects of generations of overuse, "re-translates" them and liberates their ancient holy power. The result is a contemporary spiritual guide for your personal religious life.
According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words. God just spoke and the world came into being. Words therefore are not merely sounds signifying something else; they are instruments of creation, primary reality itself. They need only to be read, spoken and interpreted. And to know them is to know reality itself.
Kushner has designed the book himself, seamlessly blending graphics and content. In doing so he evokes the aesthetics of an ancient manuscript and a vision of our power to shape the future.
Each finely crafted chapter begins with a Hebrew word and Kushner’s provocative English translation. At the bottom of the page is a transliteration of the Hebrew along with its more customary English rendering. In addition to his own intriguing definition, he includes a biblical citation anchoring the word, along with a more recent text showing the word’s evolution. Finally, we are offered a personal, meditative exercise designed to enable you to “live in the word.”

The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living Spiritual Talk (Kushner)

Religion & Spirituality

Kushner, Rabbi Lawrence

Judaism

Jewish Lights

Quite simply, the easiest introduction to Jewish mysticism you can read. 
An insightful and absorbing introduction to the ten gates of Jewish mysticism and how they apply to daily life.
"There is a place that is as far from here as breathing out is from breathing in. For the word is very near to you. Where life forever holds gentle sway over death, where people are human with the same grace that a willow is a willow, where the struggle and the yearning between male and female is at last resolved.... It is to begin with, all inside us." ―from the Introduction
"In the past decade I've read Honey from the Rock at least half a dozen times. Every time I read it I wonder if I have ever read it before. Either it keeps changing, or I do. Maybe it’s both.... As someone told me: 'Lawrence Kushner is a mystic. He gives you flashes of insight.'" ―from the Publisher’s Preface to the Anniversary Edition

Honey from the Rock, Special Anniversary Edition

The River of Light: Jewish Mystical Awareness

“Despite the obvious contradictions, complexity, and apparent randomness that assault any human being day after day, everything is somehow nevertheless connected, orchestrated. The universe is filled with meaning…. In Jewish mysticism, the river is a metaphor for the Holy Oneness that unifies all creation. Just imagine it: a sacred stream, luminous and ubiquitous, a river of light.” ―from the Preface to the Anniversary Edition This is an invitation to wade into a deeper spiritual consciousness. Taking us step-by-step, Kushner helps us to allow “the river of light”―the deepest currents of consciousness―to rise to the surface and animate our lives.

A window into the Jewish soul―written especially for Christians.
"I invite you to explore with me some of the rich and varied expressions of the Jewish spiritual imagination. It is a tradition that may at times, for Christians, feel strangely familiar and will, for Christians and Jews, always challenge you to see yourself and your world through a new lens." ―from the Introduction
Jewish spirituality is an approach to life that encourages us to become aware of God's presence and purpose, even in unlikely places. “This world and everything in it is a manifestation of God’s presence,” says Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. “Our challenge and goal is to find it and then act in such a way as to help others find it too.”
In this special book, Kushner guides Christians through the rich wisdom of Jewish spirituality. He tailors his unique style to address Christians’ questions, and, in doing so, opens new windows on their own faith.
Jewish Spirituality is a window into the Jewish soul that people of all faiths can understand and enjoy. From the Talmud and Torah, to “repentence” (teshuva) and “repairing the world” (tikkun olam), Kushner shows all of us how we can use the fundamentals of Jewish spirituality to enrich our own lives.

Jewish Spirituality : A Brief Introduction for Christians

Filling Words with Light: Hasidic and Mystical Reflections on Jewish Prayer

Breathe New Life into Your Prayer with the Wisdom of Kabbalah and the Hasidic Masters Jewish mystics teach that every word a person utters in prayer should radiate light. Even the letters of the words of prayer carry sparks of the Divine that yearn to join together in holiness.In this inspiring spiritual companion, Reform rabbi Lawrence Kushner and Orthodox rabbi Nehemia Polen join together to provide a window into the liturgy for people of all backgrounds by offering fresh insights and meditations that bring the traditional prayerbook to life. Drawing from the Torah, Zohar and ancient and contemporary Hasidic masters, Kushner and Polen reflect on the joy, gratitude, compassion, mystery and awe embedded in traditional prayers and blessings, and show how you can imbue these familiar sacred words with your own sense of holiness.Insightful, fresh and wise, Filling Words with Light will enrich your understanding of the prayer book and guide you on how to put more of yourself into the holy words of the Jewish tradition.

Polen, Rabbi Nehemia

Christian Books & Bibles

A Charming tale to remind us all that our kindness works miracles. “When the sun sets and stars fill the sky, the square in the little town grows quiet and still. The cool air of distant hills mingles with the sweet scent of baking bread. The moon rises and glows softly. It’s the sort of place where miracles could happen.” David and Jacob live in the same little, ordinary town, but it’s almost as if they’re from different worlds. David is so poor he can barely feed his family. Jacob is so consumed with staying rich he thinks about nothing but money. But the two men have one thing in common: they both believe that miracles are big, magical things that can only happen somewhere else, to someone else. But when Jacob wakes up from a nap in synagogue one day, sure that God has demanded twelve loaves of bread from him, all this changes in amazing ways you’d never expect. A delightful, timeless legend based on Jewish tradition, In God’s Hands tells of the ordinary miracles that occur when we really, truly open our eyes to the world around us.

In God's Hands

Children's Books

Schmidt, Gary

Literature & Fiction

Breathe New Life into Your Prayer with the Wisdom of Kabbalah and the Hasidic Masters 
Jewish mystics teach that every word a person utters in prayer should radiate light. Even the letters of the words of prayer carry sparks of the Divine that yearn to join together in holiness.
In this inspiring spiritual companion, Reform rabbi Lawrence Kushner and Orthodox rabbi Nehemia Polen join together to provide a window into the liturgy for people of all backgrounds by offering fresh insights and meditations that bring the traditional prayerbook to life. Drawing from the Torah, Zohar and ancient and contemporary Hasidic masters, Kushner and Polen reflect on the joy, gratitude, compassion, mystery and awe embedded in traditional prayers and blessings, and show how you can imbue these familiar sacred words with your own sense of holiness.
Insightful, fresh and wise, Filling Words with Light will enrich your understanding of the prayer book and guide you on how to put more of yourself into the holy words of the Jewish tradition.

I'm God; You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego

Flashes of insight―surprising, entertaining, inspiring―from one of the most creative spiritual thinkers in America.
"The goal of all spiritual life is to get your ego out of the way―outwit the sucker; dissolve it; shoot it; kill it. Silence the incessant planning, organizing, running, manipulating, possessing, and processing that are the ineluctable redoubts of the ego. Not because these activities are bad or wrong or even narcissistic … but because they preclude awareness of the Divine. To paraphrase the Talmud, God says, 'There ain't room enough in this here world for your ego and Me. You pick.'" ―from the Introduction
Tapping the experiences and wisdom of his career as a spiritual leader, Lawrence Kushner delights, surprises, challenges and inspires us. With his signature candor, wit and compassion, he helps us reconnect with the why and how of our spiritual lives. He encourages us to find new perspectives on the "life-stuff" that shapes them, and gently reminds us of the Source of it All.
These inspiring―often startling―insights will warm you during the dark times of your own doubts even as they brighten your quest for meaning, faith, identity, community―and holiness.

Jewish Lights Publishing

God Was in This Place & I, I Did Not Know―25th Anniversary Ed: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning

"A profound exploration of the necessity of paying attention to God's presence." ―Library Journal
In a daring blend of scholarship and imagination, psychology and history, Lawrence Kushner gathers an inspiring range of interpretations of Genesis 28:16 given by sages, from Shmuel bar Nachmani in third-century Palestine to Hannah Rachel Werbermacher of Ludomir who lived in Poland two hundred years ago. Through a fascinating new literary genre and Kushner’s creative reconstruction of the teachers’ lives and times, we enter the study halls and sit at the feet of these spiritual masters to learn what each discovered about God’s Self and ourselves as they ascend and descend Jacob’s ladder.
In this illuminating journey―celebrated in this special 25th anniversary edition with a new preface by the author―our spiritual guides ask and answer the fundamental questions of human experience: Who am I? Who is God? What is God’s role in history? What is the nature of evil? How should I relate to God and other people? Could the universe really have a self?

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kushner, Rabbi Lawrence. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kushner, Rabbi Lawrence

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kushner, Rabbi Lawrence. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living Spiritual Talk (Kushner)

Honey from the Rock, Special Anniversary Edition

The River of Light: Jewish Mystical Awareness

Jewish Spirituality : A Brief Introduction for Christians

Filling Words with Light: Hasidic and Mystical Reflections on Jewish Prayer

In God's Hands

Filling Words with Light: Hasidic and Mystical Reflections on Jewish Prayer

I'm God; You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego

I'm God; You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego

God Was in This Place & I, I Did Not Know―25th Anniversary Ed: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning