Who are our jewish heroes? Who inspires us, makes us think, gives us hope? Who is making a difference in the jewish world? Here are the profiles of twenty-seven accomplished individuals dedicated to improving our world.

Profiles of twenty-seven individuals working in a range of fields, all dedicated to improving our world. These profiles focus on the contributions of these individuals, their motivations and their commitment to the Jewish People.

Advice for those seeking to deepen and build their relationship with God.

The author has a fascination with God. His belief stems from an earlier study of science and logic concluding that a transcendent, infinite entity is the most probable cause of our existence. The same study convinced him that God is One, and that he should ignore polytheistic religions in his search for understanding. A study of the Quran revealed it to be a mixture of Jewish, Christian, and pagan beliefs, and thus unlikely to be an authentic depiction of God. A deeper study of Christian history, the contradictions and implausible narratives in the New Testament, and the Old Testament variances from the earlier Hebrew Scriptures, convinced him to walk away from the Christianity of his earlier years. All this he has written about in his previously published works. Now he had but one choice: to understand what Judaism has to say about God. For this he sought the opinions of earlier Jewish scholars - Maimonides, Rabbi Ibn Ezra, Hasdai Crescas, and others, and more modern commentators, Hirsch, Kook, and most especially Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo, in the title of whose book, “Jewish Law in Rebellion”, he found a kindred spirit, echoing his own rebellion against religions in general. He considers religions to be too complacent, believing that they already know the God Whom the Jews describe as Ein Sof – the Infinite and Unknowable God. The author contends that cannot truly know God, agreeing with Maimonides that we can only describe God in terms of what He is not. Thus, his search continues, believing that God knows the fallibility of the mankind He created, and likely prefers that we seek without finding, rather than in turn, accept vicariously the perceptions of others who have not sought for themselves. Indoctrination has its dangers, whether in ideology, politics, or religion.

Pirkey Avoth—Chapters of the Sages—is one of the most well known texts in Jewish tradition. It contains the ethical and moral principles guiding the Jewish way of life as handed down by the sages. In essence, it is a guidebook for living. In this bilingual edition, Reuven P. Bulka, a highly regarded rabbi, author, and editor who also has a Ph.D in psychology, provides the reader with a modern translation of Pirkey Avoth, as well as an analysis of the text based on his experience in Torah study and his knowledge of psychology. Much commentary has been written on this important work, yet Rabbi Bulka's commentary differs in that he focuses on the psychological wisdom contained in this classical text. He seeks the thematic connections between each of the chapters, showing that Rabbi Yehuda haNasi, who compiled Pirkey Avoth, chose the statements and their order deliberately. Rabbi Bulka does not resort to explication through outside sources but rather offers an understanding of each chapter on its own, giving the reader a springboard to further exploration aid elaboration of this most significant work. Pirkey Avoth is divided into six chapters. The first five deal with different dimensions of existence, including the transmission of Jewish values, the direction of one's "life-path," the means of keeping sanctity in one's life, the values that become part of one's personality, and how Torah is and should be expressed in life. The sixth chapter, also known as "The Acquisition of Torah," focuses on what is meant by a "Torah-true" personality, which is not easily attained but encompasses all that is good in life. Rabbi Bulka has enabled the contemporary reader to access the wisdom of the Jewish sages by presenting Pirkey Avoth in a manner applicable to today's world, in today's terms.

Organized by subject, this is a collection of teachings and quotations from the Talmud, the Bible, rabbinical commentaries, and ancient and modern religious and secular writings. Writers include Elie Wiesel, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Hebrew poet Hayim Bialik, Cynthia Ozick, Emile Zola, Albert Einstein, Bruno Bettelheim, Gertrude Stein, Irving Howe, and Maimonides. In commentary that explains why these teachings remain meaningful to Jews today, Rabbi Telushkin addresses such issues as relationships between people; individuals and their quest for meaning; what God wants from us; the modern Jewish experience; and Jewish values as they confront the Holocaust, Zionism, and Israel. Telushkin's commentaries are especially helpful because of the myriad quotations from the Talmud. There are also anti-Semitic quotations from Pharaoh and Haman (the first two recorded anti-Semites), from Voltaire, Hitler, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H. L. Mencken, Gen. Ulysses Grant, Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg, and Louis Farrakhan, to name a few. But there is much wisdom here. Jews—and even non-Jews—will find the book a treasure. George Cohen (Booklist)

Collected in this volume are over one thousand of the most popular and trenchant aphorisms of the past several centuries of hasidic teaching that have captured the heart and soul of world Jewry since the birth of hasidism. Most remarkable about these pithy hasidic sayings is how they combine the wisdom of Jewish tradition with sound modern psychological and spiritual insight.