Judaism Audiobooks | Religion & Spirituality

The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity

A celebrated Israeli author explores the roots of the divide between religion and secularism in Israel today, and offers a path to bridging the divide Zionism began as a movement full of contradictions, between a pull to the past and a desire to forge a new future. Israel has become a place of fragmentation, between those who sanctify religious tradition and those who wish to escape its grasp. Now, a new middle ground is emerging between religious and secular Jews who want to engage with their heritage-without being restricted by it or losing it completely. In this incisive book, acclaimed author Micah Goodman explores Israeli Judaism and the conflict between religion and secularism, one of the major causes of political polarization throughout the world. Revisiting traditional religious sources and seminal works of secularism, he reveals that each contains an openness to learn from the other's messages. Goodman challenges both orthodoxies, proposing a new approach to bridge the divide between religion and secularism and pave a path toward healing a society torn asunder by extremism.

Micah Goodman (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Britain’s greatest religious historian chronicles the rise and rise of fundamentalism. One of the most potent forces bedevilling the modern world is religious extremism, and the need to understand it has never been greater. Focusing in detail on Protestant fundamentalism in the United States, Jewish fundamentalism from sixteenth century Spain onwards and Muslim fundamentalism over the last four hundred years, Armstrong examines the patterns that underlie fundamentalism. These evolve from the clash between the conservative pre-modern mind that is governed by a love of myth, and the progressive rational society that relishes change. Fundamentalists view the contemporary world with horror, rejecting its claims to truth, and a state of war now exists over the future of our culture. They are not terrorists, rather, they are innovative, existing in a symbiotic relationship with an aggressive modernity, each urging the other on to greater excess. The Battle for God is original in its thesis and in its understanding; as a history of religious ideas it is fascinating, and as an explanation of one of the most destabilizing forces at large in the world today it is extraordinary.

Karen Armstrong (Author), Karen Armstrong - Introduction, Lisa Armytage (Narrator)

Audiobook

A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths

‘“A History of Jerusalem” should be read, not only by travellers and potential travellers in Jerusalem, but by all of us.’ Stephen Tummin, Daily Telegraph Jerusalem has probably cast more of a spell over the human imagination than any other city in the world. Held by believers to contain the site where Abraham offered up Isaac, the place of the crucifixion of Christ and the rock from which the prophet Muhammed ascended to heaven, Jerusalem has been celebrated and revered for centuries by Jews, Christians and Muslims. Such is the symbolic power of this ancient city that its future status poses a major obstacle to a comprehensive regional peace in the Middle East. In this comprehensive and elegantly written work, Karen Armstrong traces the turbulent history of the city from the prehistoric era to the present day.

Karen Armstrong (Author), Karen Armstrong - Introduction, Lisa Armytage (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Blessing and the Curse: The Jewish People and Their Books in the Twentieth Century

From the vast emigration of Jews out of Eastern Europe to the Holocaust to the creation of Israel, the twentieth century transformed Jewish life. The same was true of Jewish writing: the novels, plays, poems, and memoirs of Jewish writers provided intimate access to new worlds of experience. Kirsch surveys four themes that shaped the twentieth century in Jewish literature and culture: Europe, America, Israel, and the endeavor to reimagine Judaism as a modern faith. With discussions of major books by over thirty writers-ranging from Franz Kafka to Philip Roth, Elie Wiesel to Tony Kushner, Hannah Arendt to Judith Plaskow-he argues that literature offers a new way to think about what it means to be Jewish in the modern world. With a wide scope and diverse, original observations, Kirsch draws fascinating parallels between familiar writers and their less familiar counterparts. While everyone knows the diary of Anne Frank, for example, few outside of Israel have read the diary of Hannah Senesh. Kirsch sheds new light on the literature of the Holocaust through the work of Primo Levi, explores the emergence of America as a Jewish home through the stories of Bernard Malamud, and shows how Yehuda Amichai captured the paradoxes of Israeli identity.

Adam Kirsch (Author), Steven Jay Cohen (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently

The editors of The Jewish Annotated New Testament show how and why Jews and Christians read many of the same Biblical texts – including passages from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Psalms – differently. Exploring and explaining these diverse perspectives, they reveal more clearly Scripture’s beauty and power. Esteemed Bible scholars and teachers Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. Passages include the creation of the world, the role of Adam and Eve, the Suffering Servant of Isiah, the book of Jonah, and Psalm 22, whose words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” Jesus quotes as he dies on the cross. Comparing various interpretations – historical, literary, and theological - of each ancient text, Levine and Brettler offer deeper understandings of the original narratives and their many afterlives. They show how the text speaks to different generations under changed circumstances, and so illuminate the Bible’s ongoing significance. By understanding the depth and variety by which these passages have been, and can be, understood, The Bible With and Without Jesus does more than enhance our religious understandings, it helps us to see the Bible as a source of inspiration for any and all readers. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Amy-Jill Levine, Marc Zvi Brettler (Author), Marni Penning (Narrator)

Audiobook

Kabbalah for Beginners: Understanding and Applying Kabbalistic History, Concepts, and Practices

Coming from the Hebrew root that means 'to receive,' Kabbalah is known as the 'inner' or 'esoteric' dimension of Judaism. Kabbalah for Beginners is your introduction to a great spiritual tradition that will help you deepen your experience of the Divine through Kabbalistic portals into the Eternal Present. Divided into four categories: theosophical, ecstatic, Hasidic, and contemporary, this book explores everything including ancient concepts, core teachings, practices and traditions, and even misconceptions of Kabbalah. Written in a contemporary tone and point of view, this beginner's guide brings this ancient discipline into the here and now. In Kabbalah for Beginners you'll find: - God is existence-The Kabbalist method is that God is not a being, not even the most supreme being, but is rather Being itself. - What is Kabbalah-Get inspired by interspersed quotes from the Torah and frequent sidebars that highlight the Kabbalah's relevance to readers' experiences. - Spirituality simplified-Learn through a clear straightforward language to bring intuitiveness to deep philosophical concepts. Discover a contemporary guide to this ancient wisdom and move toward spiritual transformation.

Brian Yosef Schachter-Brooks (Author), Steven Jay Cohen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People

A classic account of courage, integrity, and most of all, belonging In 1977, Natan Sharansky, a leading activist in the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration, was arrested by the KGB. He spent nine years as a political prisoner, convicted of treason against the state. Every day, Sharansky fought for individual freedom in the face of overt tyranny, a struggle that would come to define the rest of his life. Never Alone reveals how Sharansky's years in prison, many spent in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for a very public life after his release. As an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency, Sharansky brought extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising, often uncomfortable, honesty. His story is suffused with reflections from his time as a political prisoner, from his seat at the table as history unfolded in Israel and the Middle East, and from his passionate efforts to unite the Jewish people. Written with frankness, affection, and humor, the book offers us profound insights from a man who embraced the essential human struggle: to find his own voice, his own faith, and the people to whom he could belong.

Gil Troy, Natan Sharansky (Author), Gil Troy, Natan Sharansky, Peter Lownds (Narrator)

Audiobook

Экклезиаст. Песнь Песней. Притчи

Соломон Мудрый прославился тонкостью ума и необычностью суждений. С его именем связано множество легенд, а его высказывания вошли в сокровищницу мировой афористики (Всё суета сует; И это пройдет; Время разбрасывать камни и время собирать камни; Умножающий

соломон мудрый (Author), вячеслав герасимов (Narrator)

Audiobook

Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora

An innovative and poignant exploration of diverse Jewish communities throughout the diaspora. It's been two thousand years after most Jews were exiled from Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land, and two generations since the Holocaust led to the founding of modern Israel. Still, small yet resilient Jewish communities continue to endure and thrive around the world-sometimes in the most unlikely places, and often in the face of extreme persecution. Journalist Annika Hernroth-Rothstein has spent two years of her life uncovering the hidden beauty of these largely forgotten Jewish enclaves. Drawing from her personal experience of growing up as a Jew in a tiny village in Sweden, Annika brings brilliant life to the history, culture, and most importantly, the fascinating people she's met on her journey. Part sociology, part history lesson, and always a love letter to the Jewish people, Exile is an indispensable guide to rediscovering forgotten pieces of a rich Jewish history.

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein (Author), Rebecca Gibel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Just

The classic work by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto one of the modern day sages of Jewish literature. This work is universally studied across all sectrums of Jewish learning and is undisputedly recognised as the foremost work in Jewish ethics and self improvement. In the authors own words 'I have written this work not to teach men what they do not know, but to remind them of what they already know and is very evident to them, for you will find in most of my words only things which most people know, and concerning which they entertain no doubts.' This work is eye opening in its understanding of human nature and our place in the world as well as the concrete steps necessary for everyone to achieve as much as they can with their unique talents and circumstances.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Author), Josh Bloomberg (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Book of Enoch the Prophet

Now available in audio, the bestselling edition of the most important non-canonical apocalyptic text. This superlative translation by noted scholar and theologian R. H. Charles is one of the best and most complete available. The introduction by esoteric bookseller and antiquarian bookseller R. A. Gilbert helps place The Book of Enoch in historical context and dispels many of the dubious interpretations previously attributed to it. The Book of Enoch's vision of the Apocalypse takes a very different view than that of western Christians, although it is part of the biblical canon for Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians. According to Enoch, the wicked shall be cast out and the good will realize a literal heaven on Earth. The prophecies also contain the lost 'Book of Noah,' early references to a messiah as 'Christ,' and an accounting of the angels and subsequent creation of demons.

R.H. Charles (Author), Roger Clark (Narrator)

Audiobook

Le Livre d'Esther (La Méguila complète): La Meguila complète, interprétée en Français par David Sere

David Serero (Author), David Serero (Narrator)

Audiobook

Judaism Audiobooks in Religion & Spirituality