This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation

by Alan Lew

Book Overview

In this "journey of spiritual transformation" (Publishers Weekly) award winning author Rabbi Alan Lew follows the practices and rituals of the Jewish High Holy Days and guides readers through heartbreak, contemplation, and re-birth.

There are times in life when we are caught utterly unprepared: a death in the family, the end of a relationship, a health crisis. These are the times when the solid ground we thought we stood on disappears...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316739081
• ISBN13: 9780316739085
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

This Is Real and You Are Completely Umprepared

Thoroughly worthwhile read before and during the High Holidays and after. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a fuller understanding of what's possible for the mind and heart at this time.

An invaluable book for preparation for the High Holidays, or anytime.

This is an invaluable book for preparation for the High Holidays; I think non-Jews would also benefit from Rabbi Lew's ideas. We go through life trying to shield ourselves from the inevitabilities of disappointment, death, and decay, at the same time insulating ourselves from joy and from the needs of others. Rabbi Lew focuses on the time from Tisha B'Av, the fast day commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple and other tragedies, to Sukkot, the harvest holiday where we acknowledge our vulnerabilities and celebrate joyfully in roofless shacks, having examined our lives, admitted our brokenness, forgiven slights against us and also forgiving ourselves. With additional Buddhist perspective that never falls into Buddhism Lite, this is a profound book that should be read over and over again.

Someone with a passing interest in spiritual development

This is a powerful book about opening your heart. Rabbi Lew combines Eastern philosophy with Jewish wisdom so that the reader enjoys the best of both worlds. The basic approach is that the Jewish High Holy Days provide us with an annual opportunity to acknowledge the dark shadows in our soul, accept our inevitable flaws, failings and transgressions, and emerge from the process fresh, whole and reinvigorated. Rabbi Lew writes beautifully and the message hits home. Highly recommended.