Lawrence Kushner
Jewish Lights, $21.99
Anyone who recalls his bravura Limmud appearances in the 1990s will know that there is no rabbi quite like Lawrence Kushner. The author of popular books on Jewish mysticism and a commentary on the Torah with playwright David Mamet, he was the innovative leader of a Reform community in Massachusetts for nearly 30 years, before moving to California: now 68, he joined the rabbinate because it is a vocation that "pays you to be a mensch".
This new book is a collection of short pieces from across his career, ranging from family life to Reform approaches to kashrut and Shabbat: he suggests the term zocher Shabbat, remembering Shabbat, to characterise Progressive observance as an alternative to the Orthodox shomer Shabbat.
Kushner believes that the spiritual dimension lies within the everyday world, perceptible in "fleeting glimmers" if only we are attentive to it. He is one of the exponents of American neo-mysticism, replacing the traditional concept of a "vertical" personal Deity in Heaven with the idea that "God is the name we give to our sense that everything is connected to everything else".
