Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader, by Lawrence Kushner, with an introduction by Thomas Moore, collects some of the best writings by one of the most insightful rabbis in America. Kushner writes with profound reverence for the silence that surrounds his words. He believes that the essence of religious seeking is to "devotedly, stubbornly, compulsively return again and again to that line between noise and silence, hoping against hope to find a way to say what finally cannot be said. If it could be said straight out, you wouldn't have to try to find a better way to say it. If you couldn't speak it at all, then you'd have to resort to such nonverbal modes of communication as art or dance or music. The thing about spiritual truth is that it wants to be spoken. It is too important, too transforming, to be left alone in silence. It seems to have speakable content." This book begins with a selection of writings on cultivating awareness of God, the self, and the world. It moves on to explore the bedrock of Jewish religion, sacred text. Later chapters describe mystical, ethical, and political aspects of Jewish spiritual life, concluding with an excellent selection of meditations on the revelatory power of daily life. Kushner sees divine light glinting off his eyeglasses, shining through telescopes, and beaming out from lighthouses. Eyes Remade for Wonder is excellent devotional reading, and a fine introduction to Kushner's wide-ranging mind and empathic spirit. --Michael Joseph Gross


From Publishers Weekly
For the past 25 years, Kushner (The Book of Letters) has been helping readers understand the connection between the sacred and the ordinary. This collection contains samples from each of Kushner's books along with a generous amount of new and previously unpublished material. Some samples are deeply academic, some are written for children and some reflect Kushner's mysticism. While a portion of the pieces are aimed primarily at a Jewish audience, the message of others will appeal to people of all faiths. For example, Kushner tells an old Hasidic story of the disciples who had gathered to learn from their rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov. After evening prayers, the rebbe would speak late into the night. One evening, as the students left, one after another apologized for monopolizing so much of Baal Shem Tov's attention. Each had felt as if the teacher had spoken personally to him. So it is when we read Scripture, says Kushner; the text speaks intimately and demands an intensely personal response. Kushner's blend of scholarship, imagination, psychology, mysticism and humor will make readers feel that he is speaking personally to them. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Kushner, the author of such titles as The Book of Words (1992) and God Was in This Place, and I Did Not Know (1993), here offers an anthology of previously published pieces as well as new material. Highly readable and written with a fine sense of storytelling, the book grapples with such weighty issues as what it means to be human and the need to incorporate humanity into political action. Kushner also addresses more mystical concerns, including the struggle to understand the nature of God. Although Kushner is a rabbi and many of these essays are naturally related to Judaism, the universality of his themes--the yearning to be close to God, the need to repair society, the effort to make sense of one's life--will strike a chord with a wide range of readers. Ilene Cooper

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With incomparable ability to blend scholarship, imagination, psychology, mysticism, history and great writing, Rabbi Kushner offers something unique to both the spiritual seeker and the committed person of faith. With samplings from each of his books and a generous amount of previously unpublished material, "The Lawrence Kushner Reader" explores personal meaning in the sacred that animates each of our lives.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly