Rabbi Lezak's Book List

• To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking by Rabbi Harold Kushner (a great primer)
• Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America by Letty Cottin Pogrebin (her mom died when she is 9. She wasn’t counted in her dad’s minyan b/c she’s a woman. The story of her journey away from and back towards faith and connection)
• God Was Not in the Fire—The Search for a Spiritual Judaism by Daniel Gordis (hands down, the Jewish book I’ve recommended most frequently)
• The Yellow Wind by David Grossman (The conscience of the Israeli Peace movement, visits Jews and Palestinians on the West Bank in the mid-80’s and effectively predicts the first intifada)
• O Jerusalem by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (recommended to me by Daniel Gordis as the book to help me fall in love with Israel…mission accomplished)
• The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski (about the Shoah, the most searing book I’ve ever read)
• Wrestling with the Angel: Jewish Insights on Death and Mourning by Jack Riemer (“get close to death,” my spiritual guide advised me -- Riemer brings you there)

• A Spiritual Life—A Jewish Feminist Journey by Merle Feld (I’ve committed it to memory)
• To Begin Again: The Journey Toward Comfort, Strength and Faith in Difficult Times by Rabbi Naomi Levy (just buy it now -- if you don’t need it already, you will)
• Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology by Arthur Green (helped me ask questions about how I could feel closer to God, day by day)
• Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life by Lawrence A. Hoffman (a candid prescription for courageously revitalizing synagogues)

• The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel (“roots and wings,” my dad would always say -- Mogel roots our parenting work in inspiring Jewish texts)
• For Those Who Can’t Believe: Overcoming the Obstacles to Faith by Harold Schulweis (“I’m a cultural Jew, not a religious Jew,” is what I hear from many…this is what I hand them)
• Danny Siegel’s Bar and Bat Mitzvah Book: A Practical Guide to Changing the World Through Your Simcha by Danny Siegel (If we’re not teaching our kids and ourselves to repair the world, then we are off-course…Siegel is one of the great moral-compasses we have)
• A Time to Mourn, A Time to Comfort by Ron Wolfson and David Wolpe (guidance for individuals and communities as to how best take care of our mourners and our mourning)

• Poems of Jerusalem by Yehuda Amichai (Israel’s poet-laureate; no single book has helped me connect with Israel/Israelis than this book)
• Open Closed Open: Poems by Yehuda Amichai (poems of life, poems of death)
• The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land by Donna Rosenthal (the best sociological tour of Israel I know of -- almost as good as getting on a plane)
• Self-Portrait of a Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu,1963-1976 by Yonatan Netanyahu (the commander of the Entebbe raid and the only Israeli killed there…an expansive soul who wrestled deeply with life and love for his country)

• The Jewish Holidays by Michael Strassfeld (I re-read this every year before each holiday)
• A Day Apart: Shabbat at Home by Noam Zion and Shawn Fields-Meyer (just buy it, start making shabbes -- candles, kiddush and motzi -- and watch Shabbat come alive in your home -- what else is there?)

• Talking to God by Rabbi Naomi Levy (can’t connect with the traditional siddur? this is your book)
• The Book of Blessings by Marcia Falk (a courageous voice reinterprets traditional prayers, manna for your feminist neshama)

• The JPS Hebrew English Tanakh (The Source -- put it on your nightstand, plant your soul in a verse, see how it grows)
• The Bedside Torah: Wisdom, Visions and Dreams by Bradley Artson (A Torah novice? This is your book)
• The Book of Legends/Sefer Ha-aggadah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash edited by Hayyim Nachman Bialik (a venerable warehouse of wisdom and lore waiting to be devoured)

• To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility by Jonathan Sacks(the chief rabbi of the UK, one of the great rabbis alive today)
• Giving Your Money Away by Danny Siegel (the question isn’t “are you giving,” the question is “how much?” Danny Siegel’s going to challenge you)
• Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World by Sidney Schwarz and Ruth Messinger (pushes us to deepen our Tikkun / repair work day by day)              

• Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (step into the whirlwind)
• Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman (a novel approach to a nightmare subject)
• Night by Elie Wiesel (read everything Wiesel has written, but start here)