Overview

Sefer Yetzira is a sacred book of great antiquity and power, and one of Judaism's oldest texts after the Bible. In this new translation and commentary, Rabbi Worch leads us step-by-step through innermost chambers of Jewish mysticism. We are allowed to listen in to the arguments between Moses and God, to the whispered dialogue between Rabbis Akiba and Ishmael, and to those fervid and passionate practitioners of whose ecstasies these pages remain redolent. In the beginning was God's desire for us. Sefer Yetzira describes the process whereby desire materializes in the Breath of God and thence into the Ten Sephirot and twenty two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Commentaries to the Sefer Yetzira, through the ages, have reflected the spirit and yearning of those times, the genius and romance of the zeitgeist, be it philosophical, mathematical or contemplative. This commentary reflects the strikingly mystical qualities of Hasidism and the post-modern approach to text. In this book, we read how to listen for the breath of the Living God, how to hear it and breathe it back, in the mystery of our sacred kisses.

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9780761849742

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Reviews

Awesome, Hershy! How come you get all the best, deepest Torahs? -- Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach This unique and innovative interpretation of Sefer Yetzira ties together all the strands of Izbicy's classic hasidic thought in one coherent and comprehensive overview. -- Rabbi Jacob Lainer, The Radzyner Rebbe It takes one who can taste what is behind the words of a text to handle the translation/rendering of the Sefer Yetzira/Book Of Creation. Up to now it has not had someone who could stretch his sacred imagination into an ancient classical text and yet render it so that we too can follow it…Worch has done just that. Rather than trying to make Sefer Yetzira, …fit to the Zoharic/Lurianic model, this work leaps forward in a spiritually stimulating post-modern form... a stellar achievement. -- Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, co-author of A Heart Afire; Stories and Teachings of the Early Hasidic Masters

It takes one who can taste what is behind the words of a text to handle the translation/rendering of the Sefer Yetzira/Book Of Creation. Up to now it has not had someone who could stretch his sacred imagination into an ancient classical text and yet render it so that we too can follow it Worch has done just that. Rather than trying to make Sefer Yetzira, fit to the Zoharic/Lurianic model, this work leaps forward in a spiritually stimulating post-modern form... a stellar achievement.--Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

Author Information

J. Hershy Worch was born in England in 1955 and ordained in 1992 by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. He served as rabbi of Congregation Ohave Shalom of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Currently, he resides in Los Angeles, California, teaching Jewish texts at the Open Yeshiva - Yeshiva Ateret Tzvi. His previously published works include Sacred Fire: Torah from the Years of Fury 1939-1942, The Kabbalist Haggadah - A Handbook of the Seder, and My Soul Thirsts - A Collection of Hasidic Songs.

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