The Kabbalah is Judaism's intriguing mystical tradition, thousands of years old. Though Jewish mysticism fell into obscurity for much of the industrial age, since the 1960s it has begun flowering once again throughout the world. In recent years, a growing number of people - both Jews and non-Jews - are finding the Kabbalah to be a fascinating treasure house of wisdom about the human mind. Men and women are discovering and applying Jewish mystical insights in daily life, and professionals in such fields as psychology, psychotherapy, and medicine are actively using Kabbalah in their work. Opening the Inner Gates is an up-to-date anthology concerning these new explorations. In sixteen chapters, thirteen contributors present both theoretical considerations and applied methods of Kabbalah in such areas as healing, the mind-body relationship, dreamwork, intuition and creativity, storytelling, women's spirituality, parenting, working with the elderly, and "repairing the world" (tikkun olam).
Setting / LocationGlobal
Story EraModern Era
Protagonist / CoreOpening the inner gates Lead Character
The overall objective of 40 Things is to provide parents with a concise and powerful resource intended to help educate and inform their teen-age/young-adult children on a number of what I as a father consider to be the most important spiritual/biblical truths on a number of vital topics, i.e., life, marriage, truth, the law, the purpose of government, salvation. 40 Things is primarily intended to combat/refute the predominant and popular teachings and philosophies of secular humanism, post-modernism, moral relativism and universalism so pervasive today (sadly even in many Christian circles) and to empower/encourage the next generation to think and act biblically. I am also hoping that the same parents who purchase the book for their kids will also purchase it for any unsaved, skeptical or backslidden family/friends to lead them to the truth of the Gospel.
Twelve-year-old Katie, living with her father, aunt, and five siblings in a small town in the 1870's, constantly makes and breaks resolutions to be a kind and generous person like her invalid Cousin Helen, but when she herself is bedridden after an accident, Katie finds her cousin's example very hard to follow.
"What is home for a child," ask Denis Wood and Robert Beck, "but a field of rules?" And in these mundane "dos and don'ts," they contend, are carried our deepest beliefs and values, our generational memories and cultural heritage.
In Home Rules Wood and Beck undertake a remarkable exploration of the "built environment" and our relationship to it. Their objective is to explore and understand a specific room - the living room at 435 Cutler Street, the home of Denis and Ingrid Wood and their children, Randall and Chandler. But ultimately their search is for an understanding of every room as an institution, a cultural creation centered on fundamental human needs, activities, and beliefs.
In its narrowest sense, then, Home Rules is a case study of a particular family's life in a particular room. Based on Beck's interviews with each member of the Wood family, the book identifies 223 rules addressing safety, behavior, and treatment of the room's seventy objects.
A tour of the room proceeds object by object - screen door, door, doorframe, window in the door - with each object presented first in its physical form with a photograph and description, then in terms of the rules that govern its use or treatment, and finally in light of the values and meanings that surround it ("What are the walls that one should not put one's hands on them?").
In their description and analysis, Wood and Beck show how every room we inhabit is much more than an architectural construct. As the manifestation of meanings and values - conveyed to children as spoken rules - the room is part of the larger network of rules and customs that exist for all people in their domestic environments. By "living the room" with our children, we introduce them to a way of life, a system of beliefs, and a manner of dealing with any environment or place.
Ultimately, the authors conclude, a room is a memory. It stores in the arrangement of its parts how we sit together and interact. It holds for children the memory of rooms in which their parents grew up, which in turn were memories of other, more distant rooms, and so on across the generations
It's tough being the middle mouse. No one's paying any attention to Nora, so she decides to do something her family can't ignore: make noise. Nora slams windows, bangs doors, and upsets furniture, to no avail. It's not until she crashes out the door--and the house goes strangely silent--that her family realizes: a noisy Nora is much better than no Nora at all."A wonderful story."
Opening the inner gates by Edward Hoffman | Literally Just Books
