Rabbi Arthur Waskow 9/2/2003

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I got in the mail the paperback edition of the book Phyllis Berman (my beloved partner) and I wrote on the Jewish life-spiral as a practical spiritual journey — A TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE UNDER HEAVEN. The hardback was published a year ago by Farrar Straus & Giroux. The paperback costs only $13.

Writing it together with Phyllis was one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life, and I think the book communicates the focus, the fervor, and the love that created it.

In the beginning, I had a contract to do this book on my own as a kind of twin to SEASONS OF OUR JOY, my book on the festival cycle as a practical spiritual journey.

But for years I kept feeling tugged to do other things, and kept putting off TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE.

Then three things happened.

First, Phyllis and I realized that she had created a sizeable body of personal work on such life-cycle ceremonies of her own as a menarche ceremony for her daughter, a menopause ceremony for herself, a midlife transformation "unmasking" ceremony when she stoppped wearing the wig that had controlled her life since she was 20, when her hair fell out.

So we realized we should write this book together, and weave into it not just a history of the evolution of the life-cycle through 3500 years of Judaism, not just a handbook for ceremonies now, but our direct personal experience of our own life-transformations.

Secondly, my two children had a child apiece — a granddaughter and a grandson. I found myself taking part in the newest Jewish ceremony (a brit or covenant for baby girls) and the oldest — the bris or brit milah for baby boys, with circumcision.

And I realized that the reason I had not been able to write the life-cycle book before, was that I had not yet lived through a life-cycle. Now my children had children. Now I knew what a life-long spiral felt like.

And then one more thing happened: I slid so weirdly on a sliver of ice that a ripped knee tendon kept me in bed for three months while it healed. Forget about meetings! — Instead, Phyllis and I spend months together — and we wrote the book. Who would have imagined that such a wound would prove so fruitful?!

The book is the first that integrates the newer ceremonies created during the last half-century (brit for baby girls, weaning, bat mitzvah, menarche and menopause, egalitarian and gay weddings, mid-life transformation and retirement) into the whole life-path of Jewish ceremony, expanding on and renewing the classic and ancient ceremonies.

It also integrates three forms into one flowing story: history of the evolution of the life-spiral over the millennia of Jewish history; handbook of how to carry out the ceremonies and how to shape your own; and personal experiential reports from our own lives.

A TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE UNDER HEAVEN speaks to a wide variety of Jews and to people who feel attracted by Judaism, to individual readers and to classes in adult and teen education. Like SEASONS OF OUR JOY on the festival year, it will reward rereading whenever you are about to shape or attend a life-cycle ceremony.

If you want the book,you should be able to find it in many general and all Jewish bookstores. Or you can order it by going to the Book Section of this site. The links there will take you to Powell's book-order site.

(We use them because they are a very good grass-roots independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, and pro-union besides, rather than a global anti-union corporation. And they pay The Shalom Center a commission on books ordered through our site. Once you've entered the site through us, any book you buy on that same trip brings a commission to The Shalom Center.)

Please share this announcement with others who might be interested.

Among those who have highly praised A TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE UNDER HEAVEN are Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College (Reform), Rabbi Brad Artson, Dean of the School of Rabbinic Studies at University of Judaism (Conservative), and Susannah Heschel, a leader of feminist and engaged Judaism.

And Publishers Weekly wrote:

"Readers do not have to agree with all the authors' ideas to be intrigued by the fascinating integration of Judaism and contemporary life.

"For anyone trying to mark a stage of life, Waskow and Berman show that apparently isolated moments together move a whole life forward so that each of us can fulfill God's ancient commandment to Abraham: 'Walk forth into yourself.' "

May it be so!!

Shalom, Arthur