This book examines the meaning and nature of Idolatry - and, in doing so, reveals much about the monotheistic tradition that defines itself against this sin. The authors consider Christianity and Islam but primarily on Judaism. They explore competing claims about the concept of idolatry that emerges in the Hebrew Bible as a "whoring after false Gods." The Authors show how this debate, over idolatry as practice or error, has taken shape and has, in turn, shaped the course of Western thought.

"From one of the most acclaimed biblical commentators at work today, the third book in her award-winning series of commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Numbers is the narrative of a great failure. What should have been for the Israelites a brief journey from Mount Sinai to the Holy Land becomes a forty-year death march. Both before and after the devastating report of the spies, the narrative centers on the people's desire to return to Egypt, to undo the miraculous work of the Exodus. This view of the wilderness history invites us to a different kind of listening to the many cries of distrust, lament, resentment that issue from the Israelites throughout the Book of Numbers. Is there a way to integrate this narrative of dark murmurings, of obsessive fantasies of return to Egypt, with the celebration of a love-intoxicated wilderness discourse? The question touches not only on the language the Israelites speak but also on the very nature of human utterance. Who are these people? Who are we who listen to them? What effect does the cumulative trauma of slavery, the miracles of Exodus, the revelation at Sinai have on a nation that is beginning to speak? In Bewilderments, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg posits fascinating answers to these questions through the magnificent literary, scholarly, and psychological analysis of the text that is her trademark"--

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS “...gives example after example of the price that we all pay for a situation in which ‘women may hold the keys but men still control the locks’.” The Times “What’s especially valuable is the authors’ analysis of where companies go wrong in managing women...that’s how it will help women in the workplace.” Harvard Business Review “Lays out the importance of retaining women in senior leadership positions.” Harpers Bazaar “Wittenberg-Cox and Maitland have opened new ground.” Management Today WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS They make up much of the market and most of the talent pool. Reaching women consumers and developing female talent is essential for sustainable economic growth in the 21st century. Studies show that better gender balance in business means better bottom line results and greater resistance to economic crises. So why are there still so few women in leadership roles in business? Why are companies struggling to respond to today’s female consumer? Why is there a persistent pay gap between men and women around the world? Why Women Mean Business takes the economic arguments for change to the heart of the corporate world. Fully updated in paperback, the book shows why getting gender right matters – as much when the economy’s bust as when it’s booming. A must-read, packed with ideas from companies that have made it work, views from top business leaders and step-by-step guides to how we can all become gender bilingual.

Excerpt from Dostoevsky, His Life and Art He is bigger now: he has turned three. Nurse has just brought him into the parlour to show her charge off to the company. He kneels, facing the icon in the corner, and before them all he says his bedtime prayer: All my hope I place in thee, Mother of God; shelter me under thy mantle. What a clever little boy! The guests exclaim. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Fiction, Fantasy

WINNER OF THE CANADIAN JEWISH LITERARY AWARD FOR MEMOIR FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION An unforgettable memoir about a young woman who tries to outrun loss, but eventually finds a way home. Ayelet Tsabari was 21 years old the first time she left Tel Aviv with no plans to return. Restless after two turbulent mandatory years in the Israel Defense Forces, Tsabari longed to get away. It was not the never-ending conflict that drove her, but the grief that had shaken the foundations of her home. The loss of Tsabari's beloved father in years past had left her alienated and exiled within her own large Yemeni family and at odds with her Mizrahi identity. By leaving, she would be free to reinvent herself and to rewrite her own story. For nearly a decade, Tsabari travelled, through India, Europe, the US and Canada, as though her life might go stagnant without perpetual motion. She moved fast and often because--as in the Intifada--it was safer to keep going than to stand still. Soon the act of leaving--jobs, friends and relationships--came to feel most like home. But a series of dramatic events forced Tsabari to examine her choices and her feelings of longing and displacement. By periodically returning to Israel, Tsabari began to examine her Jewish-Yemeni background and the Mizrahi identity she had once rejected, as well as unearthing a family history that had been untold for years. What she found resonated deeply with her own immigrant experience and struggles with new motherhood. Beautifully written, frank and poignant, The Art of Leaving is a courageous coming-of-age story that reflects on identity and belonging and that explores themes of family and home--both inherited and chosen.

When Olivia, wild-haired and headstrong, makes a terrible mistake, she must turn to the person least likely to help—her mother, Elaine. Motherhood was a role that Elaine never embraced and her best never amounted to much. But now Olivia faces prosecution for a naïve connection to a drug deal and she needs Elaine more than ever. As the days count down and Olivia's future hangs in the balance, Elaine must decide just how much she is willing to give for a second chance with her daughter. "A powerhouse novel of complex emotions so compelling that when I finished the book, I started over again."—Amy Tan

In the tumultuous late 60s and early 70s, a social movement known as the "New Left" emerged as a major cultural influence, especially on the youth of America. It was a movement that embraced "flower-power" and psychedelic "consciousness-expansion," that lionized Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro and launched the Black Panthers and the Theater of the Absurd. In Return Of The Primitive (originally published in 1971 as The New Left), Ayn Rand, bestselling novelist and originator of the theory of Objectivism, identified the intellectual roots of this movement. She urged people to repudiate its mindless nihilism and to uphold, instead, a philosophy of reason, individualism, capitalism, and technological progress. Editor Peter Schwartz, in this new, expanded version of The New Left, has reorganized Rand's essays and added some of his own in order to underscore the continuing relevance of her analysis of that period. He examines such current ideologies as feminism, environmentalism and multiculturalism and argues that the same primitive, tribalist, "anti-industrial" mentality which animated the New Left a generation ago is shaping society today. --

In 1962 Ayn Rand accepted an invitation to write a weekly column for the Los Angeles Times. The column became enormously popular, covering a wide variety of topics: from the welfare state to freedom of speech to foreign policy to the death of Marilyn Monroe. Unlike so much “journalistic commentary — which is stale and irrelevant just days, or hours after it is written — virtually nothing of hers becomes outdated,” explains editor Peter Schwartz in his introduction. “Her perspective is that of a grand historian whose time frame is the centuries and whose function is to explain the world by reference to universal truths.” Every book by Ayn Rand published in her lifetime, including Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and The Virtue of Selfishness is still in print, and hundreds of thousands of copies are sold each year—so far more than thirty million. Several new volumes have been published posthumously. Her vision of man and her philosophy for living on earth have changed the lives of thousands of readers and launched a philosophic movement with a growing impact on American culture.

This collection of Ayn Rand's early fiction - including her short story 'The Night King' - ranges from beginner's exercises to excerpts from early versions of 'We the Living and The Fountainhead'. Arranged chronologically, from 1926 through 1940, these works allows readers to follow the trajectory of Rand's literary and intellectual growth, from a twenty-one-year-old Russian immigrant struggling to master English to the brilliant prose stylist she was to become in her mature work.

AYN RAND BOOK

In the 1930s, Ayn Rand was asked to adapt her first novel , We the Living , for the theatre. Her first statement against communism, it sold over 3 million copies. This edition contains two unpublished versions of the play (the latter entitled The Unconquered ), and is the first substantial piece of Rand's fiction to publish in over twenty years.

Ayn Rand discusses the lies of social progressivism and how seemingly virtuous ideals like altruism degrade society into a morass of self-imposed slavery. Rand also explains why capitalism is so important, and how America has largely given up on core principles like freedom and individual liberty to appease the communistic tendencies of intellectuals and politicians. According to Rand, the strong supporting the weak doesn't benefit the weak, but impedes everyone and leads only to a failed society.Excerpts:"Capitalism does not tell men to serve and sacrifice but to produce and profit. Capitalism does not preach passivity, humility, and resignation, but independence, self-confidence, and self-reliance. Above all, capitalism does not permit anyone to expect or demand, to give or to take that which is unearned. [...] Most people still lack the courage to realize that capitalism, real, free, uncontrolled, unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, not the mongrel mixed economy we have today, was the ideal social system, which mankind had almost achieved, then lost.""Businessmen are a cheerful, benevolent, optimistic, predominantly American phenomenon. The essence of their job is the constant struggle to improve human life, to satisfy human needs and desires -- not to practice resignation, surrender, and worship of suffering. Here is the profound gulf between businessmen and altruism: businessmen do not sacrifice themselves to others. If they did, they would be out of business in a few months or days. They profit. They grow rich. They are rewarded as they should be. This is what the altruist, the collectivist, and other sundry humanitarians hate the businessmen for, that they pursue a personal goal and succeed at it."

From the best-selling author of Being Nobody, Going Nowhere , Ayya Khema's Be an Island guides us along the path of Buddhist meditation with direct and practical advice, giving us contemplative tools to develop a healthy sense of personal being. Be an Island is at once an introduction to the teachings of Buddhism and a rich continuation of Ayya Khema's personal vision of Buddhist practice.

Contents: Far Away and Long Ago, The Erotic Motive in Primitive Religion; Primitive Man in Love and Faith; In the Foundry of the Gods, The Story of the Generative Divinities; Spirit of Love in God and Man, The Erotic Worship of the Generative Divinities; Love's Hidden Ways; In the Temple of the Gods; The Worship of the Generative Divinities; A Day with Baal; A Night with Aphrodite; At a Dionysian Mystery; Twilight with Moloch; The Dance of the Saktas; In the House of the Lord; The Erotic Motive in the Monotheistic Religions of Today; Love in the Synagogue; Romance in the Church; Marriage in the Mosque; Longing in the Dark; The Spirit of Revolt in Religion; The Sexual Motive in Sectarianism; Rebels in the Faith; Love the Force of Rebellion; Revolt Against Religion; Revolt Against God; Revolt Against Man; God's Way in Love.

The national best-seller with "a plot line that seems ripped from the headlines" (Associated Press) is now available in paperbackjust in time for the fall elections. The "compelling novel of friendship, idealism, and corruption and the behind-the-scenes machinations that go into political deals" ( Booklist ) by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer garnered a huge amount of attention in both red and blue states when it was first released. The popular and outspoken author, who in the 2004 election received more votes than any non-presidential candidate in history, "brings been-there nuance to the back-biting, hazardous personal disclosures and naked power mongering" ( Publishers Weekly ) of politics today. Lively and informed, A Time to Run introduces three unforgettable characters, whose friendship and betrayals shape not only their lives, but also the Supreme Court and the future of the country.

In Russia, Molly and her mother didn't celebrate birthdays the way they do in America. When Molly's invited to a birthday party, she's excited to be able to taste a pink and white cake. Then something happens at Emma's party that Molly won't ever forget. She knows it's the week of Passover and she knows she shouldn't eat the cake. What should Molly do?

When noted anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff received a grant to explore the process of aging, she decided to study some elderly Jews from Venice, California, rather than to report on a more exotic people. The story of the rituals and lives of these remarkable old people is, as Bel Kaufman said, "one of those rare books that leave the reader somehow changed." Here Dr. Myerhoff records the stories of a culture that seems to give people the strength to face enormous daily problems -- poverty, neglect, loneliness, poor health, inadequate housing and physical danger. The tale is a poignant one, funny and often wise, with implications for all of us about the importance of ritual, the agonies of aging, and the indomitable human spirit.

Just as every society has an economic and political structure, so too every society has a gender structure. Barbara Risman's original research on single fathers, married baby boom mothers, and heterosexual egalitarian couples and their children, reported in this intriguing book, weaves together qualitative and quantitative data from surveys, interviews, and observation. Risman shows how gender as a social structure affects individuals, organizes expectations attached to social positions, and becomes an integral part of social institutions. She provides empirical evidence that human beings are capable of enduring and affective intimate relationships without gender as the central organizing mechanism. The data also strongly indicate that men and women are capable of changing gendered ways of being throughout their lives. In her analysis of nontraditional families, Risman finds that gender expectations can be overcome if couples are willing to flout society and risk "gender vertigo." Most children of such families adopt their parents' beliefs about gender, but they do struggle with the contradictions between parental ideology and folk knowledge and expectations in peer relationships. The author argues that we can create a just society only by creating a society in which gender is an irrelevant category for social life--a post-gender society.