I'm God, You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego

In a breezy, accessible, and colloquial style, Kushner brings together excerpts from stories, reviews, essays, and speeches written during his 28 years as a congregational rabbi and his current tenure as scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco. He has grouped the material into six categories: rabbi, Judaism, family, world, mysticism, and holiness. Although Kushner was educated as a Reform rabbi, he cites Orthodox and Conservative sources as well as a number of other traditional authorities. His interest in Jewish mysticism is a further indication of his deviation from the customary intellectual and spiritual sources of a Reform rabbi. Disguising the profundity of his thoughts by lighthearted presentation, Kushner tackles such complicated issues as the role of the rabbi, intermarriage, observance of the Jewish dietary laws, parent-child relationships, Jewish-Gentile differences, Kabbalah, prayer, and death. In each instance, his wisdom, his realism, and the sources he calls upon demonstrate the depth and perceptiveness of his approach to difficult problems. One essence of genius is to make complex issues simple. Kushner superbly passes this test. (Oct.)