A blueprint for living an ethical and meaningful life, based on the teachings of the late leader of the Lubavitch movement of Hassidic Jewry. Adapter Jacobson has edited and prepared the public talks of Rabbi Schneerson (widely known as the Rebbe and believed by many of his followers to be the messiah) for publication for 14 years. Here he presents the essence of the Rebbe's more universalist teachings, made relevant to non-Jews and assimilated Jews. In three sections (on man, society, and God), Jacobson paraphrases the core of the Rebbe's teachings. Living a moral and meaningful life, according to Rabbi Schneerson, is predicated on the recognition of God. A believer perceives life as a gift from God whose purpose is to allow us to improve the world and use our talents to enrich the lives of others. According to the Rebbe, life without faith would be ``a random series of logical and illogical errors.'' Mankind is morally weak and needs an absolute value system, based on divine revelation, to guide us. While the Torah was given via the Jews at Sinai, all humanity was charged with a moral code before Sinai: ``The very foundation of civilization rests upon the basic principles known as the Seven Noahide Laws.'' They include not only a belief in God, but respect for all life and for the family. Sex, according to the Rebbe, is wholesome and even sacred within the context of marriage. A healthy life is also relatively devoid of materialist pursuits and extraneous material comforts. Death is a journey in another vehicle rather than an end of life. Quotes from the Rebbe, anecdotes from his life, and an array of Jewish commentary supplement the text. While spiritual seekers may find more questions raised than answered, this book lays down the framework of a consistent moral vision. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-14196-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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