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How a book by a ‘Zen Rabbi’ became a High Holidays classic
(JTA) — Every few years I put out a call asking what people will be reading in preparation for the High Holidays, and usually one book tops the list: “This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation,” by the late Rabbi Alan Lew.
Published 20 years ago this month, “This Is Real” is an attempt by Lew, a Conservative rabbi trained in Buddhist practice, to get perhaps jaded readers to see the period that includes Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot as a time for deep spiritual introspection — or, as he writes, a time to “move from self-hatred to self-forgiveness, from anger to healing, from hard-heartedness to brokenheartedness.”
If that sounds like the gospel of “self-care,” you’re not far off. Lew, who died in 2009 at age 65, came of age during the self-actualization movement, a serious attempt by psychologists to get people to live up to values that transcend their desire for wealth and status. By the time cosmetics companies, crystal sellers and lifestyle influencers took hold of the concept, it was derided as selfishness disguised as a spiritual journey.
But Lew’s book grounds concepts of “self-discovery, spiritual discipline, self-forgiveness and spiritual evolution” in normative Judaism. “This Is Real” never strays far from a traditional Judaism that saw the period of prayer, reflection and repentance surrounding the holidays as a time for a moral wake-up call.
That hybrid of the traditional and the much-maligned “New Age” continues to appeal to readers. Jewish educator Joshua Ladon, writing in the 2020 anthology “The New Jewish Canon,” calls the book “the handbook for American Jewish High Holiday survival,” comparing its influence to Rabbi Harold Kushner’s mega-bestseller “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Synagogues host book groups to discuss the book in the run-up to the holidays; the book’s publisher, Little, Brown and Company, issued a paperback version only in 2018, suggesting its hardcover sales had remained strong for 15 years.
Ilana Sandberg, a rabbinical student at JTS, recommended Lew’s book last month in a video for the seminary.
She first read the book in the fall of 2020 as she was preparing to lead High Holiday services at Brandeis Hillel for the first time as the rabbinic intern, and considers the late author her “spiritual hevruta,” or study partner, in the lead-up to the holidays. The book, Sandberg says, is about “accepting this idea that we are ever-changing beings and there really is a possibility for change, for renewal as we go through the cycle of the year.”
Lew was spiritual leader at San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Sholom from 1991 to 2005. Raised in Brooklyn and New York’s Westchester County, he was underwhelmed by the suburban Judaism of the 1950s and ’60s and, like many Jewish seekers of his era, turned to Zen Buddhism — at one point considering becoming a lay priest.
“It was in a Buddhist monastery, meditating, that I realized who I really am. I am a Jew,” he wrote in “One God Clapping: The Spiritual Path of a Zen Rabbi,” a memoir he co-wrote in 2001 with his wife, Sherril Jaffe. “A Jew can use the practice of meditation to illuminate his or her Jewish soul.”
Rabbi Alan Lew appears on the cover of “One God Clapping: The Spiritual Path of a Zen Rabbi,” a memoir he co-wrote in 2001 with his wife, Sherril Jaffe.
A poet and sometime bus driver, Lew was 38 when he enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the training ground for Conservative rabbis. In 2000, he founded Makor Or, a Jewish meditation center housed at his synagogue.
In “This Is Real,” he writes about the meditative aspects of High Holiday prayer. “When we sit in meditation with other people, breathing the same air, hearing the same sounds, thinking thoughts in the same rhythms and patterns, we experience our connection to each other in a very immediate way,” he writes.
But Lew’s version of the High Holidays is hardly passive or even gentle: Preparing for the holidays, as he suggests in the title, is hard and daunting work. The dreamlike opening sequence describes the “journey” of the High Holiday period as “fraught with meaning and dread.”
Ladon wrote that Lew’s book represents “the possibility of American Judaism, full of vitality and transcending boundaries.” Perhaps because of, or even in spite of this, it was mostly non-Orthodox Jews who replied to my recent social media post asking about their attachment to “This Is Real.”
“I’m really moved by the way that Lew takes the traditional images of the Holidays — the wake-up call of the shofar, the books of life, death and the undecided, the opening of the gates — and retells them in a way that they speak directly to my personal existential discomfort,” wrote Jonah Mendelsohn, an actor and writer who has been reading the book with fellow members of SAJ, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Manhattan. “The book has me facing my own insecurity and self-judgment in a way that isn’t always comfortable, but pushes me to change.”
Karen Paul, a fundraising consultant and former executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation, said a friend gave her a copy of the book the year her husband died from glioblastoma.
“Lew’s comforting and relatable stories were precisely the roadmap I needed to begin to reshape my future,” she told me. “My favorite parable in the book is the day that the rabbi had to be on one side of the park for a [funeral] and the other side of the park for a birth. This is the dialectic of life, which, if we listen for it, applies to all that we do.”
Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt of the Reform Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires in North Adams, Massachusetts, recommends the book for “folks who might not self-identify as seekers, but who are interested in approaching the holidays in a deeper or more informed way.”
“When I first read it, it changed how I experience this two-month window of time, and I love opening that up for those whom I serve,” she wrote me. “How can we harness this season to fuel our inner work so that we can emerge ready to grow and become and try again?”
But she, like others, notes that “This Is Real” isn’t without his flaws. She suggests that Lew “had some blind spots, notably around gender.” (Last year, Jewish blogger Shari Salzhauer Berkowitz criticized his “heterosexual, male” handling of the sexual dynamics in Ki Tetze, the Torah portion that includes instructions for soldiers taking women captives as “wives.”)
The book also has admiring references to Rudy Giuliani — the New York City mayor turned RICO defendant — and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach — the songwriter who faced posthumous allegations of sexual misconduct — that read differently than they did 20 years ago.
Barenblatt suggests pairing his book with a “contemporary and feminist text” such as Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s recent book “On Repentance and Repair.”
Lew’s style — he glides between poetry and memoir, allegory and darshanut, or Torah commentary — isn’t for everyone. Many prefer Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon’s anthology “Days of Awe,” first published in English in 1948, a collection of mostly primary texts related to the High Holidays. Philip Goodman’s various anthologies for the Jewish Publication Society take a similar approach. The 1999 essay collection, “Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holy Days” by Gail Twersky Reimer and Judith A. Kates is a corrective to books that ignore the central place of women in the liturgy.
Many of these books seem intended for readers who are looking for inspiration in synagogue when their attention begins to flag. Lew invites you to read his book as a coherent narrative of a nearly three-month process from destruction (Tisha B’Av) to joy (Sukkot).
But for some readers, it is also a book to be dipped into and sipped from.
“I have never finished this book,” Pittsburgh Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman admitted last month in a column recommending books for the High Holidays. “I read four or five pages. I stop and ponder over the meaning of existence and God and human growth and obligation and fallibility. Lew is poetic and instructive and guru-esque but also deeply personal; you feel you know him. The book’s title is perfect, and yet the book really will prepare you for the High Holidays, even if you, like me, never actually finish reading it. One might argue that this book, if properly read, is never finished.”
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The post How a book by a ‘Zen Rabbi’ became a High Holidays classic appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.