From Zen Buddhist practitioner to rabbi,
East meets West in this firsthand
account of a spiritual
journey.
Rabbi Alan Lew is known as the Zen Rabbi,
a leader in the Jewish meditation movement who works to bring
two ancient religious traditions into our everyday lives. One God Clapping is
the story of his roundabout yet continuously provoking
spiritual odyssey. It is also the story of the meeting between
East and West in America, and the ways in which the encounter
has transformed how all of us understand God and ourselves.
Winner of the PEN / Joseph E. Miles Award
Like a Zen parable or a Jewish folk tale, One God Clapping
unfolds as a series of stories, each containing a moment of
revelation or instruction that, while often unexpected, is
never simple or contrived. One God
Clapping, like the life of the
remarkable Alan Lew himself, is a bold experiment in the
integration of Eastern and Western ways of looking at and
living in the world.
“A fascinating personal story and a
parable for Jewish practice in our time. Lew is not afraid to
share some of the stumblings and confusions of his life, and so
when the moments of clarity arrive, they do so with sincerity
and force, and often in images that linger with the reader like
a bell sounding in a quiet space.”
—Rodger
Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus
and Stalking Elijah
“Lew opens his heart and treats the
reader to a banquet for the soul. A treasure.”
—Lawrence
Kushner, author of Invisible Lines of Connection:
Sacred
Stories of the Ordinary; Honey from the Rock: An Introduction
to Jewish Mysticism; and other
books
“The compelling personal encounter
with the divine that shines through this straightforward,
honest, wonderfully well-written autobiography inspires faith
that an awakened spiritual life is a possibility for all of
us.”
—Sylvia
Boorstein, author of That’s Funny, You Don’t Look
Buddhist
Sherril Jaffe
is the author of many books, including Ground Rules and House Tours. Jaffe
is a professor of English at Sonoma State University where she
teaches fiction writing. She is married to Alan Lew, and they
live with their family in San Francisco.
