Rabbi Jamie Korngold's book, God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi, will be released in April 2008.

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Book Description:
Rabbi Jamie Korngold has always loved the outdoors. Whether it’s hiking, running, or just sitting by a stream, she finds her spirituality and Judaism thrive most in the wilderness, the place where her ancestors first met with God. In 2001, Korngold created the Adventure Rabbi program to help other Jews learn how time spent outdoors can help them rediscover their faith and reconnect with Judaism. Today, hundreds of people flock to her adventure trips, participating in activities like Shabbat skiing and Rosh Hashanah hiking.

In GOD IN THE WILDERNESS, Korngold uncovers the rich traditions and lessons God taught our ancestors in the wilderness. In chapters with such titles as “Cultivate the Patience to See Burning Bushes” and “Take the First Step, the Sea May Part,” Korngold guides readers through the Bible to show that, despite the hectic pace of life today, it is vital for us to reclaim its lessons and awaken our inner spirituality. Small enough to fit in a backpack, GOD IN THE WILDERNESS is the perfect companion for anyone seeking the path to spiritual fulfillment.

About the Author:
JAMIE KORNGOLD is a Reform Jewish rabbi. She started the Adventure Rabbi program in 2001 and has become nationally known for her pioneering work integrating spirituality and the outdoors. She was ordained at Hebrew Union College. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and daughter.

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Rabbi Mike Comins is a close friend of Rabbi Korngold's. His book is smart, accessible, and teaches us how to develop a genuine outdoor Jewish practice. Don't miss this book!

A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into the Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism
Rabbi Mike Comins. Jewish Lights, $16.99 paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-58023-316-3

"Far from humans, in God's handiwork, my heart sheds its burdens and my prayers flow," writes Comins in this lyrical but practical primer to fusing Torah and nature.

An ordained rabbi, Comins felt suffocated by books and buildings until he returned to the source of his first spiritual feelings: the wilderness. Ironically, he writes, "I felt compelled to rebel against the very tradition that planted the thirst for God within me."

To overcome the stereotype that "Jews just don't do that outdoor stuff," Comins offers insights from Jewish philosophers and spiritual practices that include meditations, mindfulness, journal-writing, reciting and writing psalms and blessings, and much more.

As the subtitle indicates, Comins asserts that the relationship between Torah and nature is a two-way trail: wilderness is the best place to work out a personal, unscripted, fresh relationship with divinity, and Judaism offers a vocabulary and practice to translate the experience of wilderness into a life of purpose and meaning.

For those who love nature and know little about Judaism, and those who love Judaism but know little about wilderness, Comins's message is clear: one need not choose between the two to find potential, promise and fulfillment. (Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rabbi Shefa Gold, author, Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land writes: "A soulful manual.... Connects us back to our roots in the wilderness where we can be nourished and tested; where we can encounter God's mystery directly."

Buy It Now: A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism

Ellen Bernstein is the creator of the Jewish Environmental world as we know it today. Don't miss her new book, filled with thought provoking insights and inspirational imagery.

Read what others have said about The Splendor of Creation:

"It is writers like Ellen Bernstein who make it possible to find answers in the Bible to questions no previous generation has had to ask. A book rich in valuable insights."

- Rabbi Harold Kushner, Author,
When Bad Things Happen to Good People

"Ellen Bernstein's THE SPLENDOR OF CREATION is a book of remarkable insight based on her life-long commitment to the environment. Her skillful and poetic reading of Genesis through the lens of the elements makes for engaging reading. Moreover, she ignites what is sorely needed at present, namely a creative reciprocity with the Earth and its gifts. We are all in her debt."

Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker,
Harvard Forum on Religion and Ecology

"Our thanks to Ellen Bernstein, birth-mother of the Jewish environmental movement, for this very personal book. Bernstein seamlessly weaves together Genesis and contemporary environmental awareness, forming a union in which each of these turns out to be the deeper meaning of the other. A very honest, down-to-earth, and sometimes profound reflection."

Rabbi Arthur Green, Dean, The Rabbinical School at Hebrew College
Author, A Guide to the Zohar, Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow

"In a time when drawn and disputed borders -- political, religious, racial, and social -- are wreaking havoc across the planet it is vital that people return to their shared reality: the earth and the essential wisdom of creation. Ellen Bernstein's new book gives voice to that wisdom through her elegant reading of Genesis. This book belongs in the hands of clergy, spiritual seekers and all those who care about the earth. It can speak to all people of the one tale that we all share. It can take environmentalism out of the cloister of the environmentalists and into the hearts of ordinary people."

Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Author, The Wisdom of the Jewish Sages, The Way of Solomon, Minyan

"This book bears the mark of a life work-careful thought, spiritual insights, deep reflection on the meaning of a biblical text. It is a genre of writing very difficult to do well, combining scholarship with poetry and autobiography. In love with the language of the Bible, Ellen Bernstein has been thinking and speaking and teaching for most of her adult life seeking to inspire Jews to respect the earth and to live in harmony with it. For decades, she has been on a journey to write this important book that readers will want to share with others because she has dared to trust them with the intimacy of her heart."

Eli N. Evans
Author, The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South.

"This book is a remarkable achievement. Through a close reading of the most influential words ever written, Ellen Bernstein offers a spiritual language that can help us find a way back to a rich and meaningful relationship with the earth."

Adam Werbach, Former President, Sierra Club
Executive Director, Common Assets Defense Fund
Author, Act Now, Apologize Later

"As someone with no religious affiliation, I found Ellen Bernstein's brilliant and inspired interpretation of Genesis riveting. I never realized that the Bible could offer insight to me as an environmentalist, but THE SPLENDOR OF CREATION convinces me that a reverence for nature is rooted in the Bible."

Peter Barnes, Co-founder, Working Assets
Author, Who Owns the Sky?

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HOLY UNEXPECTED
My New Life as a Jew
ROBIN CHOTZINOFF
An irreverent, funny, poignant account of a mid-life spiritual awakening

Raised a born-again agnostic, Robin Chotzinoff had no interest in religion—and practically no experience in it— until she turned forty. When she suddenly discovered a belief in God, she had no idea what to do next.
In Holy Unexpected she describes her journey from a privileged New York childhood through years of unhappiness, drugs, and drift. She investigates what she believed in before she believed in God (the healing power of junk food, music, psychopharmacology), and how a happy marriage impelled her toward a higher power. When she discovers that Judaism embraces arguing with God, hot sex, and acts as opposed to beliefs, she embarks on a journey to reconstruct her Jewish heritage and forge a relationship with her faith.

Robin wrestles with the meaning of Torah, discovers how to keep the Sabbath and still go to Walmart for duct tape, and learns to pray while snowboarding from the Adventure Rabi, Rabbi Jamie Korngold. But her real education in the meaning of Judaism occurs as she rides the ups and downs of day-to-day life, and prepares both for her bat mitzvah and for her father's death.

Writing with enormous humor and intimacy, Chotzinoff takes readers on an unexpected religious journey lit by humor and grace.

Robin Chotzinoff is the author of People With Dirty Hands: The Passion for Gardening, and People Who Sweat. An award-winning columnist and writer at Denver's alternative weekly Westword and at The Denver Post, her writing has also appeared in Outside, The New York Times Magazine, Food and Wine, and Garden Design, among other publications. She has recently moved to Austin, Texas.

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