Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1278775 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

Great start but falls into the trap of self-indulgance
Irwin Kula is a respected Jewish Rabbi and one of the most talented and engaging speakers I have witnessed on the conference platform. I had the pleasure of watching him in action while in New York. The book, which draws on some of his seminar material, is a big dissapointment however. He is a fine and well-coached orator with some way to go to as a writer. I can't help feeling that he lost the strength of his own convictions after about page 50. Although there is an obvious central theme of Judaism, the reader starts in the first few pages with an implied invitation from Kula to engage with an intelligent view of life that is informed from a variety of global religions/philosophies - such as Judaism, Buddism, Islam, Tao, Hinduism. Wonderful, challenging food-for-thought flows from the authors' heart - until about page 50 when the food-for-thought turns into the slow drip-feeding of repetition. The key messages and thinking have been provided - so what next? Instead of exploring the holistic nature of these wisdoms in more depth, Kula starts to extol only the virtues of Judaism and completely ignores the other religious wisdoms. Given the tension in the USA between Chrtistianity and Islam, this oversight is difficult to comprehend given the opportunity to explore commonalities. More so when Kula's agenda appears to change by page 100 to one of personal opinion based on his rather smug recollection of his own counselling successes with friends and colleagues, rather than exploring other authors' work or other religious texts to endorse his views. Kula's personal biography starts to dominate from then on and the writing descends into a polarised, opinionated and sometimes hypochritical journalism. For example, having jumped onto the 'age of consiouness' bandwagon with his own seminars, he critices self-help books and life-coaching ( "As if life were a game" he says). There is a flavour of self-service here - the list of other authors' work in the back of his book is never referenced in the text so neither the other religions nor other authors appear to get any credit for the insight in this book. In summary, the right intentions were here I am sure, but Kula seams to have fallen foul of his personal agenda for self-promotion, and - although open and honest - crafting a rather smug view of his own childhood, parenting and councelling experiences at the expense of the broader brush.