A third of our time on earth is spent sleeping, yet our dreams, if we remember them at all, have been relegated to nothing more than curious anecdotes. When Sigmund Freud awakened modern interest in the dream a century ago, his theory of interpretation undermined the potential insights dreams had to offer. For Freud, dreams were little more than fragmented puzzle parts made up of events from our waking lives. Most of us today still live under Freud's far-reaching influence. When we wake up after experiencing a powerful series of images, we too readily explain them away or simply ignore them all together. Whatever emotion or insight the dream evokes slowly fades. But what if Freud was wrong? Unless we challenge his deeply-ingrained assumptions, we will forever lose the gift of our dreams.
International bestselling author Rodger Kamenetz believes it is not too late to reclaim the lost power of our nightly visions. Kamenetz's exploration of the world of dreams reopens all the questions scientists and psychologists claimed to have settled long ago. The culmination of decades of research, The History of Last Night's Dream is a riveting intellectual and cultural investigation of dreams and what they have to teach us. We discover how the age-old struggle between what we dream and how we interpret our dreams has shaped Western culture from biblical times to today. Kamenetz introduces us to an eighty-seven-year-old female kabbalist in Jerusalem, a suave Tibetan Buddhist dream teacher in Copenhagen, and a crusty intuitive postman-turned-dream master in northern Vermont. He fearlessly delves into this mysterious inner realm and shows us that dreams are not only intensely meaningful but that they hold essential truths about who we are. In the end, each of us has the choice to embark on this illuminating path to the soul. But one thing is certain: our dreams will never be the same again.

The History of Last Night's Dream: Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Kamenetz, Rodger

Alternative Medicine

HarperOne

The highly acclaimed author of The Jew in the Lotus turns his attention to his own rich and diverse tradition to understand what it means to live spiritually as a Jew.
The Jew in the Lotus found Rodger Kamenetz in Dharamsala, India, witnessing an historic dialogue between rabbis and the Dalai Lama. That highly charged visit blasted open Kamenetz's view of what it means to be a practicing Jew and launched him on a six-year journey to find and learn from the teachers who are revitalizing the ancient spiritual practices of Judaism. In Stalking Elijah, Kamenetz takes us along for the ride. 
Whether exploring the old tradition for its meditative silences or hearing the new Kabbalah being created by today's women, whether welcoming the Sabbath bride with Jewish drug addicts and convicts in the slums of West L.A. or practicing the Hasidic method of "calling out" to God while driving the San Bernadino freeway, Kamenetz will provoke and inspire readers to dig down for the richness of their own spiritual traditions and introduce them to the amazing new landscape of Jewish practice.
A fun and profoundly moving account of one man's search for a deeper Jewish practice, Stalking Elijah will be coveted by all those who loved The Jew in the Lotus and conscientiously studied by everyone curious about the Jewish path to the inner life.

Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Master

Religion & Spirituality

Judaism

Rodger Kamenetz continues the dazzling spiritual adventures he began in The Jew in the Lotus, his bestselling account of the historical dialogue between rabbis and the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. In Stalking Elijah, Kamenetz takes his wild mind on the road, seeking the counsel of spiritual teachers across the country as he searches for his own Jewish truth. Entertaining, illuminating, and deeply moving, Stalking Elijah takes us all on a remarkable journey through the new landscape of Jewish practice.

Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Masters

"A highly entertaining personal account of one man's surprising journey into the mystical heart of Judaism."--Kirkus Reviews

The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Re-Discovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

"A highly entertaining personal account of one man's surprising journey into the mystical heart of Judaism."--Kirkus Reviews

The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India

Harpercollins

Our Dreams Will Never Be the Same Again
International bestselling author Rodger Kamenetz believes it is not too late to reclaim the lost power of our nightly visions. He fearlessly delves into this mysterious inner realm and shows us that dreams are not only intensely meaningful, but hold essential truths about who we are. In the end, each of us has the choice to embark on this illuminating path to the soul.

While accompanying eight high–spirited Jewish delegates to Dharamsala, India, for a historic Buddhist–Jewish dialogue with the Dalai Lama, poet Rodger Kamenetz comes to understand the convergence of Buddhist and Jewish thought. Along the way he encounters Ram Dass and Richard Gere, and dialogues with leading rabbis and Jewish thinkers, including Zalman Schacter, Yitz and Blue Greenberg, and a host of religious and disaffected Jews and Jewish Buddhists. 
 This amazing journey through Tibetan Buddhism and Judaism leads Kamenetz to a renewed appreciation of his living Jewish roots.

The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India (Plus)

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Ter'ra in'fir'ma, n. 1. Shaky ground. 2. The uneasy shared territory of love and painful separation that defines mother and son. 3. The border between life and death. 4. The precariously emotional place in which we are left after the death of a parent. 5. The mythic terrain a boy passes through on the way to becoming a man. 6. The material from which a writer must craft his story. "Inside a mother, each of us begins a dream," writes Rodger Kamenetz. Actually, two: a mother's dream for her child, and the dream that will become a person. For Kamenetz, crossing the terra infirma--the place where the two collide--was not easy: his mother was a difficult woman who had loved her family with a tyrannical passion. Only as she was losing her battle with cancer at age fifty-four could her son begin to take the essential first step toward becoming a man, thereby fulfilling both of their dreams. Rich with humor and insight, Terra Infirma is a deeply moving account of one man's spiritual passage to the firmer ground of maturity and self-understanding.

Terra Infirma: A Memoir of My Mother's Life in Mine

Self-Help

Death & Grief

Schocken

Ter'ra in'fir'ma, n. 1. Shaky ground. 2. The uneasy shared territory of love and painful separation that defines mother and son. 3. The border between life and death. 4. The precariously emotional place in which we are left after the death of a parent. 5. The mythic terrain a boy passes through on the way to becoming a man. 6. The material from which a writer must craft his story. "Inside a mother, each of us begins a dream," writes Rodger Kamenetz. Actually, two: a mother's dream for her child, and the dream that will become a person. For Kamenetz, crossing the terra infirma--the place where the two collide--was not easy: his mother was a difficult woman who had loved her family with a tyrannical passion. Only as she was losing her battle with cancer at age fifty-four could her son begin to take the essential first step toward becoming a man, thereby fulfilling both of their dreams. Rich with humor and insight, Terra Infirma is a deeply moving account of one man's spiritual passage to the firmer ground of maturity and self-understanding.

Terra Infirma : A Memoir of My Mother's Life in Mine

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Part of the Jewish Encounter series Rodger Kamenetz, acclaimed author of The Jew in the Lotus, has long been fascinated by the mystical tales of the Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. And for many years he has taught a course in Prague on Franz Kafka. The more he thought about their lives and writings, the more aware he became of unexpected connections between them. Kafka was a secular artist fascinated by Jewish mysticism, and Rabbi Nachman was a religious mystic who used storytelling to reach out to secular Jews. Both men died close to age forty of tuberculosis. Both invented new forms of storytelling that explore the search for meaning in an illogical, unjust world. Both gained prominence with the posthumous publication of their writing. And both left strict instructions at the end of their lives that their unpublished books be burnt. Kamenetz takes his ideas on the road, traveling to Kafka’s birthplace in Prague and participating in the pilgrimage to Uman, the burial site of Rabbi Nachman visited by thousands of Jews every Jewish new year. He discusses the hallucinatory intensity of their visions and offers a rich analysis of Nachman’s and Kafka’s major works, revealing uncanny similarities in the inner lives of these two troubled and beloved figures, whose creative and religious struggles have much to teach us about the significant role played by the imagination in the Jewish spiritual experience.

Burnt Books: Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and Franz Kafka (Jewish Encounters Series)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kamenetz, Rodger. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kamenetz, Rodger

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kamenetz, Rodger. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The History of Last Night's Dream: Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul

Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Master

Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today's Jewish Mystical Masters

The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Re-Discovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India

The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India

The History of Last Night's Dream: Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul

The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India (Plus)

Terra Infirma: A Memoir of My Mother's Life in Mine

Terra Infirma : A Memoir of My Mother's Life in Mine

Burnt Books: Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and Franz Kafka (Jewish Encounters Series)