Cliff-notes for Chabad Teachings

By COLlive reporter

Nearly a decade in the making, a ground-breaking new book arrives just in time for the upcoming Jewish new year.

Jewish Living Simply Explained (hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-1891293290, The Jewish Learning Group) summarizes over a hundred core Chabad teachings that explain and inspire Jewish faith and observance.

It was written by Rabbi Zalman Goldstein, award-winning author of The Complete Shabbat Table Companion, Going Kosher in 30 Days and The Rabbis Companion and Rabbi Michoel A. Seligson, author of the Complete Index to the Rebbe’s Talks and Annotated Hayom Yom.

Designed to present all necessary information on a single page, making it accessible and relevant to people on all levels, the results have drawn praise from top Jewish scholars and authors alike.

“Finally! An amazingly clear and comprehensive work that can serve as a wonderful resource for every home, school, and Chabad House worldwide,” said world-renowned Chassidic scholar, author and lecturer Rabbi Manis Friedman.

“There’s a lot of wisdom packed into this well-written and clearly organized book,” noted Rabbi Simon Jacobson, author of Toward a Meaningful Life and dean of The Meaningful Life Center. And Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, author of Permission to Believe and Permission to Receive, called it “the most concise, eloquent, and broad guide about Jewish life and belief through the lens of Chabad teachings ever produced in English.”

Written in a simple and easy-to-understand language, the 184-page beautifully designed large-format book is geared for individuals of all backgrounds and covers an extraordinarily wide selection of oft-questioned and discussed topics.
Creation, Age of the Universe, Jewish History, Torah and Mitzvot, Reward and Punishment and The Purpose of the Jew, plus dozens of topics surrounding lifecycles, the Jewish home, life and culture, Jewish holidays, and more, provide plenty of engaging and educational reading for everyone.

“The breadth of subjects treated in this deceptively small, yet masterful work is simply staggering!” said acclaimed Chassidic lecturer and writer Rabbi Shais Taub.

Rabbi Goldstein, who over the past 25 years has written over a dozen introductory books on areas of Jewish interest, stated that his goal was to organize a comprehensive collection of key ideas about Jewish faith and observance as enlightened by Chabad Chassidut and to present them in an easily-digestible manner.

Laboring over each page was painstaking and difficult, explained Goldstein, taking him more than eight years to complete the work. His meticulous efforts are clearly reflected in the final results, as well as in the 7+ hour professionally narrated audiobook companion (available on Audible.com).

“Writing a book on a single topic seems easy now compared to writing one on more than 130 individual topics,” Goldstein said. “Ensuring the accuracy of what’s presented for each topic weighed most on my pen, but at the end it was Rabbi Seligson’s authoritative encyclopedic knowledge of Chabad Chassidus that enabled the project to come to fruition and deserves much of the credit.”

Rabbi Seligson commented that a project of this scope was long overdue and that he is certain that Jewish Living Simply Explained will become a widespread resource not only for individuals but also for schools, synagogues, and Chabad Houses around the world.

Drawn from the vast body of works of all the Rebbes of Chabad, Jewish Living Simply Explained will definitely engage, educate, and inspire readers from all backgrounds. A concise bottom-line, plus an extensive list of follow-up references round out this encyclopedic collection that can be read in minutes, yet inspire for a lifetime.

Bestselling author and columnist Dennis Prager called the new book a concise “Encyclopedia Chabadiana,” and author of Rebbe and Jewish Literacy, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, noted that readers will learn a lot “and no less important, have a wonderful time while doing so.”

Finally, noted Jewish scholar and book reviewer par-excellence, Mrs. Chana Silberstein, Ph.D., called Jewish Living Simply Explained a veritable Wikipedia of Chabad thought and the first “go-to” source for understanding an aspect of Jewish living or learning through the wisdom of Chassidic thinking. “It will prove just as useful to a Rabbi or Rebbetzin looking for a practical and simple way to introduce a new concept to a student,” she said.

Jewish Living Simply Explained is available at your favorite bookstore, as well as on Audible, Kindle, Apple Bookstore, and at www.JewishLearningGroup.com.