| Synopsis: This book describes how an academic field study by an anthropologist became transformed into a spiritual quest in which the author found a gate behind the wall of his resistances to Torah study. It has been described as way to take the readers to places where they might never get themselves. The setting is Jerusalem, in the alleyways and study halls where tradition reigns supreme.
From the Publisher
When Samuel Heilman took a sabbatical from teaching sociology to spend time in Jerusalem, he did not know that it would become a personal pilgrimage. "Not until I had been to Jerusalem and observed and joined in the act of lernen the Talmud would I be able to discover its centrality to my own Jewish existence," Heilman writes. "What had begun by engaging the social scientist in me would end by awakening the Jew." As he met with Talmudic scholars, with mystics and preachers, and with the ordinary people of Jerusalem, Heilman sensed the opening of the gate in his wall of resistance to the past. While studying the holy books he had previously put aside in the name of science, he breached the boundaries of time and place and discovered a spirit that linked his modern world with his ancient heritage.
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