@meowzician do you have any recommendations for religious texts or concepts to look into?
Depends what you are looking for. If you want a textbook that gives a broad overview of Jewish practices, holidays, etc. that pretty easy for me to do.
But I suspect that what you are after is the wisdom, something like the Tao Te Ching. There is plenty, all sorts of wonderful stories and proverbs and sayings, but they are all buried within much longer texts. The Torah is five books long. The Tanakh is 24 books (39 in the Protestant Old Testament).. The Artscroll Babylonian Talmud is 73 volumes. And we haven't even started. No, I'm not exaggerating. I suspect we may be the most literary culture on the planet--you are opening Pandora's box.
If you truly want to read Jewish wisdom literature, I have to warn you of something. Our history is full of wonder, beauty, meaning, and the shouldering of moral responsibility; but it is also full of profound suffering. Our wisdom is wisdom born in anguish. If that's not what you want, then I would stay far away from Jewish writings.
Most people want to start with the
Tanakh (What Christians refer to as the Old Testament in the Bible)
- Many of the most classic stories are in Genesis and Exodus (two of the books of the Torah)
- Many begin with the Psalms. Keep in mind that this is a collection of song lyrics. There is a lot of figurative language. And a lot of it is the expression of human emotion--most of the psalms are very inspiring, but sometimes humans can feel depressed and angry and bitter and even vengeful.
- Proverbs is, well, proverbs
- Ecclesiastes is amazing, but many people find it depressing because it is very frank about reality
- Job deals with the problem of unjust suffering and not blaming the victim.
The
Pirkei Avot, "The Sayings of the Fathers" was the first Jewish book I ever read that was not part of the Bible. It was given to me by a Jewish friend when I asked for the same thing you are. Wow, that sure brings back a lot of memories! It has many wonderful sayings in it that you'll find yourself reflecting on, like, "Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it."
Let's talk
mysticism. Kabbalah is going to be too much, and that also excludes a lot of books that are Kabbalah adjacent, but I think you might really enjoy these:
Tzava'at HaRivash -- these are teachings attributed to the Baal Shem Tov
Likutei Moharan -- this is Rebbe Nachman of Breslov's core mystical-homiletic work
Sippurei Ma'asiyot -- this is Rebbe Nachman's mystical tales
Now let's talk
stories.
I don't mean for this to be patronizing in the slightest--as an elementary teacher I read children's books all the time, and not always to my class. LOL (I also still watch Disney princess movies.) My suggestion to anyone who is starting at the very beginning is to find a children's collection of Bible stories. Try Ellen Frankel's Illustrated Children's Bible. It retells
53 stories.
Louis Ginzberg's
Legends of the Jews is a two volume set written for adults. I have not read it, but I asked a friend for a recommendation on your behalf, and this is her favorite.
Let's move to longer works from the
20th century:
Martin Buber's I and Thou
Abraham Joshua Heschel's Man is not Alone -- you will love his concept of radical amazement
Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning
If you enjoy
novels, I highly recommend
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
