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Press Release 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  David E. Behrman
          800-221-2755

Rabbi David Wolpe Releases New Book

Springfield, NJ - After six years away from the literary scene, Rabbi David J. Wolpe has returned with a remarkable collection of intellectually powerful and thoughtful essays--the best of his five years of writing for the New York Jewish Week. Floating Takes Faith: Ancient Wisdom For a Modern World (Behrman House, 2004) will appear for the first time in August at the CAJE Conference at Hofstra University, where Rabbi Wolpe will deliver the keynote address.

Wolpe explores Jewish tradition as it has shaped his own life experiences--as the grandson of an immigrant, as a student of world history, and as a person living a Jewish life in a diverse and evolving society. Drawing on the insights of sources as diverse as Robert Frost, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Lily Tomlin, and Ernest Hemingway, Wolpe brings together a remarkably varied group of writers and thinkers, combining their insights with his own into a series of keen and penetrating observations about the world in which we live.

Wolpe focuses his spiritual and intellectual microscope on such unlikely companions as Louis XIV and King David, Beowulf and Ezekiel. Paradoxically, it is his keen eye for details such as the books in his father's library, and the observations of physicist Richard Feynman on the sources of creativity, that allow him to offer us a broad, panoramic view of our world. He creates a bridge between the lessons of these literary and historical figures, together with the lessons from his own life, and the modern American Jewish experience.

David Wolpe is the author of five previous books, including the bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times. As Rabbi of Temple Sinai in Los Angeles, he is the creator of the wildly popular and innovative service "Friday Night Live," which draws thousands of worshippers to downtown Los Angeles for Shabbat Services. He is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers on subjects of Jewish and general interest, including Newsweek, USA Today, and The New York Times. Rabbi Wolpe is also a frequent television guest, having made appearances on PBS, CNN, and CBS This Morning.

Behrman House is a publisher of general and educational Judaica. Founded in 1921, the firm has previously published such well-known titles as My People by Abba Eban, As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg, and Hitler's War Against the Jews by Lucy Dawidowicz.


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