Toward a Meaningful Life: The Wisdom of the Sages » (First Edition)

For fourteen years Rabbi Simon Jacobson was responsible for publishing the talks of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. A widely traveled and prolific public speaker, Rabbi Jacobson lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is the founder of the Meaningful Life Center, which builds bridges between the secular and spiritual and helps people discover the deeper meaning of their lives based on the three-thousand-year-old wisdom of the sages.

With a new foreword and chapter that address the upheaval that followed the events of September 11, this revised edition of Toward a Meaningful Life traces the root causes of our fear and uncertainty and lucidly outlines strategies for recovery and redemption. Profound yet accessible to readers of all backgrounds and beliefs, Toward a Meaningful Life provides comfort and renewed hope, showing us how to find solace even as we endure overwhelming suffering and inexplicable loss.

Toward a Meaningful Life is a spiritual road map for living based on the teachings of one of the foremost religious leaders of our time: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Head of the Lubavitcher movement for forty-four years and recognized throughout the world simply as "the Rebbe," Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in June 1994, was a sage and visionary of the highest order.

Although the Rebbe's teachings are firmly anchored in more than three thousand years of scholarship, the urgent relevance of these age-old truths to contemporary life has never been more manifest. The principles the Rebbe derived from the sages embody a distinctly universal message, calling for humankind at all times to lead productive and virtuous lives, and for unity among all peoples and all nations. The new chapter, "Upheaval and Change," guides us through the challenges of the new millennium.

Toward a Meaningful Life gives modern readers — even the most secular — fresh perspectives on every aspect of their lives, from everyday cares to the most profound crisis of the soul. The book brings the Rebbe's perspective to the full range of life's cycles — birth to death, youth to old age; marriage, love, intimacy, and family; the persistent issues of career, health, pain, and suffering; and education, faith, science, and government. We learn to bridge the divisions between accelerated technology and decelerated morality, between unprecedented worldwide unity and unparalleled personal disunity.

At the threshold of a new world where matter and spirit converge — an age of knowledge and information — Toward a Meaningful Life proposes spiritual principles that unite people as opposed to the materialism that divides them. Guided by the wisdom of the sages, readers discover that we are indispensable and can and must make our unique indelible marks n our common future. A true leader, the Rebbe continues to lead us toward personal and universal redemption, toward a meaningful life, and toward God.

Publishers Weekly

Prompted by the devastation wreaked on September 11 to again reflect on the challenges life presents, Jacobson has submitted a revised edition of his 1995 volume, which shares wisdom gleaned from his lifelong religious teacher and mentor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, fondly known as the Rebbe to his Lubavitch followers and as a Torah luminary to Jews around the world. Divided into three sections-Man, Society, and G-d-and including the addition of a new chapter, "Upheaval and Change," Jacobson offers readers spiritual nourishment to help them experience personal fulfillment and continual growth. Each chapter begins with quotes from scripture and the Rebbe: "The world says that time is money; I say that time is life," the Rebbe opined, and "We are the seventh generation, the one that will actualize G-d's reality on this earth." To best demonstrate the Rebbe's insights, Jacobson offers anecdotes that stress the importance and accessibility of each idea, as well as its ultimate reward. Perceptive and thought-provoking, this compilation of the Rebbe's thoughts and themes can be as useful to the reader previously acquainted with the Rebbe and Torah thought as to the novice. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.