The Closing Of The Gates

Download or read book The Closing of the Gates written by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: N’ilah, “the closing of the gates” is, in many ways, the most anticipated worship service in the entire Jewish calendar. Coming at the end of the 24-hour fast that characterizes Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement), it symbolizes the days of old when the gates of the ancient Temple closed at last, and with them, the last chance for prayers of atonement and reconciliation with God and with others. Nowadays, the synagogue service that replaced the Temple cult marks the occasion with heightened fervor: the only time all year when the gates of the ark that houses the Torah scroll remain open throughout the service; telltale melodies accompany the occasion; a final blast of the shofar (the ram’s horn) symbolizes the end of the fast and the new beginning that follows; special prayers celebrate the human capacity to create a life that matters beyond our own mortality -- and the presence of God who “reaches out a hand” to invite us into the new Jewish year that N’ilah’s final shofar blast inaugurates. All of this is the topic for volume eight in “Prayers of Awe,” the series devoted to exploring the depth of the Jewish High Holy Days. As with prior volumes, this one too comes with introductory essays on the history, theology, and deeper meaning behind the prayer experience. It then assembles some 40 short and accessible essays designed to unlock the mystery and depth of the occasion. Authors come from all walks of life – clergy and laypeople, scholars and artists, men and women across the generations – and from seven countries (Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Israel, the UK and USA). What music appreciation is to classical music, this series on prayer is to Jewish worship. This volume, in particular, explores Judaism’s timeless message of divine purpose and the ongoing search for meaning in a world of human frailty but also promise.

Download or read book After They Closed the Gates written by Libby Garland and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-03-28 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1921 and 1924, the United States passed laws to sharply reduce the influx of immigrants into the country. By allocating only small quotas to the nations of southern and eastern Europe, and banning almost all immigration from Asia, the new laws were supposed to stem the tide of foreigners considered especially inferior and dangerous. However, immigrants continued to come, sailing into the port of New York with fake passports, or from Cuba to Florida, hidden in the holds of boats loaded with contraband liquor. Jews, one of the main targets of the quota laws, figured prominently in the new international underworld of illegal immigration. However, they ultimately managed to escape permanent association with the identity of the “illegal alien” in a way that other groups, such as Mexicans, thus far, have not. In After They Closed the Gates, Libby Garland tells the untold stories of the Jewish migrants and smugglers involved in that underworld, showing how such stories contributed to growing national anxieties about illegal immigration. Garland also helps us understand how Jews were linked to, and then unlinked from, the specter of illegal immigration. By tracing this complex history, Garland offers compelling insights into the contingent nature of citizenship, belonging, and Americanness.

Download or read book Closing the Gate written by Deb Simpson and published by . This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For most of us, the headlines regarding the Mass Suicide of the 39 "Heaven's Gate" cult members in Rancho Santa Fe, Ca. in 1997 was a sad curiosity. For Author Deb Simpson, it became up close and personal when her now adult, baby brother Jimmy, became collateral damage. She writes with great courage and honesty in examining Jimmy's plight: his dream of a place to call home, his tumble into the world of a cult, and the inevitable downward spiral that his lonely life takes. She causes us to examine and reflect on the crucial developmental years and every child's yearning to belong. Closing the Gate is simply and frankly written. The author pulls you into her story and doesn't let you go. In fact, you will be thinking about this one long after you close the book.

Download or read book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster written by Bill Gates and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

Download or read book Closing Hell's Gates written by Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2008-03-01 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on an elaborate reconstruction of day-to-day life at Macquarie Harbour, one of Australia's most notorious sites of convict punishment, this is the true story of how, in 1827, nine convicts opted for 'state-assisted' escape (the death sen.

Download or read book Closing the Gate written by Andrew Gyory and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred practically all Chinese from American shores for ten years, was the first federal law that banned a group of immigrants solely on the basis of race or nationality. By changing America's traditional policy of open immigration, this landmark legislation set a precedent for future restrictions against Asian immigrants in the early 1900s and against Europeans in the 1920s. Tracing the origins of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Andrew Gyory presents a bold new interpretation of American politics during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Rather than directly confront such divisive problems as class conflict, economic depression, and rising unemployment, he contends, politicians sought a safe, nonideological solution to the nation's industrial crisis--and latched onto Chinese exclusion. Ignoring workers' demands for an end simply to imported contract labor, they claimed instead that working people would be better off if there were no Chinese immigrants. By playing the race card, Gyory argues, national politicians--not California, not organized labor, and not a general racist atmosphere--provided the motive force behind the era's most racist legislation.

Download or read book At America's Gates written by Erika Lee and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2004-01-21 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants. At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a "gatekeeping nation." Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before. Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.