Illumination the Generations by Rabbi Hillel Goldberg

Autographed Edition: Illumination the Generations by Rabbi Hillel Goldberg -- From the middos of the patriarchs and the matriarchs to the Musar thinkers of our time....

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg is a scholar, a poet of the soul, a professor, a journalist, a historian. Most of all, he is a student of Musar masters and their teaching, and an inspiring and inspired personification of what they represented.

In this beautifully written book, Goldberg explores the tradition of ethical thought the lives and personalities of those who lived and taught it. He delves into the personalities of great men, and goes a step further. He draws parallel between their lives and those of the historic Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Jewish history. The result is an unusual combination of commentary, anecdote, and insight, blended and presented by a writer of unusual grace and skill.

The Musar Movement was hardly a "movement" in the usual sense of the word. it never swept countries and embraced millions of people. Musar developed the ability of individuals to peer into themselves and find a spark that could be nurtured into a glow that would illuminate themselves and anyone else who cared to expose himself to it.

It is an aspiration that transcends time. Is the modern, frenetic, Westernized world conducive to such introspection? Many people think not. Hillel Goldberg shows that it is.

He takes us by the hand -- indeed by the heart -- and introduces us to people we know only as legends (and to some we never heard of at all) and brings them alive. He makes us feel their warm smile, their friendly hand, the agony of their ascent, the wisdom of their counsel, the exaltation of their self-effacing example.

This is a book to read for sheer beauty of its writing. I is book to treasure for the richness of its content.

Taken from the Preface and Acknowledgements: "As it Were" The lives of the seven Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Judaism are favorite subjects of Musar thought. Since Musar concentrates on the perfection of personality, people who closely approach perfection occupy musar thinkers. Since the seven founders of Judaism serve as role models for all Jew, they be studied, analyzed, and emulated........

Picture above: Rabbi Hillel Goldberg stops by Aharon's Jewish Books and Judaica, Denver, Colorado