Reb Zalman Gathers Figs: A Study of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi's Reading of Biblical Text to Re-Vision Judaism for the Present Day

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi is one of the most important, significant, and influential contemporary Jewish teachers and thinkers. A beloved figure in the larger movement for renewal in Jewish practice, “Reb Zalman” is the inspiration behind the Jewish Renewal movement and its organization, ALEPH.


In the present book, Dana Densmore brings to light an unpublished and nearly unknown set of teachings based on readings of the Torah, which is the sole sustained example of Schachter-Shalomi’s approach to scriptural interpretation, published or unpublished. Densmore has selected and transcribed portions of this work, and provided a commentary and extensive notes. In a final section, Densmore develops the claim that the sort of re-visioning exemplified in these teachings is not only the way Judaism has always worked with its Biblical inheritance but that this sort of process is the key to Judaism’s survival and continued vitality through the ages.