Books in Review

A few years ago I was privileged to spend a week camping and kayaking in the Tebenkoff Bay Wilderness area in Southeast Alaska. The ten participants spent a week in the wilderness, on or next to the water. It was thrilling to wake and fall asleep to the sounds of whales breathing, to hear the bell-like ring of the raven's call, to witness in wonder the power of a bald eagle snatching a salmon from the water. It was almost equally painful to know that while it was comfortable for us, the absence of rain deprived the rivers of their flow, impeding the run of salmon upstream to spawn. The carcasses of the salmon at the mouth of the river were testimony to the degradation of their habitat due to climate change.

The impact of this experience, however, was shaped by the writings of Gary Snyder, poet and environmentalist, that I had read in preparation. In particular, his book The Practice of the Wild invited me to re-vision my place in the natural world; to see where "the wild" exists in me—in my body, in my mind—and where "the wild" and "wildness" exist all around me, even in my urban homescape. As much as being in the wilderness, coming to understand the wildness in me connected me to the web of earthly existence and transformed my thinking and my behavior. It deepened my understanding of my spiritual practices (mindfulness meditation and Jewish religious observance) and focused my attention on how my every act impacts the totality of all existence, has implications for all life.

Most people will not have the chance to kayak in Tebenkoff Bay, nor to visit the great wilderness areas of our country or the world. But all of us live surrounded by areas of different degrees of wildness, and all of them offer opportunities to meet ourselves in our wildness. We are fortunate to have these two books to help us, as guides. For the sake of full disclosure: Mike Comins and I have sat in meditation and studied together for over ten years in different contexts, and I know personally how deeply rooted his teachings are in his very being.

A Wild Faith is grounded in practice: Jewish religious practice, mindfulness practice, outdoor and wilderness practice. Mike Comins brings a rich and varied background to his teaching. In his rabbinic training he sought to ground himself in Western and Jewish philosophy and theology, and he roots his teaching in Bible and kabbalah as well as in the work of contemporary theologians (e.g. Buber, Heschel). He is also a certified Israeli tour guide; a life-long back-packer and outdoors enthusiast; and mindfulness, Tai Chi and yoga practitioner. All of these fields of knowledge and practice are employed to invite the "wilderness Jew" to recognize his wilderness experiences in the texts and traditions of Jewish life and to help the "religious Jew" renew and revive traditional Jewish practice. Mike never allows one realm—the outdoors or Jewish teaching and practices—to outshine the other. Each has something to offer the other; each needs something from the other.

Comins offers the following as key Jewish concepts and practices by which he frames his experiences in the wilderness, and through those experiences deepens awareness and practice: Kedushah (Holiness); Tikkun (Transformation); B'rit (Covenant); Devekut (Cleaving) and Teshuvah (Repentance). These terms and experiences weave through the book. But the greater emphasis is on a series of exercises to be practiced in the wilderness (or in anticipation of being in the wild), framed in Jewish terms. The book is comprehensive in addressing a large number of spiritual practices, and engaging in and challenging them from a Jewish perspective. The voice is personal, engaging and inviting. The first of the four appendices is titled "But Rabbi, is this Jewish?" There he grapples (again) with...