Dr. Norman J. Cohen – författare

One simple, powerful word—hineini—contains the key to deepening your relationship with God and with others.

Hineini (Here I am!). This single spoken word appears only fourteen times in the Bible–each time in a memorable and meaningful story: Abraham offering Isaac as a sacrifice to God, Jacob deceiving his father for Esau’s birthright, Moses answering the call that comes from the Burning Bush.

Scholar and popular teacher Norman Cohen explores each of these powerful stories and shows what each can reveal about you as parent, spouse, sibling, lover, and friend. By probing these dynamic biblical relationships, Cohen challenges you to think about the ways you relate to the people in your life and God.

And, to add other fascinating perspectives to the conversation, eleven insightful authors and teachers share personal reflections that exemplify each of the hineini passages.

A brilliant blending of modern midrash and the life stages of Erik Erikson''s developmental psychology. How can the pain, pleasures, and drama of the great characters in Genesis provide insights for our own life journeys? Many of us feel alone in the struggles and triumphs we face during different stages of our lives. Norman Cohen shows how the pathways of our lives are quite similar to those of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekkah, Jacob, Rachel and Leah, and Joseph. Voices from Genesis brings to life the leading figures of Genesis to speak directly to us, telling of their spiritual and emotional journeys, struggles, frustrations, and confusions—from birth to maturity to death—as if they were in conversation with us right now. Combining midrash (finding contemporary meaning from ancient biblical texts) with the developmental psychology insights of Erik Erikson, a twentieth-century psychoanalytic legend, Cohen explores the great characters of Genesis, letting the wisdom of the ancient text resonate with our own modern lives.

Share in the wisdom of the model of leadership—tap into your own potential for greatness

Leaders are not simply born; they are molded through life''s victories and failures, triumphs and defeats. No one exemplifies this process better than Moses, the most important and celebrated character in the Hebrew Bible. Faced with great internal and external challenges, he was sculpted into a great leader not only by circumstance, but also by his own determination and devotion to his people.

In this powerful and probing examination of the enduring texts in the biblical tradition, scholar and popular teacher Dr. Norman Cohen examines Moses’s journey to leadership and what he can teach you about the vision, action and skills you need to be a successful leader. Cohen relives Moses’s development from lonely shepherd to founder of a nation, emphasizing the salient points you can use to enrich the different leadership roles you are called on to play in your daily life, whether it be in business, religion, politics, education or other arenas.

Drawing from Moses’s life, you will learn to:

An accessible introduction to how to read, study, and understand Torah—the Bible and related sacred texts that have grown up around it.

For everyone who wants to understand Torah, this book shows the way into an essential aspect of Judaism, and allows you to interact directly with the sacred texts of the Jewish tradition.

Guided by Dr. Norman J. Cohen, rabbi and professor of midrash at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, The Way Into Torah helps us explore the origins and development of Torah, why it should be studied, and how to do it.

This guide offers an entrance into the world of Torah, and to its meaning for our lives. The Way Into Torah shows us why reading Torah is not the same as reading anything else—and enables us to become a part of a chain of Jewish tradition that began millennia ago, and remains unbroken today.

Our clothes conceal our naked bodies but what do they reveal about our souls?

"Clothes assume a primary importance as a vehicle that suggests character, provides insights into a person''s identity and even governs it…. But the problem is that if Oscar Wilde is correct that ''if you give a man a mask, he will tell you the truth,’ then what exactly conveys the truth? Is it the person him or herself or is it the mask, the clothing that he or she wears, that reveals deeper images of self?"—from the Introduction

In this highly engaging look at clothing and identity in the Bible, renowned teacher and scholar Norman Cohen presents ten Bible stories that involve clothing in an essential way, as a means of learning about the text, its characters and their interactions. But he also shows us how these stories help us confront our own life dramas, our own stories, ourselves. In doing so, he once again presents the Bible as a mirror, reflecting back to us our own personalities, ambivalences, struggles and potential for growth. By helping us uncover the garments of the Bible, Cohen shows us how to shed our own layers of insulation to reveal our authentic selves.

How do I find greater wholeness in my life and in my family’s life?

"To appreciate the importance of the Bible and gain insight about ourselves from it, both Jews and Christians can use the process of midrash: The attempt to find contemporary meaning in the biblical text. The term midrash comes from the Hebrew root darash which means to seek, search, or demand (meaning from the biblical text). The starting point of our search for personal meaning is the Bible itself.… Each generation, each reader, can approach the text anew and draw meaning from it."—from Self, Struggle & Change

The stress of late-20th-century living only brings new variations to timeless personal struggles. The people described by the biblical writers of Genesis were in situations and relationships very much like our own, and their stories still speak to us because they are about the same basic problems we deal with every day.

Learning from Adam and Eve, can we find the courage not only to face our other side, but to draw strength from it? Learning from Leah and Rachel, can we stop competing with our loved ones, and begin to accept them and find ourselves? Sarah, Hagar, Lot, Ishmael and Isaac, Rebekkah, Joseph and his brothers, Jacob and Esau…this vibrant cast of characters offers us new ways of understanding ourselves and our families and healing our lives.

A modern master of biblical interpretation brings us greater understanding of the ancient biblical text, and of the insights its characters give us about ourselves and our families today.

By bringing the people in Genesis to life—husbands and wives, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters— Self, Struggle & Change shows us how to find wholeness in our lives.