Laura Duhan-Kaplan – författare

How do religious traditions create strangers and neighbors? How do they construct otherness? Or, instead, work to overcome it? In this exciting collection of interdisciplinary essays, scholars and activists from various traditions explore these questions. Through legal and media studies, they reveal how we see religious others. They show that Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Sikh texts frame others in open-ended ways. Conflict resolution experts and Hindu teachers, they explain, draw on a shared positive psychology. Jewish mystics and Christian contemplatives use powerful tools of compassionate perception. Finally, the authors explain how Christian theology can help teach respectful views of difference. They are not afraid to discuss how religious groups have alienated one another. But, together, they choose to draw positive lessons about future cooperation.

Join author Laura Duhan-Kaplan in the Kabbalah practice of Sefirat ha''Omer, a forty-nine-day program of spiritual reflection. Rabbi Laura weaves Kabbalah, philosophy, psychology, and her own experiences of love and loss into a series of daily reflections. She invites readers to explore the meaning of love, boundaries, beauty, endurance, gratitude, grounding, and presence. With a mix of stories and ideas, she helps readers find Shechinah, a divine archetypal mother, in the intimacy of ordinary life.

Global challenges fill the news today. It''s not always easy to balance fear with hope. That''s why this book points to resources for optimism and action. A diverse group of scholars draw on Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Māori traditions to describe challenges and hopes. They recognize the ruptures of militarism, trauma, colonialism, religious nationalism, climate change, and more. But they also describe the healing power of communal action, spiritual practices, biblical literature, and the arts.

Multireligious Reflections on Friendship: Becoming Ourselves in Community presents a multi-religious discussion of spiritual and ethical formation through friendship. Contributors discuss the positive effects of friendship and some of the culturally diverse ways that friendships develop. Friends help us co-exist in diverse societies, live sustainably in our ecosystems, heal from trauma, develop inner virtues, engage wisely in social action, and connect with the divine. While friendship is a core human value, cultural traditions have used different tools to build friendships. For example, Indigenous communities emphasize reciprocity on the land; Jewish traditions encourage respect for study partners; Buddhist teachers suggest discernment in befriending; Christian texts speak of bringing God’s love into community. The fifteen scholars contributing to this book draw on the teachings of six different global traditions: Indigenous, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian. Each scholar applies the tools of their tradition—reciprocity, respect, discernment, love, and more—to discuss how we might become our best selves in community.

The Hebrew Bible is filled with animals. Snakes and ravens share meals with people; donkeys and sheep work alongside us; eagles and lions inspire us; locusts warn us. How should we read their stories? What can they teach us about ecology, spirituality, and ethics? Author Laura Duhan-Kaplan explores these questions, weaving together biology, Kabbalah, rabbinic midrash, Indigenous wisdom, modern literary methods, and personal experiences. She re-imagines Jacob''s sheep as family, Balaam''s donkey as a spiritual director, Eve''s snake as a misguided helper. Finally, Rabbi Laura invites metaphorical eagles, locusts, and mother bears to help us see anew, confront human violence, and raise children who live peacefully on the land.