Schwartz: Tree of Souls

“Howard Schwartz offers a resounding rebuttal to the old accusation that the Jews have no mythology: hundreds of myths, in an unbroken line from the Tanakh itself to many new, previously untranslated contemporary retellings from the Middle East and throughout the diaspora. Tree of Souls illuminates the mythic elements of stories previously seen as theological or folkloric. Now properly classified as world mythology, they will for the first time be more accurately compared and contrasted with the foundational myths of other cultures.  This is that rare book that is both a fascinating read for the non-specialist and a turning point for scholarship.”

--Wendy Doniger, author of The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation

“Beyond any of his other books, in Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism Howard Schwartz offers us his masterwork. If only Joseph Campbell had lived to see it. Schwartz has brought the underground streams of midrash to the surface for the delight and edification of his academic as well as his popular readers.”

--Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi, author of Wrapped in a Holy Flame: Teachings and Tales of the Hasidic Masters.

“Under the complex, meaning-rich, and culturally important heading of ‘mythology,’ Howard Schwartz provides a beautifully introduced and annotated collection of essential stories and scenes that help to define Judaism in the classical tradition. Schwartz's careful, erudite method of presentation and his excellent selection of texts reveals fine mastery of the material and the pleasingly comparative orientation of the folklorist.”

--Susan Niditch, author of Ancient Israelite Religion

“Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism promises to shatter the myth that Judaism is mythless. Drawing on primary source texts of the Jewish tradition itself, storyteller Howard Schwartz introduces us to a dimension of this ancient path that has for centuries been overshadowed by attempts at religious-correctness and party-line theology. Jewish mythology, Schwartz demonstrates with ample commentaries, is not only a fact, it is the very kernel out of which grew the deepest of Kabbalistic mystery wisdom as well as the most pragmatic of Jewish law and lore. Clearly, Judaism owes its survival to its mythology, and in Tree of Souls Schwartz invites us to discover the mystique, actually the very life force, of this very ancient religion.”
--Gershon Winkler, author of Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism