Disillusions, A Book Review

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer, The Real New World Order by Yemima Bakol manages to be both a very serious philosophical and theological book mostly about Judaism, but light, fun and easy reading, too. Now, that is a very amazing accomplishment. It certainly helps that it's short, less than two hundred 200 pages, and divided into chapters.

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order is a fresh, even fun (and quirky!) approach to learning Torah, equally for the ben-Torah as for the ba’al teshuva. While the story’s framework is essentially an answer to two international bestsellers, Richard Bach’s 1977 Illusions and Dr. Stephen Hawking’s 1988 A Brief History of Time, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order is an easy-flowing, novel-form narrative that brings together most of the central spiritual concepts of Torah. Restaging and recasting Bach’s two characters as Aryeh Lieb and Dan Shimon, though not requiring the reader to have read either addressed books, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order redefines the concept of illusions, as are other spiritual precepts, but according to Torah. The characters embark on a mind-stretching, mental and spiritual challenge that is uplifting and inspirational, as they explore and define the “navigational” tools Torah gives us to raise our consciousness and direct us toward the upcoming Geula, being Hashem’s New World Order...

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer is made up of a series of connected events and conversations about life and faith and Gd. Normally I don't read any philosophy, but this book wasn't hard to get into. All that was missing was a glossary, since many of the words and terms would be incompressible for its potential readership. Even though I have been living a Torah observant life for over half a century, I'm still very sensitive to the differences in everyday language, or I try to be. Sometimes we say things that are perfectly clear to us in the Torah observant World and forget that the word usage makes no sense to others.

On the whole, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer, The Real New World Order is a delightful book and can be enjoyed on many levels. Excerpts of Yemima Bakol's book can also be used to stimulate discussion.

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: Targum Press, Incorporated; 1 edition (November 13, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568716435
• ISBN-13: 978-1568716435
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)