In the book Jew­ish Dhar­ma: A Guide to the Prac­tice of Judaism and Zen, Dr. Bren­da Shoshan­na demon­strates that a sole reli­gious path need not be the only option. A Bor­ough Park, Brook­lyn born Jew raised in the Ortho­dox tra­di­tion, the author expe­ri­enced a uni­ver­sal sense of curios­i­ty from an ear­ly age which put her at odds with her grand­par­ents and com­mu­ni­ty. She under­stood the rea­son for the exis­tence and need of basic Jew­ish con­cepts such as Mitzvot or Minyan, but all of the tenets didn’t res­onate with her. Shoshan­na went in search of clar­i­ty and found that many of the prac­tices asso­ci­at­ed with the East­ern reli­gion of Zen Bud­dhism helped to bring the big­ger pic­ture into focus. 

Fol­low­ing the death of her father, the author was com­pelled to revis­it Judaism and found that her pas­sion­ate spark had been rekin­dled. Real­iz­ing that she drew spir­i­tu­al nour­ish­ment, edu­ca­tion, and mean­ing from both reli­gions she began to look at the ways in which the out­ward­ly dis­parate prac­tices were sim­i­lar. Whether chant­i­ng a prayer with a rab­bi in a syn­a­gogue or assum­ing a med­i­ta­tive state of zazen with a Zen mas­ter in the zen­do, Shoshan­na makes it refresh­ing­ly clear that noth­ing is cut and dry when it comes to reli­gion. Find­ing the cor­rect for­mu­la to ful­fill the spir­i­tu­al soul’s needs can come in any num­ber of guis­es includ­ing a cus­tom made combination.