Today it is my pleasure to welcome Yonason Goldson, author of Proverbial Beauty; Secrets For Success and Happiness From the Wisdom of the Ages to Celticlady's Reviews
Author Bio -- Yonason Goldson
Try to imagine a marriage between King Solomon and the Mona Lisa. Now try to imagine that Malcolm Gladwell had written Chicken Soup for the Soul. If you succeed, you’ll have some insight into the imagination of Yonason Goldson.
The former hitchhiker, circumnavigator, and newspaper columnist took the long road to the rabbinate, visiting 20 countries and 30 states before settling in Israel for nine years to study the intricacies of the Talmud and Jewish philosophy. He now lives with his wife in St. Louis, where he teaches, writes, and lectures to a variety of audiences on contemporary issues, current events, education, childraising, history, and spiritual growth.
Graduating from the University of California with a degree in English and no plan for the future, Yonason took off on a hitchhiking adventure across the United States. He ended up in Key West, working for a company that transported boats seized by the Coast Guard for drug trafficking to the customs docks in northern Florida.
His travels eventually led him to the other side of the Atlantic to backpack across Europe before making his way to Israel, where he rediscovered the ancient wisdom of his Jewish heritage. Since receiving his rabbinic ordination, he taught high school first in Budapest, Hungary, then in Atlanta, Georgia, and currently in St. Louis, Missouri.
Yonason began his writing career as an irregular columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, then branched out to a variety of Jewish and secular journals. He has published hundreds of articles and three books, with his fourth due out now -- Proverbial Beauty: Secrets for success and happiness from the wisdom of the ages. Midwest Book Review says that, “Real definitions of love and happiness are provided in a blend of proverbs and analysis that will delight those thinkers who want a lively discourse of possibilities and alternative visions.”
From the author:
I’ve always been fascinated by contradictions: good
and evil, life and death, the body and the spirit. Maybe that’s what drew
me in college to a course of study as impractical as English Literature.
It’s certainly what drew me into the study of the Talmud, and it’s
definitely what has shaped my style as a writer.
But nothing good comes easy. To write anything
worth reading one needs either deep insight or extensive experience… preferably
both. That’s why I set off on the road -- not in search of adventure but
in search of education, the kind I didn’t get in college. In never
imagined what I would see and learn.
I saw how mothers in India maimed their children so they
would become better beggars transposed against the fairy-tale beauty of the Taj
Mahal; I met a poor tea plantation worker in Sri Lanka giddy with pleasure at
having a guest in his hovel; I saw children living in a Manila tenement so
filled with infectious joy that I didn’t want to leave. And, while
hitchhiking, I heard endless narratives from lonely drivers complaining about
their wives, their children, and their jobs. It struck me that the people
with every reason to be unhappy were often much happier than the rest of us.
After all that, it took a long time before the psychological and
emotional dust began to settle.
Eventually, I found that many of the solutions to life’s
problems have been accessible for thousands of years. And they have been
largely ignored for just as long.
My newest book, Proverbial
Beauty, examines the paradoxes of the human heart and mind,
blending the eternal wisdom of King Solomon’s Book of Proverbs with the
timeless symbolism of the Mona Lisa, and incorporating a variety of folktales,
news stories, and historical vignettes to produce a medley of insights and
observations into the secrets of happiness and success.
My earlier books include two anthologies of essays:
A Crucible for Silver offers musings on how to help our children
by adopting healthy outlooks as parents; and Celestial Navigation investigates
the deeper meaning of the Jewish holidays. My major opus to date is Dawn to
Destiny, an overview of Jewish history and philosophy from
Creation through the era of the Talmud, published by Judaica Press.
A free PDF file of the first four chapters of Proverbial
Beauty is available on request. Contact me through my website yonasongoldson.com.
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