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A Cobbler's Journey into the Dreamworld and Beyond...

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KIRKUS REVIEW for The Righteous One
This second installment of a religious thriller series stars a humble cobbler.
Gordon's novel continues the story of the legendary tzaddik, a group of 36 pious and supernaturally gifted Jews who always exist in the world in a kind of mystical balance with their evil counterparts, the rasha.

Moshe the cobbler, a humorous and unassuming worker in New York, is a tzaddik, the son of a man named Pincus Potasznik, who founded a group called the Landsman Society of Krzywcza.

For years, New York City Councilman Arnold Lieberman has been searching for the son of Pincus in order to recruit him in the age-old fight against the rasha, here in the form of a Bronx-based Jewish gangster named Solomon Blass and his ruthless son, Myron.

Only a teenager in the first book, Moshe is now 60 years old and decidedly non-heroic in his daily routine. But Lieberman is persistent, and soon Moshe is embroiled in a battle that sprawls over the real world and the dream realm.

Gordon writes all of this in a smoothly controlled narrative that's equally adept at both the small, personal details--each main character is well shaped and the bad guys are every bit as three-dimensional as the good guys--and the larger philosophical tapestry inscribed with the minutiae of the cabala. "In order to connect with the Light, we must learn how to face the Opposition, the source of life's challenges," readers are told at one point. "The uninitiated at first cringe at this term. However in order to achieve authentic spiritual growth, the Opposition must not be feared, instead it must be accepted as a blessing from the Creator."

Throughout the enjoyable sequel, the author playfully overlays the quotidian New York reality onto a dramatic supernatural backdrop whose existence most ordinary people never suspect. This second volume can easily be read independent of the first.
An entertaining, thought-provoking fantasy in which a plainspoken protagonist is enlisted in a war.

Summary of The Righteous One

Moshe the cobbler, is a gentle, sixty-year-old tzaddik—a righteous and saintly Jew—who is called upon to rekindle his divine connection to the Almighty in order to destroy the notorious New York gangster and rasha Solomon Blass, a man who uses his power of foreseeing events via his vivid dreams to advance his own financial interests. 

While Solomon and his son, Myron, seek to control much of Manhattan—its biggest businesses, its police department, and its city government—they find themselves embroiled in conflict with numerous powerful people from both their waking life and the dream world, where Moshe has begun training with the descendants of an ancient mystical spirit for his inevitable confrontation with Solomon.

As the final battle approaches, the divide between good and evil becomes ever clearer and each character faces the consequences of his past, present, and future actions. Will Solomon’s wily tenacity prevail, or will Moshe be strong enough to destroy the rasha’s wicked soul?

A page-turning peak into the journey of consciousness through the experience of lucid dreaming and how such dreams can influence us all. Ideal for anyone captivated by spiritualism, intrigue, gangsters and more.

Summary of Thunder Falls

Thunder Falls chronicles the transformation of Leopold Wolf from a naïve young man into a well-traveled and outspoken advocate for Native American rights. Leo and his father work for the Carlisle Indian School, a notoriously harsh institution governed by the mantra—Kill the Indian, Save the Man. At the school, Leo witnesses the abuse, neglect, and victimization of the children in his care and subsequently develops a deep sense of empathy and resolves to help them gain equality.

After Leo’s first year as a school counselor, he travels to the Pine Ridge reservation in southern Dakota Territory, where he is told by the Lakota elder and holy man—Black Elk, that he is to journey into the Black Hills and find the Sacred Pipe, which had been stolen by bandits.

On the journey, Leo learns more about the history and beliefs of the Lakota people and witnesses extraordinary phenomena that help him piece together the trauma of losing his mother with the questions he has about his own identity. It is within the caverns of the Black Hills where he encounters the Red Wolf, Thunder Falls and the Soul Tree. This self-discovery gives him the strength to pursue his love—Sarah Cameron, daughter of Senator Cameron, the novel's antagonist, across the country, while experiencing Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and risking his own safety to advocate for the well-being of the people he has come to care for.