Fragments of a Future Scroll

The 50th anniversary edition of a paradigm-shifting work by one of the most important Jewish figures in postwar America.

By the time of his death, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (1924–2014), also known as Reb Zalman, had transformed the landscape of Judaism in America. The son of liberal Hasidic Jews, a Holocaust refugee, and a devoted Lubavitcher Hasid, Reb Zalman eventually left the traditional Hasidic fold and committed himself to seeding a mystical Jewish renaissance. An active participant in the counterculture and New Age movements, Reb Zalman began experimenting with different forms of Jewish ritual and contemplative practice—and their intersection with other spiritual traditions—ultimately founding the Jewish Renewal movement.

Fragments of a Future Scroll, Reb Zalman's first book, was originally published by a small press in 1975 and, until now, was long out of print. A truly unique book—or "anti-book," as Shaul Magid refers to it in his new introductory essay—Fragments gathers Reb Zalman's first idiosyncratic attempts at articulating a renewed "Hasidism for the Aquarian Age," envisioning Judaism's evolving place and role within an emergent "planetary consciousness." This wild text presents an electrifying weave of sparks, flashes, stories, teachings, and ecstatically lyrical translations of traditional Jewish sources—"spiritual sheet music," as Reb Zalman called it. Full of boundary-breaking wisdom and crackling poetic oddity, Fragments of a Future Scroll is a book for people from all religious and spiritual traditions who are looking to experience the world—and consciousness itself—anew.

This historic 50th anniversary edition presents an updated version of the original text, alongside essays by four contemporary Jewish thinkers—Rabbi Shaul Magid, Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Rav Jericho Vincent, and Arthur Kurzweil—reflecting on Reb Zalman's enormous impact, and guiding contemporary readers into his paradigm-shifting worldview.