A noted motivational teacher introduces a range of soul-healing prescriptions, inspirational teachings, and practical tools to help readers overcome loneliness, identify and embrace their true selves, find fulfillment, and achieve richer, happier, more satifying lives. Rabbi Marc Gafni is a Kabbalist, someone who studies the mystical interpretations of biblical books, handed down over many generations. Through his studies Gafni became fascinated with the power of biblical myths to awaken the soul while also helping us understand our earthly purpose. The more he delved into the Kabbalah, the more he became interested in the individual blueprint of the soul--how each person seemed born to a different soul-driven destiny. "Your soul print is your personal signature," explains Gafni. "It is the contour and content of your soul--it's character.... It is even more singular to you than your genes and chromosomes." In blending his two passions, "soul prints" and myths, Rabbi Gafni created an ambitious spiritual self-help book filled with sage advice on living in connection with the soul. Don't be squeamish about the self-help mission. Gafni's narrative reads more like a personal counseling session in a rabbi's private office--intelligent, warm (expect lots of chuckles), occasionally tangential, but mostly filled with practical guidance. He also inserts numerous sidebars that offer "Soul Print Practices," such as "Make a list of the seven wonders of your world" or "Take sensual risks. Be creative with your senses in how or what you eat, or make love." --Gail Hudson Rabbi David Woznica director, 92nd Street Y Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, New York A gifted writer and profound thinker, Rabbi Gafni's elegant style of weaving Biblical, Kabbalistic, and literary sources with philosophy and physics offers an original and exciting perspective in our quest to infuse our lives with deeper meaning. -- Review Marc Gafni is the dean of the Melitz public culture study center; Melitz is one of the oldest and most prestigious educational ventures in Israel today. A contributing editor to Tikkun magazine, he lectures extensively throughout Israel, Europe, and the United States. American-born, he now lives with his family in Israel. Chapter One: From Loneliness to the Good Hotel Room Remedies I began to rethink the whole meaning-of-life question some years ago when I found myself in a hotel in Denver, Colorado. You know how hotel rooms work. Along with the bed, television, and a lot of towels, if you look in the drawer next to the bed you will almost unfailingly find, at least in the United States, a Gideon Bible. My suitcase with my own set of books had missed its connecting flight; I was at the hotel tired, without loved ones or books around me, and I was feeling bereft. A hotel room far from home can be the loneliest place in the world. So I opened the only book in the room, the Gideon Bible in the drawer by the bed. At the front, I was surprised to see a detailed index of how to use this Bible. If you're depressed, read Psalm 19, it said. If you're drunk, read Psalm 38. If you're feeling lonely, read Psalm 23. Well, I was feeling lonely, so I read Psalm 23. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," the famous psalm begins. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...." I read the psalm slowly, carefully, yet I have to admit I still felt lonely when I finished. Just as I was about to close the book, I saw a note scrawled at the bottom of the page. "If you're still lonely, call Lola." When I recovered from laughing, I had one of those magic moments of grace where everything falls into place. Years of study, thinking, and teaching suddenly crystallized in a few simple and authentic sentences. Those sentences are the core of this chapter and their significance will be the lifeblood that courses through this book. I realized that to a large extent what drives me, and I think what drives all of us, is a desire to move from loneliness to connection, from loneliness to loving. If you're still lonely, call Lola. After all is said and done, after all of our grand self-actualization and accomplishments, our self-esteem and degrees, our meaning-making and our financial success -- we still feel lonely. What drives us in the world is our attempt to move from our loneliness to a place of relationship, connection, and loving. Our soul prints seek to reach out to the prints of other souls -- to touch them, and to be touched by them in turn. The more our soul prints connect, the sharper their signatures, and the more sustained and expansive our souls will be. Our soul prints are driven to other soul prints. If the sexual revolution has taught us anything, it is that Lola may be wonderful but she cannot redeem us from loneliness. Making a soul print connection is not about actualizing the libido, as Freud would have it. Psychologist Rollo May was right when he declared that bette