Fragments of a Future Scroll: Hasidism for the Aquarian Age (preorder)

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Publication date: November 18th, 2025

About the book

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

About the author

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (1924–2014), better known as Reb Zalman, was born in Poland, raised in Vienna, and ordained as a rabbi in New York. During his colorful, countercultural life, he was considered one of the foremost authorities on Kabbalah and Hasidism, and was one of the key initiators of the American Neo-Hasidic renaissance and the Jewish Renewal movement. Professor Emeritus of the Psychology of Religion and Jewish Mysticism at Temple University, and World Wisdom Chair holder emeritus at Naropa University, Reb Zalman was a unique figure in American Judaism and world spirituality, a beloved teacher and guide to many, and the author of numerous books, including Jewish with Feeling, Wrapped in a Holy Flame, From Age-Ing to Sage-Ing, and Paradigm Shift. Reb Zalman’s legacy and influence remain strong, and his vision of a progressive Jewish spiritual future has inspired generations of Jews and seekers worldwide.

Praise for Fragments of a Future Scroll

“Zalman Schachter continues lineage of Reb Nahman transmitting essence teaching available Hebraic High-Conscious ritual-like davening to Turtle Island for wandering tribes seeking End-of-Illusion Illumination thru International Tantra.”
—Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl and Other Poems

“There are books that are worth re-reading periodically—not to remember what was forgotten, but to remind ourselves why it was worth remembering them in the first place. Fragments of a Future Scroll is one of those books.”
—Shaul Magid, author of The Necessity of Exile

“The book you are holding in your hands is a sacred artifact, a bold gambit of reinvention, a dislocation of secret treasures from a charred reality, an illicit smuggling into a new world.”
—Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, author of With Roots in Heaven and Wounds into Wisdom

“Reb Zalman’s Torah is a blueprint for calling on the collective moral authority of all Earth’s great religious traditions to demand justice and birth a more enlightened consciousness for the world.”
—Rav Jericho Vincent, founding rabbi of Temple of the Stranger

Book details
180 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9781961814325
Publication date: November 18th, 2025