Judism
...ationally known as for his work in Jewish meditation. Though texts on Jewish meditation have existed for hundreds of years, the practice did not get the attention of modern worshipers until the 1970s. Falcon's interest in Jewish meditation led him to found one of the first meditative synagogues in the country in Los Angeles in 1978. By 1993 Falcon and his family had tired of Los Angeles and decided to move to another city. After searching the country for their new home, they settled on Seattle because it was both a safe and "gorgeous" place to live. Soon after Falcon moved to Seattle he taught a class on Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) which Blatner, who is also Jewish, attended. In 1997, Falcon co-officiated Blatner's wedding and the two became friends. Blatner, 35, is originally from San Francisco. He moved to Seattle in 1988, planning to pursue a career in theater production. However, he soon found that it was writing and giving seminars about desktop publishing that put food on the table. Over the years he wrote a variety of books on computer programs such as Photoshop and QuarkXPress and other topics. Blatner is also a contributing editor to MacWorld magazine. In 1998 Blatner attended a lecture of Jewish meditation and mysticism given by Falcon, and became interested in the subject. He jokingly suggested to Falcon that they team up to write "Jewish Mysticism for Dummies," knowing that the "for Dummies" series usually covered more general topics. However, Falcon, who had already self-published a book of meditations called "Journey of Awakening," liked the idea, and Blatner's agent pitched the idea to IDG ...