For two years, author Sara Davidson met every Friday with Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, the iconic founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, to discuss what he calls The December Project. "When you can feel in your cells that you're coming to the end of your tour of duty," he said, "what is the spiritual work of this time, and how do we prepare for the mystery?" This is Davidson's memoir of what they learned and how they changed.