By LEAH WEATHERSBY

Understanding the message, symbolism and history of modern religions, especially those with ancient origins, has always been a challenge. At the same time, the topic has never been more relevant than now, post-Sept. 11. Happily, the publishing company that brought us such classics as "Sex for Dummies" and "Investing for Dummies" is poised to explain it all to you, and they've had help from two North Seattle authors.

Rabbi Ted Falcon, a Wedgwood resident, and David Blatner, a Roosevelt resident, co-authored "Judaism for Dummies" for last year. The book came out in March of 2001 and has already entered its second printing.

Falcon, 59, leads the Bet Alef Meditational Synagogue, which has an office and classroom in the Maple Leaf neighborhood and a sanctuary in Bellevue.

According to Blatner, Falcon is nationally 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 Publishing, the company which at that time was publishing the "for Dummies" books. While they agreed that the topic of Jewish mysticism was too narrow, they were interested in doing a "for Dummies" religion series. "Judaism for Dummies" was the first book to be released in that group of publications.

Falcon said he and Blatner worked well together and had brought complementary skills to the project.

"I started out with more knowledge of the topic," said Falcon. "David started out with the ability to create a voice which is a lot lighter than mine usually is."

Blatner said one of the things he got out the of the project was an increase in his own knowledge of Judaism.

"I was brought up very secular," said Blatner. "(Writing the book) was a great excuse to learn all the things I wanted to learn." (