The vibe of BookishlyJewish has always been one of support – we think ALL the Jewish books deserve awards for the simple fact that their existence is never a given. Many had long, hard roads to publication due to quotas, perceived “niche” content, and other such depressing gate keeping. Any marginalized story faces barriers others don’t, which is why we have chosen to focus on reviewing and boosting them in a noncompetitive manner. However, it’s hard to ignore those lists of bests that circulate this time of year. So last year we tried to find a way to host a Reader’s Choice Award the BookishlyJewish way – inclusive and not disparaging of others.
We like to think of our Reader’s Choice Award as serving two dual functions. It lets us celebrate the Jewish books currently capturing the world’s attention, while also opening us up to requests from our readers about what they would like to see featured on our page. That means we feature huge blockbusters and tiny indies, and sometimes even one vote is enough to push a book to the top of our TBR for coverage. In that vein, this year we have just six short questions asking you to write in a favorite adult, children’s and nonfiction book you read last year and one from each category you would like to see us review next year. Neither category is limited by year of publication, so if Tevye the Milkman was the best thing you read last year go ahead and vote for it! The latter set of questions obviously excludes books we have already covered but the first does not. And as always, we ask that you not vote for any book from the bible, although bible commentaries are more than welcome.
How to vote? Click this link and sign in using your gmail! We are not collecting the emails, this allows us to limit responses to one person while the program automatically deletes/does not store the emails. And please, it’s an honors system, it’s limited to one response per person, but we understand there are ways to game that system. We ask you not to.
Vayetzei is a parsha full of names. The majority of the shevatim are born – eleven of the twelve sons of Jacob destined to found the twelve tribes of the Jewish people, as well as their sister Dinah. As each child is born, it is given a name reflective of all the hopes and dreams and gratitude of the family. These moments of family joy reminded me of the picture book Joyful Song by Lesléa Newman and illustrator Susan Gal.
Naming holds a special place in Judaism. When prophecy disappeared the Sages stated that what was left was the small fraction of prophecy needed to bestow a name on a child. Although interestingly, in Vayetzei Rachel and Leah name all the children (including those of their maidservants), while later customs gave this right over to the father who names the child upon being called to the Torah for a girl, or at the bris ceremony for a boy. Which is why I particularly enjoy that in Joyful Song there are two mothers sharing this moment at a newer Jewish tradition – a simchat bat – the baby naming ceremony for girls.
The names given in the Bible are expressions of thanks for the good fortune of a child, but also prayers for the future. They so poignantly reflect the mothers reality – Leah’s continued dreams of receiving some of her husbands attention and affection and Rachel’s pleas to be a mother. Rachel’s first child, Joseph, is given a name that means “may God add on another child to me.” In Joyful Song there is a big brother involved in the naming too, and the family does choose a prayer for the name – a wish that their new daughter and sister will live a life of Joyful Song. May we all be so lucky
Toldot is a fan favorite of Jewish day school children everywhere who love acting out the famous scene in which Yaakov pretends to be Eisav. No matter how limited their Hebrew skills, they all manage to memorize “hakol kol Yaakov vihayadayim yidei Eisva.” But if we look on this parsha with the eyes of adults, things start looking a whole less cute. There’s a lot to learn about both sibgling relationships and parenting here, and I think it pairs nicely with Elyssa Friedland’s novel Jackpot Summer.
It’s pretty clear Yaakov and Eisav are two very different people, even though they are twins. It’s also pretty clear that each parent had a favorite. Not a great combination, and the resulting sibling rivalry is still causing issues today. When we compete for our parents love, we end up losing each other. (Or, in this particular case, trying to kill each other, but I digress). In Jackpot Summer the Jacobson siblings are feeling lost after the passing of their mother, when three out of four of them win the lotto. Immediately, we are placed in an awkward resource limited situation. The brother who was formerly rich, and somewhat lording it over the other three, is now the poor one. Jealously and resentment fester on all sides, and everyone is even more lost than before the lotto ticket was purchased. Nobody is actively trying to kill anyone else, but it’s still pretty bleak,
Teaching each child according to their needs is a mainstay of Jewish education. One wonders what might have happened to Eisav if different parental methods were used on him vs. Yaakov. If they had not been marked in utero by a prophecy that labeled one as good and the other evil? Would he still have turned to idolatry and hunting? Could he have found a way to channel his natural abilities and gifts into something more productive? We’ll never know. I personally also wonder why only child could receive a blessing, and why one had to be placed over another as a Lord. I’m sure there are commentaries out there that address this issue, but I like to sit in the discomfort a little bit and let it teach me something. In the ideal situation each child feels like they are the favorite. That they are loved by their parents for their unique contributions. Only then, on that strong foundation, can their relationships survive resource allocation events like someone receiving the better blessing, or winning the lottery. The Jacobson’s, thanks to their childhood full of love and laughter, find a way to share their newfound resources and pull each up. Without anyone being a Lord over anyone else. If only Yaakov and Eisva had managed something similar, we’d be living in a very different world.
A few times a year there will be a book that is literally everywhere. I cannot escape its presence, even if I stay off social media. In the case of Esther Chehebar’s debut novel, Sisters of Fortune, I couldn’t even go to the beach this summer without spotting it! (To be fair, she had her launch in the beach club. I should’ve expected it). In this particular case, Sisters Of Fortune, is also a book I really wanted to see succeed, because it is the first traditionally published book set in the contemporary Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn (for some historical fiction see our review of Corie Adjmi’s The Marriage Box). So I was delighted to see that pink cover out and about and on my socials. But it also meant that I had to wait forever for my library hold to come in and even then I could only access it via e-book.
Did Sisters of Fortune live up to all the hype and expectations? Yes and no. The book does an excellent job of representing the Syrian Jewish community. Its strongest paragraphs appear when Chehebar ponders the push and pull of the community – how it can provide everything and be a tremendous source of support and comfort, while simultaneously stifling personal expression and setting unrealistic financial and beauty expectations. She captures the tension between immigrant grandparents, who are frankly happy to simply have escaped persecution, and their grandchildren who reflect their new homeland by wanting more out of life.
It was in the plot where I wanted just a little bit more to satisfy my admittedly sky high expectations. The novel follows three sisters – Nina, Fortune, and Lucy – who are all on the uber competitive community marriage market. (Side bar: am I the only person wondering why Fortune is named after the paternal grandmother when the book itself states that this honor usually goes to the firstborn girl and therefore should have been given to Nina?) When the book opens Nina is a rebellious “older single” who wants to escape the community that has written her off us no longer worthy since she is still single well into her twenties, while Fortune is engaged and participating in a lot of pre-wedding hoopla. Except Fortune doesn’t appear to be having all that much fun despite being the bride. That honor goes to her little sister Lucy, who is still in high school but is universally acknowledged to be the beauty of the family and is dating a very eligible (although significantly older) man, making her the envy of all her teenage friends and the community at large.
There is the potential for a lot of tension and character growth for the sisters. They each have a unique voice and personality. Unfortunately, none of their stories hit perfectly for me. Fortune has a surprising arc, but the moments of her deepest personal reflection and growth appear to have been left on the cutting room floor in an unexpected time lapse in the last third of the book. Nina’s story was almost perfect, I simply would have liked to have seen her get more page time to explore her reconciliation with the community outside of her dating prospects. Meanwhile, Lucy’s is the story that I’m guessing upsets most readers, because it involves an age gap romance. I’m not actually opposed to age gap romances myself. However, this particular story involves a high schooler in an intimate relationship with a thirty year old, and the community is depicted as practically pushing her into his arms since he’s rich. It’s consensual, but still an ethically complex situation that could have been the set up for a critical look at a situation that is actually not that uncommon in many communities around the world. Instead, the broader societal implications are largely unexplored. Chehebar shows the relationship beginning to fray, most tellingly in Lucy’s discomfort any time she has to leave the community, but in the end further discussion is curtailed in order to name drop a large list of luxury goods that are keeping Lucy happy. I don’t mind a happy ending – I prefer them! – but I’d love a little more depth to the journey that takes us there.
Aside from the age gap relationship, I would also point out for my readers who have sensitivity to disordered eating and body image, that this book does contain graphic descriptions of both. If you can name an eating disorder, or other body distortion, someone in this book has it and everyone around her generally thinks it’s a good thing because it improves her marriage prospects. I actually thought this was very realistic, and one of the few topics that Chehebar really did not shy away from, but I know it’s a hard no for some readers as it causes them to relapse on their own condition etc. If that’s you – go ahead and skip this book.
Sisters of Fortune is ambitious and it carries the wight of an entire community on its back. It mostly manages to meet those goals, but I got the sense that it is hard to be publicly critical of a community that one still lives in. Read this book for the representation, for the Syrian culture and food, and the depiction of the dynamics of sisterhood – how women can both support and compete with each other. And yes, it does make an excellent beach read.
Chayei Sarah opens with sadness, but ends with joy. After the burial arrangements for Sarah are concluded, Abraham realizes it’s time to find Yitzchak a wife. Wanting to marry within the family, (that was a thing back then, just go with it), he deputizes his servant Eliezer to go seek a bride among his relatives in Haran. This is worthy of note. Eliezer is the first named matchmaker in history! And his job is so important and tricky he has to pray to God for a miracle to make sure he succeeds. Which reminds me of the book I literally just read – Heidi Shertok’s Match Me If You Can.
Heidi Shertok narrators tend to be delightful goofballs, which might make you wonder how I’m pairing this book to the parsha, but hear me out. The heroine, Ashira, is a matchmaker whose business is now on the rocks thanks to a disgruntled former client. In order to save her reputation, she’s trying to match the most desirable, yet un-matchable, single she knows – her brothers best friend. Her task seems insurmountable, as did Eliezer’s. Frankly, every successful is a miracle from God, no matter who is involved. Two people are finding each other amongst so many others and committing to spend their lives together. A little prayer is more than understandable given the circumstances.
Since Match Me if You Can is a romance novel, it will not be a spoiler to let you know that Ashira begins to have feelings of her own for her tricky client. They are pictured on the cover together. However, you may be surprised to know that Eliezer too had other designs for his client. When he asks Abraham to absolve him of the responsibility in case he fails, Rashi comments that he was secretly hoping to suggest his own daughter as a match rather than importing a bride from Haran. Also not a spoiler to say that this plan never stood a chance since Rivkah was revealed via the miracle of the water rising, her kindness in offering to water the animals, and her courage in telling her family she would indeed go with Eliezer when they try and convince her to stay a little longer.
More beautiful though? The realization that love can help us work through grief. We end the Parsha on Yitzchak finally being comforted over the death of his mother. Through his marriage, he finds some peace. Ashira is struggling with the passing of her mother, and one of the best signs that this is the man for her is his consistent ability to motivate her to address her own health. Love is a healing process. And it’s a joy to end a book or a parsha on it.
Mari Lowe books have always been the epitome of Orthodox Jewish representation for me. The first time I held one of her books in my hand (Aviva vs. the Dybbuk) was the first time I saw myself in a traditionally published book. It was a meaningful moment, followed by even more meaningful moments as that book and Lowe’s subsequent book both went on to win many honors, including Sydney Taylor awards. In her third middle grade offering, Beinoni, Lowe moves away from the world of contemporary orthodox Jewish girls and into the realm of orthodox Jewish boys who fight monsters. Literally. Beinoni has a male main character named Ezra and his bar mitzvah is going to come with one huge hitch. Forget messing up the Torah chanting or fumbling the speech. Ezra must fight a demon or watch the whole world go up in smoke. Talk about parties to end all parties.
The story takes its inspiration from a mysterious Talmud story (admittedly the Talmud is full of mysterious stories. We love to see it!). After the destruction of the temple, so the story goes, the Rabbis prayed to God to remove mans inclination toward idol worship. God granted their wish and the evil inclination took the shape of a lion cub that was promptly trapped in a lead container. Thus explaining my lack of drive to bow down to inanimate objects and whatnot. The trade off? Man was no longer capable of prophecy. The Talmud story goes on to explain why the process couldn’t be repeated towards other evil inclinations, but we’ll leave it there to discuss the book at hand.
In the fictional world of Beinoni, Lowe takes the Talmud story even further. Instead of simply trapping the beast once, she sets up a premise in which the evil inclination returns every 70 years to face a special chosen one – a bar mitzvah boy or girl – who must slay it to maintain balance in the world. Should this young person who frankly never asked for this anyway fail in their job, the evil inclination will grow stronger and spread its awfulness across the world until the next chosen one becomes thirteen and gets another chance at defeating it. In Lowe’s take on the story, this is not just the evil inclination for idolatry, but rather the source of all evil. Without it there world is in a Beinoni state. Beinoni translates to in between, medium, so-so, meh, tepid, you get the picture. Sure, nothing terrible can happen? But the trade off? the world didn’t just lose prophecy. It lost the ability for anything exceptional – good or bad. Fail to kill the beast, and there will be war and famine and unspeakable atrocities, but cage it and you’ll get nothing but mediocrity from the entire universe.
How anyone has the right to say that’s a good deal, and make that decision for everyone, is a central question of the book. Especially sine the decision appears to be resting with a random thirteen year old who just so happens to have a funky birthmark.
Ezra is proud to be the chosen one, and feeling really pumped for his mission, until the Beinoni state of the world starts to slip. There are wars, fires, and tragedies abound. But even more disconcerting? As Chosen One, Ezra was always on top of his class and his fighting game. With the breaks taken off everyone else, he’s suddenly struggling to keep up with anything. And nobody believes him. If they suspect the state of the world is slipping, they most certainly don’t want to admit it. Which is how he ends up totally failing school and hanging out with students his father does not approve of. All while some secret society appears to be trying to kidnap him to keep the world out of the Beinoni state. It’s a lot for one almost thirteen year old to handle. Then again? So was defeating a mythic beast in the first place.
Readers who love Lowe’s surprise twists will not be disappointed (although I am proud to say I figured this one out about 1/4 into the book). In addition, while we have a male protagonist, the coolest character is arguably Mariam whom we will forgive for the unconventional spelling of her name because she is a total badass even without being the chosen one. Seriously, when the boys finally let her into the investigation she pretty much blows the whole thing wide open for them. Making all of us wonder if that birthmark maybe ended up on the wrong kid. Plus, there is a warm and loving depiction of Orthodox life, both at home and in Yeshiva. Including how to deal with an ADHD diagnosis. Lowe is an educator and it shows in her thoughtful depiction of what goes on at the yeshiva once the boys can finally reach their potential – or fail spectacularly – since Beinoni is broken.
There are deep questions here, both about friendship and good and evil. Nothing is black and white, and as the Rabbi’s learn in the original story – sometimes the evil inclination is a necessary thing. Other times not so much. How to find that balance is a great question for bar or bat mitzvah children to be asking themselves, even if they don’t have to slay a fiery demon.
Note: Bookishlyjewish received a copy of this book from the publisher after we asked for one.
Another packed week! Vayera brings us three angels (they have always fascinated me, and one day I mean to write about them!), Sarah conceiving a child in her old age, the destruction of Sodom including some unfortunate repercussions for Lot’s wife and Lot himself, another abduction of Sarah, not to mention the sacrifice of Isaac. Where to even begin? I’d like to tackle the banishment of Ishmael. In Leah Hagar Cohen’s literary novel To & Fro the reader meets two different stories, each that can be related back to this episode.
Let me just say that while the Torah is the coolest book ever, To & Fro comes in as a close second. The book has two covers, and you can start reading from the front or back cover and that will determine which story you read fist. They have overlaping elements but are independent. In one story we have Ani, chasing a man on a horse and trying to reconcile her past which has overtones of the Ishmael and Hagar story. Ani is straight out of a Kafka parable and those allusions are felt heavily, yet Ani creates a story all her own – including some interesting commentary on Jewish learning. Meanwhile, the second story takes place in regular old Manhattan and follows the coming of age of Annamae. Which is a different type of journey, but no less daunting.
There is no hard and fast moral lesson in To & Fro. Instead the text asks us to remember that there are always two sides to every story, and that we need to listen to each other. Sometimes nobody is right and nobody is wrong and everybody is right and everybody is wrong all at the same time. Learning how to hold that complex thought in ones head is part of growing up. Both stories are about loneliness, searching, and kindness even in the face of that which we do not understand. It makes a perfect companion for the Parsha this week.
There is something so nostalgic about the books we read as children. Every writer has a huge list of books that takes them back to special places and times in their lives. It makes sense that memoir writer Ilana Kurshan, who has essentially built her life and career around books, wants to talk about reading out loud as a means to explore being a mother to five small children. However, she’s not content to simply describe the struggle of squeezing in some reading time while parenting. In Children of The Book, her second memoir, she links her family’s reading to the five books of the Chumash and takes us through both literary and parenting lessons learned through the process of sharing beloved childhood books with the next generation.
As someone who found great meaning in Kurshan’s first book – If All The Seas Were Ink -I was excited for Children of the Book. Once I dove in, I could tell immediately it featured the same erudition – I had to crack open a dictionary at least five times during the reading – but it lacked some of the personal touch of Kurshan’s prior work. That is understandable, because this time around Kurshan is not just writing about herself. She’s writing about her kids. She needs to lean a little sparse on the details in order to protect their privacy. It is an understandable concession, but it takes some of the oomph out of the prose.
Where the book is most successful – in my opinion – was the chapter on Vayikra in which the corona pandemic was compared to the Jews wandering the desert. I fully related to Kurshan running to the library right before lock down, while everyone else was probably running to the grocery store. And yes, books did save the sanity of my isolation pod (although in our case it was audiobooks). I also really loved her honesty – some of the books she read as a youth are not quite the utopias her rosy memories make them out to be. Indeed, her husband challenged her to read critical reviews about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the ‘Little House’ books so that she would know exactly what she was handing her children. I applaud both him and Kurshan for taking that critical look, rather than just glossing it over, and sharing that moment with us.
With five kids, it’s impossible not to note that every person will have their own taste. Or in the case of her twins, might need a series that belongs uniquely to them. For my own part, when Kurshan mentions The Giving Tree, I had a little laugh to myself. I absolutely hate that book and this aversion does not stem from my adult understanding of the complex dynamics of selfishness, parenting, or ecological forces that currently give me pause when I consider the story. I remember a teacher reading The Giving Tree out loud in school, and have a very visceral reaction. Mostly, I felt like I wanted to vomit and cry and hide under my desk. I was so distressed I could not focus for the rest of the day. From then on, whenever I was in a room with that book, I hid it beneath others so it could not distract me from afar. Yet here it was, listed as one of someone else’s favorites. Because we’re all different people, and we bring different things to the books we read, which by necessity means we will take different things from them too. Which is something I try to remind myself when I write these reviews. I’m just one woman, with one small opinion.
Children of the Book is a wonderful book for any bookish parent wondering where in the world the time for reading and writing went. It is also for people without children who want to recall those glorious reading days of their youth. Mostly, it’s for those among us who love reading and want to think about how to transmit this love to the next generation – even if they choose different books than we expect.
Note: BookishlyJewish received a copy of this book from the publisher after we asked for one.
It’s that time of year again! When I try and convince you that every single person on your gifting list would benefit from receiving a Jewish book. Below you will find a curated list of books by category to help you find that special bookish something to gift your family and friends. These books do not all feature Hanukkah (although many of them do!). Instead they are books we think the given category of individual will enjoy, because we certainly did. They are meant to spark conversation between gifter and giftee, and to share the joy of reading. There’s even a few of the top books on OUR wish list in case anyone wants to send one over. Happy Hanukkah, and happy reading.
We love to open with the books that have gotten our page and social accounts the most hits this year. Most page views goes to The Baker of Lost Memories by Shirley Russak Wachtel, while the most commented upon post was The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. The post with the most shares was Ariel Kaplan’s fantasy The Pomegranate Gate, and most Instagram likes went to one of our most anticipated books this year – As A Jew by Sarah Hurwitz.
The joy of picture books is in reading them together. Curl up at night with the biographies of Bedtime Stories for Strong Jewish Girls by Melanie Goldberg Silver illustrated by Jess Goldsmith, light your menorah with Twinkle, Twinkle Hanukkah by Talia Benamy with art by Aura Lewis, make new Hanukkah friends with A Dragon Called Spark by Lily Murray illustrated by Kirsti Beautyman, and Hold your books tight with The Keeper of Stories by Caroline Kusin Pritchard and illustrated by Selina Alko.
We’re going for a double dose of fantasy for our middle graders, to pull in even the most reluctant readers. Golem Crafters by Emi Watanabe Cohen with a brother sister duo that have some unusual powers and Beinoni by Mari Lowe where the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of one bar mitzvah boy. For our more realistic fiction fans we’ve got Honey and Me by Meira Drazin giving a deep and nuanced picture of true friendship. Rounding it all out is Dara Horn and Theo Elssworth’s graphic novel One Little Goat that takes us through centuries of Passover seders.
Our Young Adult readers can travel back in time with Sacha Lamb’s fantasy The Forbidden Book, to another society with Andrea Max’s The Art of Exile, to college with Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Past Present Future, and to the unthinkable with Neal Shusterman and Andrés Vera Martínez’s Courage to Dream.
The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden is like four books in one, and I could not stop thinking about it for days. To regroup, I suggest Match Me If You Can where Heidi Shertok gives us another hilarious modern orthodox romance. Those of who grew up reading Maggie Anton were delighted that she turned to biblical fiction in her new book The Midwives Escape and The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso presents a fresh fantastical take on magical libraries.
It is impossible to speak of Jewish nonfiction without speaking about Eli Sharabi’s harrowing Hostage. For some historical context with a dash of humor, check out the Jews by Rob Kutner. Bookish parents will love Ilana Kurshan’s Children of the book and I found Gila Fine’s The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic completely transformed my personal relationship with the Talmud and Jewish study for the better.
We LOVE Cookbooks, and they make the best gifts. For a sense of gracious hospitality check out Eat Small Plates by Ben Siman-Tov and Ziki SIman-Tov. TO connect traditional food with modernity, we have Eat Jewish by Melinda Strauss. Travel the Jewish culinary World with Joan Nathan’s King Solomon’s Table and expand your kitchen borders with Beejhy Barhany and Elisa Ung’s Gursha.
It wouldn’t be a Hanukkah gift guide without a Hanukkah section. Although there are Hanukkah books sprinkled throughout, we thought we’d highlight a few. The Book of Candles by Laurel Snyder and illustrated by Leanne Hatch features gorgeous poetry for the whole family to enjoy. The Menorah Matchmaker by Amanda Usen continues one of our favorite series of adult Hanukkah romance. Let it Glow by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy has a set of twins finding their Hanukkah miracle and As If on Cue by Marisa Kanter gives the YA set a delightful Hanukkah high school romance in which we try to save the arts.
We are so proud and overwhelmed by the wave of Queer Jewish literature available. Again, there are queer stories sprinkled throughout, but we wanted to highlight some specially. JoyFul Song by Lesléa Newman and Susan Gal shows two moms naming their new baby, A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff has a trans middle grader saving the world, while YA D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O. A.T. by Abby White has a more personal take on grief and loss (and also features queer parents). For our adults we are going high heat with M.A. Wardell’s Husband of the Year.
Want to send us a book? Here are some ideas. We’d love a copy of Rembrandt Chooses a Queen by Deborah Bodin Cohen and Kerry Olitzky, illustrated by Cinzia Battistel. Our most hotly anticipated adult book coming up is Soon by You by Dahlia Adler while for middle grade we cannot wait to get our hands on The Tear Collector by R.M. Romero. How to pack of the End of the World Michelle Falkoff came out five years ago we are shocked we don’t own a copy.
We are also checking our mailboxes in the hopes that we get copies of Judaism Unbound edited by by Dan Libenson, and Lex Rofeberg. Russ & Daughters by Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper would be a wonderful addition to our kitchen shelves. And our dreams came true when we found The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah by Jean Meltzer did indeed arrive.
Parshat Lecha opens with a move – the title literally means ” go for yourself”. It’s a particularly meaty parsha, containing the confusing episode down in Egypt, the epic war of four against five kings, and Sarah’s struggle to bear children. I’m going to stick right with the intro, and talk about moving. In Judaism there is the concept that changing ones place changes ones luck. Certainly for Abram, Gods commandment to move does indeed spark a series of events that eventually leads to the formation of the Jewish People. However, the very first event after the move, is a famine which forces Abram and his family out of the land he was just instructed to move into. Sometimes, it can be hard to see the good in our situations.
The contemporary novel YA, D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. also opens with an unfortunate move. D.J. is forced to leave her best friend behind and move in with her Aunt and Uncle’s family so that she and her mom can help them recover from the death of D.J.’s cousin Rachel. Much like Abram, D.J. tries to see this move as an opportunity. She isn’t convinced that she has been told the truth about Rachel’s death, and she is determined to investigate. Now that she is living in Rachel’s house and town she hopes to discover what truly happened to he cousin. Also like Abram, things do not go as expected and D.J. must confront a whole lot of unpleasantness. Still, the result is a net positive.
When I am stuck, I contemplate if it is time for a move. Maybe not in physical location (although a walk outside often helps) but in mind set. Abram is asked to step outside his comfort zone to found the Jewish people. D.J. has to give up her cushy senior year in her hometown middle school in order to discover the truth about her cousin. Sometimes, we have to explore the unknown and the frightening, in order to move forward. Like trying to read the full Torah portion every week, no much how much the Hagar incident in this weeks text makes me squirm. I don’t understand it all, but I’m making progress. Thank you for coming along on the ride with me.
