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Jewcy Book Club

This week:
The Boy on the Door on the Ox
and
Towers of Gold
The Boy on the Door on the OxTowers of Gold
Welcome Authors
Martin Samuel Cohen
 &
Frances Dinkelspiel
who are posting all week.
Coming up:
  • 12/01:
    Benyamin Cohen
  • 12/01:
    Matthew Rothschild
  • 12/08:
    Seth Greenland

Culture
The New Jew Canon: The Women's Bible Commentary, Man’s Search for Meaning, Beginning Anew

The New Jew Canon: The Women's Bible Commentary, Man’s Search for Meaning, Beginning Anew
The ultimate guide to the books every Jew needs to own
Rachel Adler

by Rachel Adler, July 28, 2008

6 comments
 
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The New Jew Canon is a long-term project that seeks to canonize essential Jewish (and some Non-Jewish) reads as recommended by extraordinary rabbis, experts, and cultural leaders. Suggestions are welcome via comments or email.

Author:
Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, Viktor Frankl, Gail Twersky Reimer and Judith Kates
Description:
Three books seem to me particularly dependable. First, the Women’s Bible Commentary, (URJ Press 2007), offers high quality biblical and rabbinic scholarship, contemporary reflections, and poetry on the 54 portions of the Torah. Second, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon 2006 or scads of used paperback editions) always moves me with its belief that we become more truly human by making meaning from our sufferings. Third, I bring Gail Twersky Reimer and Judith Kates’s collection Beginning Anew (Simon & Schuster 1997) to shul with me every High Holidays to read during the boring parts, and I always find some insight that reminds me why I need to be there. Whether it's Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg's stellar essay on the death of Sarah and the binding of Isaac or Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi on "Brothers and Others" or Judith Plaskow on Leviticus 18, sexuality, and teshuva, Beginning Anew always offers some sustaining truth.
Recommended By:
Rachel Adler is Professor of Modern Jewish Thought at Hebrew Union College-Los Angeles and author of Engendering Judaism which won a National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought.

The New Jew Canon is a long-term project that seeks to canonize essential Jewish (and some Non-Jewish) reads as recommended by extraordinary rabbis, experts, and cultural leaders. Suggestions are welcome via comments or tips. For more New Jew Canon recommendations, visit Jewcy's New Jew Canon Listmania.

Previously: Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic, recommended by Ari Y. Kelman



6 comments | leave a comment
 
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ELL

ELL

07/29/08 9:32 pm
Comments: 2
Friends: 0
Thanks for the book Recommendations

Enlightening and illuminating LL



Anonymous

07/30/08 1:53 pm
Any babies in these fine

Any babies in these fine words? Natalist here.



Anonymous

07/30/08 2:00 pm
As for becoming more truly

As for becoming more truly human, we're pretty human already, aren't we? I know, you mean becoming more ethical and nice. It's only nice people who worry about being nice, and exactly how nice to be, and they already are nice, so it's not that exciting a project. But- elevating the world by engaging it with the divine, now that's complicated, weird, hard, and worth working on, no?



Anonymous

07/31/08 10:09 am
Blu Greenberg's book is

Blu Greenberg's book is good, "How to Run A Traditional Jewish Household," I think. It's a straightforward summary, a textbook.

You just have to have a slim volume called "Ethics of the Fathers," also called "Pirkei Avos"; Artscroll has a good edition, attractive and easy.

Anything by or about the "Chofetz Chaim" should be on your shelf; he has a web site. That's about what to say, and what not to say, and why. Speech. Crucially important.

"The How-To Handbook for Jewish Living" is brief and useful.

After that, when you are ready for high-fiber Judaism, it's on to the web sites. CHABAD's calendar web page is great (chabad dot org). It doesn't preach, it simply tells you what day it is, Jewishly. That is a big deal for a Jew. We engage time very interestingly.

Judaism is not philosophy class. We think plenty, but then we DO something. It's a DO religion. Time and Do Something are linked for us; the center of the wheel being the Sabbath. When it's that time again, there are things to do about it. Lots of people manage this and have lives.

AISH has useful web pages.

There are several billion Jewish web sites.

Judaism comes in flavors - twelve tribes, right? - and you get to find your own. But there's one God and one Torah. Eventually, you will engage with someone who has walked this path before you and lives it. Meaning, a rabbi. Your rabbi. You still get to think, and use your own judgement and common sense, and you are responsible for your own actions. But, you have a guide and teacher. Who, you acknowledge, knows more than you do, and who has authority.

Main thing is not to rush.



JessM

JessM

07/31/08 11:06 am
Comments: 26
Friends: 14
NJC now accepting callers!
If anyone would like to suggest NJC recommenders or topics, allow me to point you in the direction of our tip line (linked at the end of the article.)  Give a shout.

Anonymous

07/31/08 12:39 pm
"From Central Park to

"From Central Park to Sinai" is one man's personal story about this, very well described. He was brought up in Ethical Culture, on Central Park West. 

What are you looking for? Humanist-style Judaism is on every streetcorner. Instead of re-inventing the humanist wheel, hammer-lock a friend, and get your rights to a family, not just a boyfriend. One day Former Boyfriend will say he treasures your friendship, and hopes you understand, but he's going to marry someone fairly similar to you, except enough younger than himself so he can feel he is in charge. But it's ok, because somebody forty+ wants to marry YOU. So it all works out. Someone for everyone. As long as the power balance is restored, by a BIG difference in age. 

Crankiness is not enough.