books

Jews: The Essence and Character of A People , is the latest work by prolific scholar Arthur Hertzberg. Along with collaborator Aron Hirt Manheimer, Jews is an attempt to define and analyze what it means to be Jewish in the context of Jewish history from Abraham to the present day.

I heard from a rabbi in our community that there was once a man who wrote down the Baal Shem Tov's torah - all that he had heard him teach. One day, the Baal Shem saw the man walking along, clutching a book in his hand. He said to him, "What is this book you are carrying?" The man answered, "This is the book that you wrote," and he disappeared. Later the Baal Shem gathered all of his disciples and asked them, "Which one of you is writing down my torah?" The same man stepped forward and handed over the book. The Baal Shem took a moment, glanced at the pages, and said, "There is not even one word here that is mine."

The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a girl living in Nazi Germany whose foster parents provide refuge for a young Jew, Max Vandenberg, by hiding him in their basement. The novel is narrated by “Death,” characterized not as the usual grim reaper, but a sympathetic guardian of the souls of the deceased. The narrator refers to Liesel as “the book thief” because she steals a handful of books throughout the course of the novel.

Ernie Levy, last of the Just Men leaves this world clinging to his raw belief of a better world to come. According to modern Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, the zaddikim (usually translated as the 'righteous') actually means "those who stood test" or "the proven." (from Tales of Hasidim, The Early Masters, Schocken Books, NY, 1961). The generations of the lamed vovnikim, the thirty-six righteous men of the Levy family carried the burden of Jewish suffering. Have we seen the last of the Just Men?