Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren is a humorous trip through both the history and contemporary scene of Europe’s languages, both in Europe and elsewhere. Despite being entertaining and smooth reading – this book also provides a first-rate study of and why we study language, without falling into witless jargon.
I have read nearly all of Tom Segev’s books, and I never felt an overwhelming sense of esteem in his works for Ben Gurion. In his A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion Segev finds more to admire about him, but with important caveats. Despite Ben Gurion’s many accomplishments, Segev paints a picture of a deeply flawed man. He is a leader but does not appear to understand people. He is popular but has difficulty maintaining friendships. He can be petty, small and vindictive.
But Segev presents a picture of the man in full. He has faults, but also his strengths. Segev strongly suggests that without Ben
Gurion, Israel would not have been founded (at least not in its present
incarnation). His work ethic in his prime is Olympian. He also admires Ben Gurion’s
journalism, high praises from a noted journalist like Segev.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is an extremely beloved and popular writer in Israel. His translation of the Talmud in Israeli Hebrew was a surprise hit. For years, I tried to start and complete his The Thirteen Petalled Rose – a work about Jewish mysticism that is also immensely popular. This book never connected with me, despite starting it many times; but I decided to read it for Shavuot.
I must admit, there is still a lack of connection. His books are written in Hebrew, and translated into English, so perhaps that is part of the disconnect. There was a time when few religious Hebrew writing/writers tried to reach secular Israelis. Steinsaltz did, with favorable results. But The Thirteen Petalled Rose contains nothing that cannot be found in many places in English. There is nothing new here. I kept asking myself, why is there nothing new here?
Maddening, insane, brilliant, Fragments of the Brooklyn Talmud by Andrew Ramer is unsettling and strange.
I read this book for Tikkun Leil Shavuot, wanting something different, and the book certainly delivered the goods. Ramer's work is difficult and frustrating. It is, in that sense, like the Talmud that precedes it, a work of great importance that is unstructured, rambling, profound, and humorous. And as in reading the Talmud, I come away from Ramer's book wondering just what we are supposed to take from this text.
Read this book but be prepared to feel deeply conflicted. Ramer has given us something that is both amazing and frightening. Let us hope we don’t get the world and (parts of) the Jewish future depicted here.
Practical Kabbalah: A Guide to Jewish Wisdom for Everyday Life by Laibl Wolf is geared toward the psychological element of Kabbalah made popular by Hasidim. In this case, Wolf presents us with Chabad’s religious psychology, which revolves around the soul/psychological states of Chokmah, Bina and Daat. These are the concepts that form Chabad’s name, and the “intellectual” orientation of their corner of Chassidus.
Wolf is sly. He realizes that many of the concepts he expounds on can be found in Asian religions. He explains these parallels through the genealogies in the Torah. Adam was the first Kabbalist, and he passed his knowledge through the generations.
With the coming of Abraham, Kabbalah took a sharper, more focused turn. Abraham had children with a woman named Keturah after Sarah died (in many traditions, she is supposed to be Hagar by another name, as it makes old Abe seem too randy to take yet another child-bearing age woman to bed). He eventually sends these children, who are a bad influence on Isaac, away with “gifts” that Wolf interprets as Kabbalistic knowledge. These Abrahamic offspring head east, to India. There, they took local wives. Their already corrupted esoteric knowledge mixes with local religions to form Hinduism and Buddhism. Hence, the similarities between esoteric Judaism and religions of Asia.
Well, this is certainly insulting to those religions. Other Jewish thinkers have made this kind of move toward religious triumphalism in the past. Philo and Maimonides believed that Moses thought the early Greek philosophers their craft. Abraham Maimonides thought the Sufi orders were descended from the original Hebrew band of prophets, now corrupted by Islam. All wrong, but these moves are fascinating. We get to borrow but not acknowledge sources from avodah zarah. Wolf is the first person I have read propounding this theory for Kabbalah. It is gutsy and odd.
