1: "Why Be Jewish"
Sarna, Jonathan. "A Time to Every Purpose: Letters to a Young Jew", Basic Books, 2008.
"Why Be Jewish?"
As I was browsing the Judaica section of a local bookstore, I came across this wonderful little book and I knew I had to have it, especially to use with my religious school class. Jonathan Sarna does a wonderful job of explaining Judaism by answering the question, "Why be Jewish"? He brings together history, culture and tradition and the same time looks at the issues which face modern Jewish life. In doing so he gives his own personal opinions but he does so in the forms of letters written to a young girl, Leah, His claim is so true--"the more Judaism one does, the more one comes to appreciate what Judaism is".
Sarna approaches what Judaism is by using the holiday calendar, looking at the holidays of the Jewish year. Each of the holidays comes to represent one of the themes of Jewish life. There are 13 letters that show that Judaism is a way of life---it is marking time and place, it is a history, an ideological look at life and a thought process about Israel, Bible and G-d. Many of the issues that face modern Jews are included here--intermarriage, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, social justice, the environment, Torah, Israel, freedom and assimilation. The book takes us through the major practices of the Jewish religion with all of the common questions that are asked and of the problems of being a Jew in the modern world.
My students never cease to ask me why the Holocaust happened and why do people not like Jews. These are questions that I have battled with forever and Sarna's answers have helped me to not only understand the issues a bit more fully but also to understand myself. My dad who was quite a religious man had a hard time with those two questions so I knew better than to ask him and when he did choose to talk about them, he always had tears in his eyes. So did I when I read Sarna's answers because they were clear and eve though these are questions for which there are no pat answers, Sarna at least gives us a way to start working them out.
I found the book to be totally compelling and it is amazing that there is so much information in only 200 pages (and the book is quite small--nowhere near standard size). This is a very important little book and whether or not it gives all the answers is not important. To me, the measure of a good book is that it gets the reader to think.
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