A solid guide to Judaism for reluctant believers.
One woman's rediscovery of her Jewish roots.
Hurwitz, the former head speechwriter for Michelle Obama, describes her journey into Judaism and offers advice for those looking at exploring the faith. Having basically abandoned the practice of Judaism after her bat mitzvah, the author became curious about the faith again later in her adulthood, and her initial inquiries turned into a full-blown quest to understand the religion of her heritage. Though still an infrequent worshiper, Hurwitz has immersed herself in the study of Judaism and the practice of its ethics. In this debut book, she is "essentially trying to write the book I wish I'd had five years ago,” a basic guide to what Judaism stands for, how believers live out their faith, and what sets the Jewish religion apart. She concentrates primarily on how Jews live moral lives, as opposed to what Jews believe, which she feels is secondary. Her approach is thoroughly modern and questioning, and the author, though recognizing that some Jews take their faith literally, assumes that readers will not believe in every aspect of Jewish tradition or theology. In fact, she admits that in exploring her faith, she often feared being labeled a "religious fanatic." In her recollection of a prayer exercise at a retreat, Hurwitz writes, "you can take the girl out of Washington, D.C., but Washington, D.C., is still in there, reminding the girl of how weird she's going to look and asking her what the people around her will think." These worries about the opinions of her peers seem to stymie the author's own spiritual journey, a fact apparent in her text if not evident to her personally. Still, Hurwitz provides a good introduction to basic tenets of Judaism, and her book will resonate with other secular Jews looking to regain a sense of their Jewish heritage.
A solid guide to Judaism for reluctant believers.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51071-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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