October books

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If you only have a minute to find a book recommendation, please go right now to buy this book by Avi Melamed. It is an excellent and fascinating explanation of the power dynamics in the Middle East. I am reading it a second time because it is that good! And my favorite fiction this month was A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe.

I don’t know how to explain the number of books for this month except to say that 1) if you want to ensure that something gets done, ask a busy person and 2) reading is a great distraction from reality. I guess I’m going to meet my goal of 100 books after all!

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain — I finally got to listen to this on audio, read by the author, after being on the library waitlist for over a year. My first thought is that Susan Cain’s voice and personality is nothing like what I imagined it to be (soft-spoken, even possibly a little dull). She is vibrant and full of humor and speaks with a variety of inflections and even sarcasm. This book is amazingly researched, full of interesting anecdotes and Cain’s personal experiences. I published a beautiful quote from the end of the book here.

The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself by Yrsa Daley-Ward — How to take care of yourself in a more loving way: setting intentions, feeling loneliness, learning from your past, etc. I listened to this on audio and I’m glad I did because Daley-Ward’s voice is so understanding and calming.

The Candy House: a novel by Jennifer Egan — I totally read this because of the pretty cover. This may be the strangest book I’ve ever read, in part because I had no idea that it was about a dystopian future. It’s not that far-fetched: people are able to upload (“externalize”) all their memories to the cloud and examine them and anyone can “download” them. Told from multiple points of view over different time periods, this is less a story and more a web of ideas and experiences that fit together. It really brought home for me how far gone we as a society are with our cell phones and inauthentic self-portrayals on social media apps. Theoretically, this technology would solve crimes, help cure dementia, revive defunct languages, find missing people, etc. However, I’m not sure I want to know what everyone really thinks. But this book is about more than this. It’s about loneliness, self-image, the truth of memory, connection vs. individuality, technology, addiction, and so much more.

Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business by Roxanne Gay — NYTimes columnist and cultural critic, Gay has published ten years of her best pieces about politics, feminism, civil rights, along with surprisingly human celebrity interviews and her own witty opinions about life. I’m glad to know of her because she echoes my own views about the political and racial climate in America.

Parenting a Teen Girl: A Crash Course on Conflict, Communication and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter by Lucie Hemmen — From the book description: “More than previous generations, today’s teen girls face a daunting range of stressors that put them at risk for a range of serious issues, including self-harming behaviors, substance abuse, eating disorders, anxiety, and depression.” I found it helpful in understanding what might be beneath the eye rolls and lethargy, what to do and say in response, as well as when to begin worrying and when to let it go. The best part were the examples of conversations to have – both what not to say as well as what would work better.

Breaking Through: My Life in Science by Katalin Karikó — Really REALLY good! Karikó just won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and a friend recommended her memoir. She tells of her hard life in Hungary and her professional struggles along the way to finally fulfilling one of her dreams of working with mRNA and creating the COVID vaccine. Being a woman working in science is twice the amount of work, and Karikó explains the many slights she experienced. Her personal family stories are enjoyable as well. Here is a great article from Your Local Epidemiologist about her work.

Something hit me, a feeling and knowing. I don’t know how to describe it other than to say it wasn’t there and then it was. this overwhelming sense of urgency flooding me. ‘I cannot let this happen,’ I thought. ‘I cannot stop working. I cannot settle for less.’ No one, I suddenly understood, was waiting for the work I hadn’t yet done… each of those obstacles would always be more tangible than contributions I hadn’t yet made. Obstacles have shape and structure. You can see them. One’s future impact, by contrast, remains invisible, hypothetical, at least until the future finally arrives. Nobody would ever knock on my door and say ‘Kati, this world needs the research you haven’t done, the discoveries you haven’t yet made.’ My contributions at this point didn’t exist. That’s the thing about potential — it always begins as nothing. And if that empty space was ever to be filled in, if it was ever to become something, it would be up to me.

Three Flames: A Novel by Alan Lightman — I adore Lightman, a physicist who wrote Einstein’s Dreams. He also founded The Harpswell Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia,” and has received the gold medal for humanitarian service from the government of Cambodia. This story is told by various members of a farming family from 1973 to 2015 and explores the powerlessness of females, the victimhood felt in post-Khmer Rouge times, the lack of opportunity in rural communities, and how that impacts this particular family. I think the way that Lightman jumps from perspectives and time periods shapes the story perfectly, portraying deep pain as well as the possibility of change.

The story reminded me that I raised funds to build a girls school in Cambodia in 2008 after learning about the struggles that girls face there and hearing about a man who was building schools in rural areas. I recall being amazed that there was a concrete thing that I could do to help, and I didn’t stop until I’d collected every last small donation. I mentioned it to my daughter, who was amazed that I did this and kept asking questions, especially about how I’d never told her about this before. I remember that my philanthropic boss encouraged me and matched what I raised, so that we ended up meeting the goal, but I don’t remember how much it was. I also remember that I was invited to the dedication of the school once it was built, but that by then I had a newborn and so I didn’t go. Perhaps now Sweet Girl will believe that one person really can make some sort of difference in the world.

The Matchmaker’s Gift: A Novel by Lynda Cohen Loigman — The tale of a woman who is able to see a string of light connecting two soulmates, and her granddaughter two generations later who also finds she has this gift. Each of their lives are a tale in themselves. However, it’s not that trite, I promise. It was so engaging that I read it in a day. The story unfolds perfectly and heart-warmingly, with characters who are real and relatable, and is written in such a way that I was continually amazed at the courage of these two women. I was reminded that it’s far better to fight FOR something than against its opposite.

Inside the Middle East: Entering a New Era by Avi Melamed — Wow wow WOW is this book amazing. Melamed published a book in 2016 and most of his predictions in that one have come to be. This one is an update with new observations to help us navigate the international and regional factors that are reshaping the contours of the Middle East. I learned a great deal about militant Islam and the differences between the various factions as well as the historic power struggle between three regional civilizations—Arab, Persian, and Turkish. Melamed’s descriptions of Iran’s gaining control of more area and resources are frightening.

“Five things may be able to curb or prevent Iran from realizing its hegemonic dream:

• Growing challenges inside Iran. • The Achilles heel of Iran’s agent-proxy model. • The fact that Iran’s aggressive policies have resulted in the strengthening of nationalism and patriotism in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. • The emerging counter alliances to block Iranian ambitions. • The rise of the new power in the Middle East—China.”

How amazingly relevant is this paragraph to events of the past 24 days (The book was published in February 2022)?

When all narratives are valid, it devalues the pursuit of knowledge comprised of facts, context, the sequence of events, cause and effect, actions, and reactions. When the database of knowledge narrows, history and the present become subdued to buzzwords, concepts, narratives, and theories. When critical thinking and media literacy are diminished, conveyors of knowledge are exempt from accountability for the accuracy of their theories and opinions. The combination of facile narratives, disregard for data, and a dearth of critical thinking and media literacy has led to an environment in which a complicated multi-layered Middle East is flattened into a two-dimensional Westernized soundbite and discussions about the Middle East scarcely reflect the complex reality on the ground. Policy failures do not stem from a lack of resources, capacity, or dedicated and committed professionals. They stem from a systemic flaw that prevents an accurate interpretation of the Middle East reality and compromises the ability to navigate an increasingly complex global reality.

Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome by Aparna Nancherla — I listened to the author read her book and enjoyed her self-deprecating humor immensely. As a female and a minority, she feels that she is the most unlikely standup comic. Nancherla tells about her struggles with anxiety and depression with such candor and openness. I enjoyed her thoughts on formulating material for her routines and how authentic she decided to be.

Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes by Jessica Pan — Hilarious. A shy introvert living in London puts herself in uncomfortable situations to expand her social network. I identified with many of the emotions that Pan described. She has life-changing experiences: she takes classes at a comedy club to ultimately do a stand up routine, she travels to new places, she talks to strangers, and she ends the year hosting a dinner party in her apartment for all her various new friends. Pan also has some deeply-thought out strategies about the best way to connect with people.

As I study my new classmates, I realize this could double as group therapy. It’s clear that everyone here must have some hole in their life: professional, social, or romantic. No one really seems to be here to actually become a comedian professionally—they are here to try on a different part of their personality, to meet new people, to escape the safe, boring clutches of normal life. We have each looked at our status quo and decided: something needs to change.

I learned a lot about loneliness. As an adult, sometimes if you’re lucky, you have close friends from childhood nearby, but when you move away from home or outgrow your old friends, you have to find your people. And it’s so hard. It can take years. You have to actively go out and get them. You’ll need them for when life gets dark or one of your loved ones has just gone into the operating room for major surgery and you’re standing in the hospital corridor, scared out of your mind and you really, really need someone to sit beside you.

Romantic Comedy: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld — Remarkably similar to The Happy Ever After Playlist, but compelling just the same. A love story between an award-winning comedy writer who thinks she is nothing special and a famous, yet humble, musician. The difference between the two books is that the writing in this one seemed more engrossing, more astute and much more charming. Learning about the behind-the-scenes happenings of a Saturday Night Live-type show was fascinating, especially after enjoying watching Mrs. Maisel’s last season. The only downfall, despite its extreme predictability, is that I found the main character’s never-ending insecurity started to annoy me.

“Aren’t we all just looking for someone to talk about everything with? Someone worth the effort of telling our stories and opinions to, whose stories and opinions we actually want to hear?”

East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity” by Philippe Sands — The author writes much more than a personal memoir. This is an unfolding background of two human rights lawyers who coined the apparently competing terms “Crimes Against Humanity” and “Genocide” leading up to the 1945 Nurenberg trials. Both men studied with the same professors a few years apart in Lemberg, now Lviv, which was also home to the author’s grandfather. I hadn’t read anything about the trial itself and this book went into background of the legal arguments of Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht, pioneers of today’s human rights movement. Lemkin focused on group persecution; Lauterpacht on individuals. Sands also tells the story of one particular Nazi, from his point of view, which gives a strangely detached perspective of his involvement in mass slaughter.

A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe — 1950s Manhattan housewife who finds personal fulfillment by secretly helping the FBI. It’s about how much mothers juggle their newfound responsibilities and are in danger of losing their identity. Part spy story, part self-determination meets the Cold War era.

“I am a very small dot in this world. My actions are of little significance. But put together with the actions of many, they could have great significance. I want to move the country in the right direction. Then when I’m terribly old and terribly unimportant, I can say that I walked the right path.”

The Breakaway: a Novel by Jennifer Weiner — completely predictable but such a good story! It’s chick lit, but Weiner touches on many worthwhile topics like mother-daughter relationship and communication, taking care of yourself, mother/daughter dynamics and communication, body positivity, mental health and abortion.

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Thoughts on war

I feel compelled to put some thoughts down here, both to help me un-jumble my brain and to have as a memory.

I am in rabbinical school because I love the Jewish people. I love our Torah and the covenant that looks forward as much as it looks backward. I love the land of Israel (despite disliking its government of recent years) and its existence as a sanctuary for Jews the world over.  It does not lack for challenges, but its very existence means everything when history has proven time and again that there is no safe place for Jews to go.

Jewish history is a collection of many struggles, and this current one is only slightly different from the crusades of the Middle Ages or the pogroms in Europe between World Wars. Certainly, the blinding and irrational hatred of Jews is the same across time – based on religious fanaticism or fear or any number of irrationalities.  All of the many, many tragedies and pogroms and expulsions in Judaism’s 4,000-year history feel personal to me. I have felt sorrow for each of them, as removed as I am. As a people, collectively, we remember.

I think the main difference I’m feeling is that we are living through this pain in current time. Reading Josephus’ account of the siege and tragedy of Masada during the first Jewish-Roman war, even visiting the site, is not the same as having real friends living in Israel that I speak with on a regular basis. Nearly every Jew has some tangible connection to Israel, and most of us have many.

The Jewish people is one of connection. Because there are so very few of us, making up almost zero percent of the world’s population, and because of the teaching that a single life equates to an entire world, the pointless loss of life from such intense barbarism evokes for Jews a collective memory of a long list of past hatreds. Watching and listening to crowds of people celebrate such atrocities feels sickening.

There is a great deal of complexity to the establishment of the state of Israel, as well as to the conflicts between peoples. We don’t need to get into that except to note that it is not for lack of trying that there is unrest and instability there. I’ve learned many new and surprising things in the past few months about the last 170 years in the region, more than enough to state that it’s beyond my abilities to explain it all.

I care for all people’s right to self-determination, and the Palestinian people have had a rough road.  Their government has been overtaken by terrorists and Arabs in surrounding countries are not concerned with their welfare. However, disinformation that has led to pro-Palestinian rallies elsewhere, with fervent cries against Israeli “oppression” baffles and scares me, simply because this is not true. This is yet another instance when I have to ask, “Does no one care about the truth anymore? Does no one care about basic morality?” The past 13 days have not been about anything besides a terrorist group wanting to annihilate an entire people.

Israel represents sacred history as well as holy space. It is where God revealed Godself to the Jewish people and gave us the Torah, and it is also a laboratory for modern Jewish life. The concept of Jewish Peoplehood means that even though I live a very different life in America, I am soulfully linked to Israel. I am grieving. I am in deep pain. How could I not be???

My focus is elsewhere, hopefully temporarily. We say “libi b’mizrach – my heart is in the East,” a line from Judah Halevi’s poem, as a way of conveying an intense longing to be in Israel. The collective diasporic Jewish soul is aching.

It strikes me that this is rather strange. Speaking to a friend the other day who is not Jewish, I realized that she viewed the recent events as one headline among many. Whereas I couldn’t really speak of other things, she could not understand why I was in a state of mourning. It’s hard to explain that when something happens to Jews anywhere in the world, even if we did not know them personally, we care. We say, “kol Yisrael arevim zeh la-zeh – all Israel is responsible for one another.” The tribal unity of the global Jewish community, all Jews experiencing this event together, feels significant. And the instinct to actively help in some way is strong.

Of course, ideally we would feel this way about all of humanity because we are all interconnected. I care about the Chinese oppression of Taiwan. I care about Ukraine. I care about preserving and defending democracy against the powers that wish to take it away. I don’t understand such hatred. Many people keep checking their phones for an alert that the IDF has begun its land invasion of Gaza to find the terrorists. I am checking mine because I fear that I will read that Iran (and perhaps China, North Korea, and Russia) has directly entered the war, which will lead to more chaos in Israel and in America.

Instead, I am focusing on the remarkable altruism that immediately came forth from the destruction – people have reached out to the larger Jewish community simply because they care. One example is the 300 German citizens who linked hands and encircled a synagogue to protect it from violence. While their government seems to be in a state of overwhelm, Israelis have opened their homes to anyone in need, and are collecting and distributing toiletries and food, etc. And there are many volunteers and nonprofits responding and providing support. The fact that Israel went from intense disagreements in its streets to such unity is inspiring. I hope that the U.S. would do the same.

Thankfully, most Jews today do not live in fear because democratic governments and their citizens embrace and value diversity. May that continue to be so, and may we be a comfort to one another in these tenuous times. May we find strength in our tradition and transform our sadness and fear into hope.

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A question to ask yourself

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain

So what if I asked you this same question: “What are you longing for?” You may not have asked yourself this question before. You may not have identified the important symbols in your life story. You may not have examined what they mean. You’ve likely asked other questions: What are my career goals? Do I want marriage and children? Is so and so the right partner? How can I be a good and moral person? What work should I do?  To what extent should my work define me?  When should I retire? But have you asked yourself these questions in the deepest terms?

Have you asked, What is the thing you long for most, your unique imprint, singular mission, wordless calling? Have you asked where on earth is your closest approximation of home, literally? If you sat down and wrote “home” on a piece of paper and waited a while, what would you write next? And if you have a bittersweet temperament or you’ve come to it by a life experience, have you asked how to hold the melancholy within you? Have you realized that you’re part of a long and storied tradition that can help you transform your pain into beauty, your longing into belonging? Have you asked who is the artist or musician or athlete or entrepreneur or scientist or spiritual leader you love and why do you love them? What do they represent to you? And have you asked what is the ache you can’t get rid of and could you make that your creative offering? Could you find a way to help heal others who suffer a similar trouble? Could you be as Leonard Cohen said, the way you embrace the sun and the moon and do you know the lessons of your own particular sorrows and longings?

Maybe you experience a chasm between who you are and what you do for a living and this tells you that you work too much or too little or that you want fulfilling work or an organizational culture in which you fit or that the work you need has little to do with your official job or income source or countless other messages your yearning might be sending to you.  Listen to them. Follow them. Pay attention.

This is not to say that you should abandon your paycheck in favor of a dream… only that you make space for the dream too. Or maybe you’re thrilled when your children laugh but suffer too vicariously when they cry, which tells you that you haven’t truly accepted that tears are part of life and that your kids can handle them. Or maybe you carry the griefs of your parents or grandparents or great-great-great-grandparents maybe your body pays the price of their trouble. Maybe your relationship with the world is compromised by hypervigilance or hair-trigger anger or a dogged dark cloud and you must find a way to transform the pain of the ages, even as you find the freedom to write your own story. Or maybe you mourn your breakups or your dead, which tells you that separation is the most fundamental of heartaches but also that attachments is our deepest desire and that you might transcend your grief when you perceive how connected you are with all the other humans who struggle to transcend theirs and who emerge in fits and starts, bit by rocky bit, just like you.

And maybe you crave perfect and unconditional love, the kind that’s depicted in all those iconic advertisements of a glamorous couple driving their convertible around a bend to nowhere. But maybe you’re also starting to realize that the heart of those ads is not the dazzling couple, but rather the invisible place to which their shiny car is driving — that just around that curve the perfect and beautiful world. But in the meantime, a flame of it is lit inside them and that glimpses of this elusive place are everywhere, not only in our love affairs but also when we kiss our children goodnight, when we shiver with delight at the strum of a guitar, when we read a golden truth expressed by an author who died 1000 years before we were born. And maybe you see that the couple will never arrive and if they do, they won’t get to stay — a situation that has the power to drive us mad with desire…

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September book collection

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Time is passing quickly! The Jewish High Holidays were a beautiful season of reflection and meaning and now we move into a season of our rejoicing in the sukkah. I’m quite proud of myself that I did not assemble our sukkah this year. It’s just too hot outside and takes a great deal of my time and effort. (I recently did some garden work and came inside with a huge headache, dehydrated and feeling awful. I prefer not to repeat that experience.) Instead, we will fulfill the commandment by sitting in someone else’s sukkah!

I am enjoying three weeks off of school for the holidays, so I’ve had lots of time to read!

Only Yesterday by S.Y. Agnon — This is the novel that brought Israeli writer Agnon his Nobel Prize in Literature. I heard about it 3.5 years ago when I was in Israel, and it took me this long to finally read it. Written in 1945, it tells about a simple man who immigrates to Palestine in the Second Aliya between 1904 and 1914. It’s a surrealist tale that wanders through many stages and is nothing like what the main character (or I) expected. I’m sure there is a good deal of symbolism and nuance that I didn’t pick up on.

The Secret of Love: A Glimpse into the Mystical Wisdom of Rav Kook by Aryeh Ben David — According to Rav Kook, love flows from our souls and brings oneness to the world. I’ve been enjoying Aryeh’s online community for about three years now, taking his classes based on Rav Kook’s private journals. This book is about this, but also how Aryeh’s own life has been transformed through his encounters with Rav Kook’s writing, becoming more patient and loving. The book has many prompts asking how we could become better versions of ourselves and more of a force of oneness in the world.

Yes, Your Teen is Crazy!: Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind by Michael J. Bradley — This book has gone a long way to reassure me that I’m doing ok as a parent. Mr. B definitely misses the sweet, agreeable young girl we had, but has fostered a new and different relationship with our teenager. The onslaught of hormonal, neurological, and physical changes must be overwhelming to a teen, and this book is a guide to understanding this new, often unpredictable, person and to remaining the stable and loving parent they need.

So much of effective teenage parenting is counter-intuitive. Beginning with much humor about the state of the adolescent brain, journeying forward about the importance of trust and respect and finishing with specific guidance for many situations (I appreciated the pages about how to foster academic success), Bradley helped me see the differences between my responsibilities as a parent and my child’s responsibilities, especially in how best to foster learning and growth.

“If you judge a teen’s experience based on your own view of the world, you’ll do no good and possibly a lot of harm to your kid. If you can open your mind and listen ten without judgment, you’ve taken the first step to helping-but it can be very hard to listen to something that sounds nuts.”

“Long-term, high-level academic achievement is a marathon run, not a sprint. It is an event best mastered by kids who possess qualities like self-awareness (identity), emotional resilience (identity), positive outlook (identity), persistence (identity), and self-directedness (identity). In other words, it’s a game for folks who have consolidated their identities. If you think back to our discussions of identity-building, you’ll recall how one good way to impair that identity process is to either over- or under-control your kid. The magic is in the balance.”

Putting these here for my own future reference:

  • She must attend and she must pass, but it must be up to her to decide to strive for excellence. This is so for a number of reasons. First, as with religion, this is something, ultimately, you can’t force.
  • If you review that list of characteristics that breed long-term academic success, you’ll see that building those qualities is done with that dispassionate engagement approach. Your kid learns to make good decisions when you allow her to sometimes make bad ones.
  • Incessantly grinding your child down for the sake of grades will not instill the life-long love of learning that characterizes people who achieve long-term academic success. More likely, your kid will come to hate school and everything associated with it if you become the prison warden.

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird — I wanted to read this biography of Oppenheimer at the suggestion of a new friend who was impressed by it, and I can easily see why it won a Pulitzer. I learned a great deal about his early life and his humanity in this (rather too lengthy) well-researched portrayal of a genius. That he foresaw the dangers for humanity of atomic science and passionately tried to avert catastrophe and encourage international openness makes him very relatable and admirable.

The Lilac Tree: A Rabbi’s Reflections on Love, Courage, and History by Ammiel Hirsch — Hirsch is a Reform rabbi at the Stephen S. Wise synagogue in Manhattan, and I first heard some of his sermons via YouTube because of a Gratz course. Judaism has something to teach about every human condition, and I find these reflections on faith, activism, learning, and the future to be relevant and full of wisdom and peacefulness. Hirsch answers the question, “How do we give meaning and purpose to our infinitesimal smallness within the colossal bigness of the universe?”

Until the modern era, the human problem was hot to align ourselves to the reality of the world. We did that through discipline, morals, justice, a sense of right and wrong, and an intuition of the eternal. Now, so many expect to align the world to themselves.”

“The meaning of life is a life of meaning. The purpose of life is a life of purpose. The energy of life is a life of energy. Commitment to life is a life of commitment. Devotion to life is a life of devotion. The promise of life is a life of promise.”

The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez — I really enjoyed this one – a love story through a sweet dog. It sounds so trite, but I thought it was deeply meaningful as well as realistic, at least as far as the difficulty of trusting someone new after a heartbreaking loss.

How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones — The story of a young black and gay boy in the south, with lots to overcome. Jones tells his story in a poetic fashion, with a difficult childhood and adolescence, alternating between his reality and who he most strives to become.

It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly — A true telling of the tension between working and parenting. I listened to Kelly read this on audio and enjoyed her poignant reflections about being present during her son’s last year living at home, interspersed with memories of his birth and childhood. Kelly tells fascinating stories about her career at NPR, as well as her future empty nest. Honestly, my favorite parts were behind the scenes of war reporting, but her motherhood memories had me in tears and have reminded me to stay present in every single moment.

The Dream, the Journey, Eternity, and God: Channeled Answers to Life’s Deepest Questions by Sara Landon and Mike Dooley — Whatever you think of the concept of the book, believe me that you should read this because it’s such a reassuring way to view the world right now and living your purpose. I read this quite slowly, over a few months actually, because there is a lot of substance here. Basically, this is a guide to living and thinking on a higher level, not focused on separation and lack but on how interconnected everything is. I have over a hundred parts highlighted, which you can see on Goodreads, but here are a few of my favorites:

What you focus on creates your reality – “You have the freedom to choose the thoughts that you are thinking, the stories that you are telling, and the level of consciousness in which you are focused.”

“If you can, embrace the perspective that whatever is going on is happening for you, not to you.” This is very Jewish.

“As you shift your focus away from warring, chaos, and division, and stop trying to change people and situations, and stop arguing about who’s right and wrong, you will be elevating your consciousness into a place of inspiration that allows you to perceive optimal potentials for resource-sharing and exchange systems based in understanding one’s own worth and value.”

“Never forget: allow your worthiness to be known by you. Are you worthy of it all coming to you with ease? Are you worthy of doing what you love and having everything else figure itself out? Are you worthy of doing what you most enjoy doing, for you? It doesn’t matter if anyone else approves or likes it. Know your own worthiness to a level that you can be all that you are. And let it be easy and effortless.”

Arranged by Catherine McKenzie — I think I heard of this love story from a magazine recommendation and it really was engaging. Can you imagine agreeing to an arranged marriage? This was a quick read that was actually believable. Plus, it was well-written with likable characters and prompted me to ask myself what needless barriers to happiness I may have.

Golda Meir: Israel’s Matriarch By Deborah Lipstadt — When my rabbi mentioned this biography in his Kol Nidre sermon about the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, I went home and started reading it. I learned many new things about the years leading up to the creation of the state! In combination with Arc of a Covenant (see below), this book has given me a much more fleshed-out picture of that time. Always a fan of Deborah Lipstadt, I appreciate her balanced portrayal of one of Israel’s formative Labor Zionists and the few instances when she injected humor into her text. Not necessarily the best wife and mother, Meir built her own future with almost no support and with most people underestimating her. She was instrumental in building the social infrastructure of the state, as well as uniquely talented in connecting with American Jews to invoke a sense of shared responsibility. I enjoyed reading about the different perceptions that Israelis held about her, as well as their list of criticisms. Ultimately, she lived by her values and beliefs and spoke truth to power, and Lipstadt wonders in her Epilogue whether a man with her talents would have faced the same criticisms.

Golda built her career on a synthesis of a variety of impulses: the fears she internalized in Russia, the unique life lessons she encountered in America, her profound sense of Jewish impotence during the Holocaust, her deep-seated conviction that Arabs want to deny Israel the right to exist, and her sense of betrayal by foreigners, whom she perceived as being ready to generously tell Israel what to do while being unwilling to help it at critical moments. Ultimately, all these strains were wound around a central fiber: her total devotion to the Zionist dream realized in a socialist context. For Golda, Zionism, socialism, and the equality that she fervently believed was embedded therein remained the foundations of her life.

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead — Along with Lipstadt’s Golda biography, I had my eyes opened to how the state of Israel was formed. I did not realize that the British were so against ostracizing the Arabs and thus put up barrier after barrier for the Jews, nor did I know that it was the Soviets who rescued Israel in its war for statehood in 1948 by allowing Czechoslovakia to sell them Nazi weapon overstock (the U.N. had an arms embargo in place).

Since the early 1800s, Jews in America and Europe were mostly anti-Zionist, focused as they were on acculturating to their new freedoms in their societies. This book is a thorough walk through the creation of the State, its early years when there was not an alliance with the U.S., into the 1960’s when that changed, as well as a heartfelt assessment of the challenges and tragedies for the Palestinian people and the likelihood of reconciliation. A bonus is that antisemitism on the left was finally explained in a way I now grasp. Ultimately, American policy toward Israel has a complex history and continues to be about far more than it seems.

Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery — I have been waiting for this one to come out! Did you know that some turtles can live for hundreds of years? Yet it’s easy to see why they are endangered. Modern humans have introduced cars, poaching, pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change. Montgomery tells of her time at the Turtle Rescue League where she and illustrator and fellow turtle lover Matt Patterson help rescue injured turtles and learn about the rehabilitation process with their dedicated rescuers. Such a great read!

I am nervous. Mine is a snapper nest, Natasha tells me, and to reach the topmost eggs, I may have to dig half a foot or more, past rocks, roots, dirt, and sand. I am fearful of piercing an egg. This is most likely to happen at the very moment you finally locate the nest cavity, as your finger pops through a hard layer of compacted sand, dirt, and rocks to the chamber itself. “It’s not just a hole,” Natasha tells me. “It’s a structure, with definite walls, and even a roof. You’ll know immediately when you find it.” I have dug down five inches and now am brushing away less than a quarter inch of sand at a time, using only the tips of my fingers. And then the first glimmer of shell appears. Until this moment, I didn’t fully believe they would be there. The eggs are perfectly round, about the size of Ping-Pong balls, and just as white. I look at them in startled wonder. I feel like a person who has never before looked into the night sky, who suddenly beholds—hanging right there!—the full moon. I gently lift the first egg I find, careful to keep the sphere perfectly level as I transfer it to the transporter, lest I slosh the contents and kill someone who could live over a century. And next to it, the sand reveals another, and then another ...

I’ve uncovered twenty eggs by now, and I’m still digging. At the edge of the parking lot, my seat and thighs are baking. Sweat drips off my nose. Ants crawl up my hands, onto my arms, and under my shirt. “The ants are another reason we need to take these eggs,” Natasha reminds me. Her voice seems strangely far away. It is as if I’ve entered a reverse nesting trance. Nothing in this world could be more momentous, more fulfilling, or more joyous than excavating these eggs. Finally, I lift what is clearly the last, precious egg from the nest. There were thirty-one.”

A Tap on the Shoulder: Rabbi Meir Schuster and the magical era of Teshuvah by Yonoson Rosenbum — Rabbi Akiva Tatz recommended this one about a shy and modest rabbi who devoted his life to Jewish outreach. I found it fascinating because Jews do not proselytize… like at all. (If you’d like to join us, you are most welcome, but it takes initiative on your part.) So the fact that Rabbi Schuster went around Jerusalem every day for years of his life looking for young Jewish people who were looking for meaning and offering to take them to a class or home for a meal – is remarkable. The book is full of beautiful stories and I enjoyed it immensely. (The reason Rabbi Tatz mentioned it is that Rabbi Schuster died with a list in his suit pocket that he carried around every day of things he wanted to improve about himself. Interestingly, he thought he talked too much on the phone, was distracted by unimportant things, and didn’t tell his wife he loved her enough.)

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Everyday Tools for Life’s Ups & Downs by Dr. Julie Smith — This book is rich in topics: building self-awareness, self-doubt, loneliness, expressing grief, strength, motivation, taking care of body and mental health, holding boundaries, facing fears, building confidence. It also has practical, real suggestions in a “tool kit” section at the end of each chapter.

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Summer reading

It’s been so long since I’ve checked in here that I can’t remember what updates I have shared and what I haven’t.

Quick summer recap: I was nervous about Sweet Girl having few structured summer plans, but it worked out great. She stayed busy with a mini-job, seeing friends, a few new television series, and babysitting. We took several trips as a family – to Austin, a surprise detour from Hawaii to the Bahamas when our plane didn’t make the proper connecting flight and we had to switch destinations last minute, a few days at a nearby lakehouse, and a family trip to Breckenridge. Mr. B and I also had a couples trip with two other long-time friends to Cabo to celebrate that this year they turn 50, which was so much fun. Also lots of Taylor Swift concert fun and friendship bracelet making.

I took my final two courses at Gratz for my Masters in Jewish Studies: The Book of Samuel and Modern Jewish Thought, both of which were excellent. I also completed my fourth 30-week course in a Biblical Hebrew series. And at AJR, I took the next Hebrew class in the progression of requirements. I graduated from the MAJS program last Sunday. I’m happy that I undertook the program and I truly learned so much from the 12 courses and my thesis in just under three years. I’ve been attending both programs for 9 months and I’m quite happy to narrow that down to one. This trimester, I’m taking Hebrew and a theology course. I also get to meet everyone in person in November.

Currently, I’m reading too many books at once, but loving American Prometheus (about Oppenheimer and far too long) and my teacher Aryeh ben David’s new book, The Secret of Love: A Glimpse into the Mystical Wisdom of Rav Kook.

I am trusting my Goodreads account list to report that these are the books that I read in June, July, and August. I hate to say it but I’m terrible at remembering plot lines for most of them. Upon review, I can say that my faves were Hello Beautiful; Love, Theoretically; Modern Girls; The Messy Lives of Book People; and The Sun is Also a Star. I’m sorry that I haven’t put links this time!

Apparently this brings me to 66 books toward of my goal of reading 100 books. If I finish all the ones I’m currently reading, that’s 76. Can I read the rest in 3 months? I need to pick up some light fiction and speed through some entertaining stories. Any recommendations???

The David Story: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter

Modern Girls by Jennifer Brown

After Goliath: A Novel by R.V. Cassill

Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Eliott Friedman

Sister Stardust by Jane Green

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Happy Place by Emily Henry

The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption by Kate Kelleher

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

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May reading

I intend to figure out why photos are not showing up for email subscribers, but you can always go to the web version to see them.

May has come and gone… quickly. It is now officially summer! I’m still taking classes, but I’m also (1 day in) swimming with my daughter and watching TV shows with Mr. B. Slowing down feels excellent! And I’m excited about some trips we are taking as a family this summer.

Sweet Girl finished eighth grade. I turned 48. All is good here!

I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda

Really sweet y.a. story of a pen pal from Zimbabwe turned best friend, and how they shaped each other’s lives.

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook

Quite odd apocalyptic-type story about a group of people living in “the last wilderness.”

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad

A girl’s 3-year journey from diagnosis of leukemia to remission, with all the feels. Rather long, but insightful.

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May

Searching for the numinous around us. I like how she incorporated stories of herself as a parent.

Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl by Renee Rosen

Story of a friendship with Estee Lauder in the early days, before her success. Really good!

The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan

Kind of a predictable story about war-time women, but good nonetheless.

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi

Saga of four generations in a family. Hard to put down! She has a new novel out.

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