By Word of Mouth from the Midrash and the Middle Ages

in belief and practice, I can see what Hirsch By Word of Mouth from the midrash and the Middle Ages. means. Reinman's read of Hirsch is often But what strikes me as most impressive different from what I took him to be say One People, Many Stories is how many of these tales come from con Abigail Yasgur, executive producer; Jerry Stiller, ing. No matter how often Hirsch explains host temporary America. We constantly hear that Reform Jews are not secular, Reinman Jewish Community Library of the Los Angeles prophecies of gloom and doom about the continues to treat them for all intents and Bureau of Jewish Education, 2002. SixCD boxed American Jewish community. But a com purposes as "secular brothers and sisters." set, S54. munity that can create as many new tales Similarly, Hirsch often does not seem to REVIEWED BY JACK RIEMER as this is not as moribund as pessimists respond directly to Reinman's ideological would claim. critique of Hirsch's brand of Reform I am not a philosopher or a theologian or Salo Baron, the great Jewish historian, Judaism—especially Reform's notion of a scholar. I am a storyteller. I believe that once said that he would have no fears for autonomy and its way of interpreting rab this whole Jewish enterprise in which we American Jewry's future if it could produce binic sources. He persists in seeing Rein- are engaged is one great, still-unfinished 100 first-rate Jewish scholars. I don't know man and Orthodoxy as literalist even story, a story to which our generation has if we have done that yet, but judging by this though Reinman explicitly tries to show its own chapter to contribute. And I that this is mistaken. believe that God must love stories, too. Why can't two intelligent and appar For otherwise, why would he have created ently well-meaning rabbis either fully the world? If there were no world, there understand each other or at least under would be no stories. But if there were no stand that they aren't always able to "get" stories, how boring and empty God's life what the other is driving at? My own intu would be. ition is that Reinman and Hirsch often And so, because I love stories, I wel talk past each other because they inhabit come this new collection of compact different conceptual worlds. Reinman's discs that the Jewish Community conceptual world does not seem to have a Library of Los Angeles has produced. category for religiously Jewish but not The stories come from all over the Jewish Orthodox. As a result, when Reinman world. There are tales from Yemen and reads "Reform Judaism," he can't easily Morocco, Poland and Russia, Egypt and categorize it as "religiously Jewish" and Iran, Czechoslovakia and the Balkans, and thus shifts to "secular." In turn, in Hirsch's world, "Orthodox" is defined as almost fundamentalist-literal. Reinman tells him that he does anything but read sacred texts literally. Since Hirsch seems to lack a category for "inventive and original Orthodox Jewish text interpreta tion," he simply cannot take it in. In sum, while Reinman and Hirsch both use words like "truth," "revelation," "scholarship," "intuition," and "Israel," they often do not really mean the same things. Does it have to be like this? I think not. Imagine what this book might have looked like if Reinman and Hirsch had really learned to speak enough of each other's lan guages so they could genuinely share a con versation. Imagine that they had then moved from debate to collaboration, each genuinely including the other in his Jewish journey. What if they had given up asking, "Where do we agree and differ?" and began asking, "What can I learn from—and more important—with you that takes us both fur ther along our spiritual paths? In such a conversation, their differences would be powerful assets for them both. Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, a Ph.D. psychologist, is direc tor of organizational development at CLAL—The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. collection of tales, we are well on the way to producing 100 first-rate storytellers. Sandy Sasso Eisenberg, Blu Greenberg, Howard Schwartz, Julius Lester, Cherie Lake Effect The Mensch Chef—Or Why Delicious Karo Schwartz, and Penina Schram are Rich Cohen (New York: Knopf, 2002) Jewish Food Isn't an Oxymoron Mitchell David (New York: Clarkson Potter, among the contemporary storytellers and Rich Cohens first two books, Tough Jews 2002) story creators who are included in this col and The Avengers, dealt with Jewish "Somewhere between the Exodus from lection. And what a varied and talented gangsters and with Holocaust resistance Egypt and the migration to New York group they are. fighters. In Lake Effect, Cohen turns City's Upper West Side," Mitchell Davis This collection also includes a number of away from explicidy Jewish subjects and writes, "Jewish food got a bad rap." prominent Hollywood celebrities who are embraces a traditional American genre— Davis should know—he is a food writer the readers of these tales. Among them are a memoir of adolescence. Cohen's locale for several major magazines. With hun men like Mike Burstyn, Henry Winkler, was the Chicago suburb of Glencoe in dreds of classic recipes and some nouveau Monty Hall, Leonard Nimoy, Al Franken, the late 1970s and early 1980s. The twists, Davis reintroduces Jewish cook and Jerry Stiller, and women like Darryl decade of rebellion was over. What ing to a generation which may have Hannah, Doris Roberts, Sandra Bernhard, remained was a hodgepodge of high fond memories of Jewish fare but never Alfre Woodard, and Sandra Tsing Loh. school strivers, slackers, and drifters, a learned how to prepare it properly. Imaginative, original music has been world in which Cohen felt very much at The book includes the staple recipes arranged by Gordon Lustig. home. But an early reference to Cohen's of any good Jewish diet such as brisket All anthologies are matters of taste. I family's Jewishness is never followed up, and farfel—and Davis cleverly names the wish that the collectors had included Peretz and that thread remains unexplored, chapters ("Dinner Starts at Five" and and Agnon, Roth and Malamud, Dan perhaps intentionally. Lake Effect, "Since When Are You a Vegetarian?") to Jacobson and Nathan Englander, but I can although it has its moments of fine make you feel like your bubbe is in the not point to many they included that I description, is ultimately too desultory kitchen. Beware: The recipes don't fol would have taken out to make room for and too self-indulgent to fully low kashrut, but you may be too busy them. I understand that the stories in this succeed.—Jonathan Groner indulging in nostalgia to realize it.—DR album are being aired on hundreds of pub A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven:I n the Catsk/Hs—A Century of Jewish lic radio stations around the country. The Jewish Life-Spiral as a Spiritual Path Experience in "The mountains" My favorites from the collection include: Arthur Ocean Waskow and Phyllis Ocean Phil Brown (New York: Columbia University "The Sabbath Lion," which comes from Berman (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Press, 2002) Algeria; "Drawing the Wind," from 2002) In the CatskiUs focuses on Jewish life in Majorca; "Raisel's Riddle," a Polish tale; Arthur Ocean Waskow and Phyllis Ocean upstate New York's famed "Borscht the "Sound of Work," native to the Balka Berman do not stand on ceremony. They Belt." The book is designed to capture ns; and "The Christmas Menorahs," the dance on it. A Time fir Every Purpose the flavor of Jewish life in the area long story of how one town fought anti-Semi Under Heaven offers a contemporary known simply as "the mountains." Jews tism and hatred in Montana. Jewish handbook to the "four-step life- first arrived in the Catsldlls around the "Once upon a time" is one of the most dance." Over an entire life and within end of the 1800s as farmers and later beloved phrases in all of literature. When each part, they find a recurrent converted many of those farms to small ever children hear those words, they settle structure of withdrawal, encounter, boarding houses or bungalow colonies. back and get ready to listen to a story. transformation, and reentry. And they Within just a few decades, Jews owned They know when they hear those words explicate and celebrate ceremonies that many large resorts, and the Catsldlls, they are about to be transported, perhaps mark each stage. The authors review which had become a popular destination to some ancient time, perhaps to some far- how Biblical and rabbinic Judaism have for vacationing New York City Jews, off country, perhaps to never-never land. marked various life-cycle events—such also became established as an American And when Jewish parents tell a story to as circumcision, bar mitzvah, marriage, Jewish cultural icon.—NIK their children, they are forging a link divorce, and death—but then suggest between all the past and all the future. how "holistic Judaism," might modify Books Received This collection will be a valuable resource and multiply existing ceremonies. Zen Judaism—For You, a Little Enlighten for parents, educators, and librarians who Toward that end, these post-halacbic ment, David M. Bader (New York: Har seek to forge links between the worlds Jews have devised and cataloged rituals mony Books). Humorously meshes the from which we came and the worlds in for weaning, the onset of menstruation, teachings of Judaism and Buddhism.

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