Thoughtful reflections on the meanings of the Torah.
Solovy, an American Israeli liturgist and poet, offers a collection of poetic midrashim.
Whatever may bring a reader to this compendium of reflections on the Torah, the overwhelming sense they will depart with is that of a deep care for words and their textures. As the author writes in the introduction, “we are a people of stories. We tell them. Then we tell stories about them. Then we tell stories about the stories of the stories. We call that midrash.” The cyclical return to language and its multiple meanings is at the core of midrash, making poetry a particularly apt vehicle for its scriptural interpretations and reinterpretations. In this collection, 70 Hebrew words of Torah are grouped into 10 sections, with categories ranging from “God” and “Mitzvot” to “Journeys” and “Love.” The entry for each word includes a prose reflection, or d’var Torah, followed by a short poem; chapter introductions offer connections between the chosen terms. These prose exegeses are concise and accessible, prompting scholarly inquiry into the origins of words and rabbinic arguments about their meanings while also offering context for those unfamiliar with the terms and their significance. The poems themselves are simple, often reading as prose sentences broken into shorter lines. Their spare rhythms can be soothing, if repetitive at times—further explorations into formal and syntactical variation (or even experiments with greater abstraction) would offer welcome nuance. Still, each of the poems is compellingly sincere. Reflecting on T’ruah (“Loud Blast”) the author writes, “Holiness has a sound. / Part swoosh of blood in the veins, / Part hum from the edge of the universe, / Part stillness, part vibration, / …A sound that can only be heard / With the heart.” Whether reflecting on Afar (“Dust”) or Tzedek (“Justice”), these are indeed offerings from the heart.
Thoughtful reflections on the meanings of the Torah.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780881236156
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Central Conference of American Rabbis Press
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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