Sep 14, 2008

A Little Ditty.

I went to the library yesterday to get a bit of studying done and what did I end up doing? Checking out FOUR books. Only one of which was relevant to anything I am academically working on at the moment -- The Song of Songs by Ariel Bloch and Chana Bloch, which is an interesting presentation of commentary on the text as well as other notes and interesting tidbits about the poem. The other three? Martin Buber's "Way of Man," Jordan Jay Hillman's "The Torah and Its G-d," and "The limits of Orthodox Theology" by Marc Shapiro. The latter is a reappraisal of Maimonides' Thirteen Principles, and it looked like an intriguing read. The Buber book is incredibly short and features the teachings of Hasidism, while the Hillman book appears to be a humanist inquiry into the five books of Moses. If anyone has read any of these and has some words/musings, please comment!

Will I read them all? Who knows. I'm still trying to wrestle through Sarna's "Exodus," while needing to develope a working bibliography for two different papers of which I have yet to pick topics (name changing -- Sarah/Abraham/Jacob; maybe the idea of repentance in scripture; maybe the idea of whether Rachel was stealing the idols to worship them? who knows). Stay tuned, of course. Oh man, I still haven't blogged about "The Search Committee" and it's a week later. Where did the week go?!

At any rate, until I come up with a clear plan of attack for my many books and develop a vlog about what to do when you're a million miles away from a rabbi or perhaps only have a rabbi in a movement with which you don't necessarily want to be affiliated ... be sure to check out this week's Haveil Havalim over on Shiloh Musings.

2 comments:

Tammy said...

Chavi,
I was just reading about all of the books that you checked out and guess what the mailman delivered! He brought my copy of "Choosing to be Jewish" by Rabbi Angel. I can't wait to crack open the crisp pages and start reading, but I"ll have to wait until later...as I have to take my daughter, Clemmie, to her ballet class.
Bye for now!
Tammy

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett said...

Tammy,

So glad to hear you got it! Let me know what you think, will you?

Chavi

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