Significant Jewish Books

by Bonny V. Fetterman

Our Significant Jewish Books column, inspired by UAHC President Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie's Reform Movement Literacy Initiative, challenges all Reform Jews to read at least four books of Jewish substance a year. In each issue we are recommending two titles representing the best of Jewish literature, both fiction and nonfiction, selected in cooperation with the UAHC Department of Adult Jewish Growth.

It is our hope that you will read at least one of these selections on your own or with others in a synagogue study or book group. Connect with thousands of other Significant Jewish Books readers by accessing the Adult Jewish Growth website, where you'll find a discussion guide, the criteria and process for the Significant Jewish Books selection, and more.

The Last of the Just
André Schwarz-Bart

One of the "classic" novels about the Holocaust, The Last of the Just was first published in France in 1959. An internationally acclaimed bestseller, Schwarz-Bart's sweeping novel was hailed for its magnificent prose and artistic mastery -- and no doubt found a sympathetic Christian audience for its theme as well: the Lamed-Vovniks, the martyred "Just Men" in every generation of the Levy family, are seemingly Christ-like in their acceptance of the role of "suffering servant." From this perspective, the Jewish people can be seen as a collective Christ-figure, atoning for the world's sins.

Yet a contemporary reading of this masterful novel reveals it to be a deeply Jewish book. In tracing the generations of the Levy Lamed-Vovniks -- fleeing all across Europe during crusades, expulsions, inquisitions, and pogroms, up to the Nazi era -- it is clear that Christian "love" and "charity" are responsible for one thousand years of Jewish suffering. Moreover, the Lamed-Vovniks do not seek out martyrdom; rather, they refuse to abandon the Jewish people in times of trial and persecution.

The narrator of this legendary saga tells us right at the beginning: "A biography of my friend Ernie Levy could easily be set in the second quarter of the twentieth century, but the true history of Ernie Levy begins much earlier, toward the year 1000 of our era in the old Anglican city of York." In 1135, an army of crusaders surround Rabbi Yom Tov Levy and the Jewish community of York, demanding them to choose baptism or death. Yom Tov Levy chooses death by his own hand, for which God pities him and blesses his line with a Lamed-Vovnik in each of his generations. The Lamed-Vovniks receive the gift of sympathetic soul, enabling them to shoulder the sufferings of others.

The tales of the Levy clan are a prologue to the story of Ernie Levy, a boy growing up in Germany in the 1930s. After Kristallnacht, Ernie escapes with his family to France, which is soon overrun by the Nazis. In the midst of war, Ernie is separated, first from his family, and then from Golda, the woman he loves. Standing at the gates of Drancy, he begs to be admitted to the French concentration camp, to be with Golda and other Jews. In his feverish, delirious dreams in the camp, he cries out to his lost grandparents, parents, and siblings - symbolizing the entire Jewish people: "Should I be the last Jew?" he asks them. "Know that where you are, there am I. If they beat you, am I not in pain? And if you take the little train, am I not aboard?" Forty years have not diminished this novel's power in depicting the heart of a Jew.

Excerpt

     The deed of Rabbi Yom Tov Levy had a singular destiny; rising above common tragedy, it became legend. To understand this metamorphosis, one must be aware of the ancient Jewish tradition of the Lamed-Vov, a tradition that certain Talmudists trace back to the source of the centuries, to the mysterious time of the prophet Isaiah. Rivers of blood have flowed, columns of smoke have obscured the sky, but surviving all these dooms, the tradition has remained inviolate down to our own time. According to it, the world reposes upon thirty-six Just Men, the Lamed-Vov, indistinguishable from simple mortals; often they are unaware of their station. But if just one of them were lacking, the sufferings of mankind would poison even the souls of the newborn, and humanity would suffocate with a single cry. For the Lamed-Vov are the hearts of the world multiplied, and into them, as into one receptacle, pour all our griefs. Thousands of popular stories take note of them. Their presence is attested to everywhere. A very old text of the Haggadah tells us that the most pitiable are the Lamed-Vov who remain unknown to themselves. For those the spectacle of the world is an unspeakable hell. In the seventh century, Andalusian Jews venerated a rock shaped like a teardrop, which they believed to be the soul, petrified by suffering, of an "unknown" Lamed-Vovnik. Other Lamed-Vov, like Hecuba shrieking at the death of her sons, are said to have been transformed into dogs. "When an unknown Just rises to Heaven," a Hasidic story goes, "he is so frozen that God must warm him for a thousand years between His fingers before his soul can open itself to Paradise. And it is known that some remain forever inconsolable at human woe, so that God Himself cannot warm them. So from time to time the Creator, blessed be His Name, sets forward the clock of the Last Judgment by one minute."      

The Ten Commandments -- given in Exodus 20 and repeated in Deuteronomy 5 - is the most familiar and universally accepted part of the Bible (even if, as Rabbi Rachel Mikva says, we can only name six or seven of them). "The Ten Words teach a multitude of things," she writes, "some of which we have not even yet imagined, few of which we have mastered." This edited collection of short essays on each commandment is an opportunity to study Torah with some of the most renowned teachers in Reform Judaism as well as other Jewish scholars. These essays are presented as a tribute to Arnold Jacob Wolf, rabbi emeritus of K.A.M. Isaiah Israel in Chicago, for his spiritual mentoring.

The Ten Commandments -- given in Exodus 20 and repeated in Deuteronomy 5 - is the most familiar and universally accepted part of the Bible (even if, as Rabbi Rachel Mikva says, we can only name six or seven of them). "The Ten Words teach a multitude of things," she writes, "some of which we have not even yet imagined, few of which we have mastered." This edited collection of short essays on each commandment is an opportunity to study Torah with some of the most renowned teachers in Reform Judaism as well as other Jewish scholars. These essays are presented as a tribute to Arnold Jacob Wolf, rabbi emeritus of K.A.M. Isaiah Israel in Chicago, for his spiritual mentoring.

These mediations take us both deeply into -- and far beyond--the plain meaning of the text. "Stealing is a serious crime in Jewish tradition," writes Rabbi Richard Levy, but "so is the sin of encouraging stealing by refusing to share the bounty God has temporarily entrusted to us." Reflecting on Rabin's assassination, Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman writes that responsibility for murder must include speech that inspires hatred or incites violence. Adultery, Rabbi Peter Knobel asserts, is not a private issue: "When we see the havoc that the breakdown of the family causes," he writes, "we know private behavior has public consequences." In her commentary "on bearing false witness," Rabbi Laura Geller looks at lying in general and its consequences at every level of society where trust breaks down.

Perhaps the most daring piece is Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi's essay on idolatry ("We must not turn our products, ourselves, or even our goals into gods"). In the course of his own religious studies, he writes, "I had to face a Providence that produced a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, great souls no less than our rebbes." Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi refuses to regard the religions of other people as avodat elilim (the worship of idols), though he still feels that for Jews, other religions are avodah zarah (foreign worship).

Excerpt

How were the Ten Commandments arranged? Five on one tablet and five on the other. On one tablet it is written: I am the Lord your God. And opposite it on the other tablet is written: You must not murder. Whoever sheds blood has destroyed a reflection of God, for we are created in the Divine image. Imagine a king of flesh and blood, who erects statues of his likeness and stamps his image on coins to remind people of his role. If the people begin to rebel against the king, they cannot strike at his person, but they may tear down the statues and deface the coins. When we murder, we destroy the image of God.

On one tablet it is written: Have no other god before Me. And opposite it on the other tablet is written: You must not commit adultery. Our religion and our marriage both require fidelity. If we worship idols, it is as if we commit adultery, because we break our covenant with God.

On one tablet it is written: You must not lift up the name of Adonai, your God, for vain purpose. And opposite it on the other tablet is written: You shall not steal. This suggests that one who steals will in the end also swear falsely in God's name to deny it.

On one tablet it is written: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. And opposite it on the other tablet is written: You must not bear false witness. If we profane the Sabbath, it is as though we testify: God did not create the world! Nor did God ordain a day of rest and sanctification.

On one tablet it is written: Honor your father and mother. And opposite it on the other tablet it written: You must not covet your neighbor's wife. Our coveting can lead to illicit affairs and complex relationships or families, in which the children end up unable to give both of their parents proper respect, or may be unsure to whom that honor is due.

Excerpt from Broken Tablets © 1999 by Rachel S. Mikva (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1999). $21.95 + $3.50 s/h. Order by mail or call (800) 962-4544. Permission granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, PO Box 237, Woodstock, VT 05091.