This was an interesting and well-written novel about a young rabbi finding his way in the first half of 20th century America. Grandson of an immigrant orthodox rabbi, he was a sensitive man who studied his Hebrew diligently and tried his best to fulfill the role of Rabbi.

He married a Christian woman who converted to Judaism for her love of him. That was often an issue for both, as they moved around the United States following his assignments to various temples.

Thus Noah Gordon portrayed many of the religious and social situations during those years. But his wife had a tragic past with her strict Christian father, a minister. Sexual mores of the times figure quite a bit in the novel. As their two children grew up she fell into a deep depression and was treated with electric shock, the approved but barbaric solution in the 1950s. That shocked me!

I could never tell, while reading, how it would all work out for this family in the end. The recipe for a good read!

Book Review
The Rabbi
Noah Gordon
3/5 stars
"Meandering. Some information, but generally low value-added"

Every once in a while, it's a good idea to read a palate-cleansing book like this one after reading other books that are too heavy or depressing.

My aim in reading this was to try to get some information about three phenomenon that I myself have noticed:

1. Orthodox Jews have been having huge families for many decades, and yet they stay a minor fraction of all Jewry.

Whither the leakage?

2. I don't know anything about Reform Judaism. (And, I will not likely be learning about it since more than one Orthodox Rabbi has told me to not even go into any building where they hold services.) Was it different just a half century ago to what it is today?

3. Can I draw parallels between the Jewish Community as I see them today and an American Jewish Community half century ago?
*******

Sometimes you know that certain historical events have happened but it takes a little bit more dramatization/narrative arc in order for them to seem more real.

The technique of reverse engineering characters to build a narrative arc around factual historical events has been mastered byJames Michener (long, multi-generational sagas).

Gordon's attempt to do the same thing takes place over a much shorter span of time and only three generations.

In many ways, the book is all over the place.

It describes:

-A clergyman at a Reform synagogue who is waiting for 10 men (!) for a minyan for daily (!) prayers? (Can I deduce that the counting of women was something that would not have been done a half century ago? How far back do we have to go into the history of reform to see when they did have three daily minyonim?)

-A Reform "Talmudist"?

-A Rabbi with children in public school who participated in a Christmas play?

-A Rabbi who entered into a church for his father-in-law's funeral service? And had enough familiarity to suspect that they were reading from I Corinthians?
*******

There was a bit too much sturm und drang about young people engaging in sexual relationships. (Michener's good historical fiction shows that people have been doing "it" for a long time without much thought all over the world.)

What are the things that were brought to life from this book?

1. Way back when, conversion was a much simpler thing: 3 months of study under an Orthodox rabbi and the mikvah visit was scheduled. (Compare this to the 3 years that we spent working on our Orthodox conversion.)

The conversion characterized here also appeared to be interdenominational: An Orthodox Rabbi converting a woman who would marry a Reform Rabbi. (The Converting Rabbi was also unaware that the woman planned to get married.)

2. Even way back around the time a couple of years after WWII, the problem was the same: it's a piece of cake to build an expensive new Temple, but the problem is to actually get people to put into it. (p.281: "Just realize that you've got enemies, Rabbi. Rows of empty seats.")

3. Jews From Somewhere (Eastern Europe in this case) give birth to more Americanized Jews that progressively slacken in ritual observance.

4. As observance slackens, Judaism becomes more about race and less of a religion. (Orthodox Jews are mostly unwilling to entertain the racial aspects of the Jewish people because that would mean that they would have to accept reform and conservative as Jews of lower observance. Reform Jews did not have the shield of punctilious observance, and so being Jewish must be about appearance/genetics/race.)

Even though the wife of the protagonist (a Reform Rabbi) was as Sparkling White as everyone else, the fact that she was not racially Jewish came up over and over again in the book--at least frequently enough for us to know that Gordon was trying to tell us something.

5. Observance is a continuum and not really a very consistent one even with respect to one individual over time: People may slip on and off of observance many times during a single life. (One character here never keeps kosher or goes to services, and yet he feels the need to shroud the mirrors during shiva. A character is non-practicing all of his life but his second wife is much more Orthodox.)

6. The future is the past: the great majority of Jewish people are happy to go to services once or twice a year when they need to be Jewish--otherwise, it's not a significant part of their lives.

Then as now: those semi annual types greatly outnumber the people who daven three times a day by a factor of 8.

7. Rabbis are (in the apt words of Shalom Aualander--author of "The Foreskin's Lament") "beggars, quibblers, and handshakers."

"Hand shakers" is a fairly cynical descriptor that could charitably be called political strategists: A Rabbi trying to find the political position to take on any given topic such that he offends the fewest number of members/gets his contract renewed is a tiger searching to find the size of his cage.

Then, as now.

8. (p.308) So many rabbis dream to "sit with hordes of people at his feet and listen to his brilliant 20th century interpretations of Talmudic wisdom."

And yet almost all settle for grunt work. (Leining, fundraising, trying to assemble smaller than hoped-for classes. Trying to keep a minyan together.)

*******
I did go into this book trying to get some number of shapeless questions answered that I've had for a number of years after my own conversion:

1. Q: "Why are (Haredi) Orthodox people so *mean*?"

A: If I believe what was written in this book, I would get the idea that the general unfriendliness / coldness was a reaction to being surrounded by hostile neighbors that could break out into a pogrom at any second.

2. Q: "Why do they speak in such an unclear/misleading way?"

A: It might be from times in the past where offering information to directly could lead to getting your throat slashed or your farm burned down. I can deduce that, but that's not something that the author directly showed us by way of his characters.

*******

I do wonder' who was the audience of the book?

I'm not certain that it was for gentiles, in spite of how many copies it sold. He had a ton of words that only an "insider" would know. And this was written decades the before Google search.

The whole book can be read through in about
5 and 1/2 to 6 hours.

Verdict: Not recommended.

Acquired vocabulary:

Chert
Peau de soie
Dottle
Seersucker
Borax (furniture)
Carillon
Campanologist
Kishke=stuffed derma
Guano
Guck
Nosegay
Plunging back
Bubbling (the baby)
Lochinvar
Chagall (artist)
Dower rights
Saltonstall Jaw (not really a word; Gordon's attempt at neologism)
Stubby Kaye
tayglech

A good story with an almost good end.

And the Rabbi thought

What I liked about the book was there were two interwoven layers to the book. There's the story that a biographer could observe or find out about via interviewing family or those who consider him their Rabbi. What pushed it to 5 stars was his private thoughts, emotions, and how he and his wife viewed the various placements he accepted. As I read I'd ask myself questions: Is this what a young man might think when a girl is just a first impression? What happens to both the Rabbi and the wife when she is viewed as an obstacle to his advancement? What are considered less desirable placements and is that really true. Is there something of value wherever you find yourself if you are willing to accept a challenge? The family involves 4 generation beginning with the Rabbi's Othodox grandfather, his garment manufacturing father, the Rabbi and his son who is at the age the Rabbi's story begins wondering about girls and not knowing his future direction. There's also the Rabbi's mother, wife, sister and daughter with all but the daughter having made big choices that complicated their lives when they decided who to marry. Different choices might have been happier choices but that wouldn't have held my interest.

I think I read somewhere that this is Noah Gordon's first book, written as he made a decision to pursue writing as a career. I loved The Physician. I loved The Last Jew. Reading The Rabbi was a shock, in comparison.

I am cutting him some slack, believing he developed a stronger idea of what makes good writing and what makes a good book as he wrote more books. What I liked about The Rabbi is that I think Gordon captures the realities faced rather well, and if his main character is shallow in his attitudes and observations, especially of women, it is not uncharacteristic of the attitudes of his generation. I found it disappointing that he had such low opinions of most women, and especially women who were fat, which he mentions often enough to be distracting. The difficulties The Rabbi faced as he assumed his rabbinical duties had the ring of truth, and he educated those of us who are not Jewish in the matters important to Jewish life.

It might be that we have such unrealistically high standards for the clergy, Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, as a whole that I found Gordon's rabbi and his wife to be not particularly likable or relatable. It might be that I find this book uncomfortable because it was uncomfortably close to the truth.

El libro me acabó gustando, descubrí algunas cosas acerca de la religión judía. Pero la historia se me hacía bastante lenta. Aún así pude ver una visión más cercana de cómo es la vida matrimonial y las diferentes visiones.

I discovered Noah Gordon a few months ago. I get a big thrill when I find a new-to-me historical fiction author, and I really liked the first 2 volumes of his Physician trilogy. This was his first novel and although it was not as smooth as those which followed it was an engaging story. As with the others I have read, the characters were the finest element. They are fully developed and inspired my empathy.

A pesar que he disfrutado mucho de otras obras de Noah Gordon, esta realmente me ha parecido floja. De esos libros que le das vueltas mucho tiempo porque no te enganchan y o lees un poquito de vez en cuando o te saltas páginas.

I loved Gordon's 11th century story (through Europe to an Arab medical school in Ispahan, Persia) where The Physician studies under the immortal physician Avicenna.
But his first novel, The Rabi, the story of Michael Kind, a young rabbi who falls in love with the daughter of a Protestant minister was boring. I can't understand how The Rabbi was on the The New York Times bestseller list for 26 weeks - or maybe I can imagine 'cause it's an epic of Judaism in America.

El autor tiene una forma agradable de narrar una historia, pero la historia en si misma no es muy buena.
es la historia de vida de un rabino, desde si niñez , escuchando las voces de su abuelo, hasta que ser consolida en una sinagoga con su esposa e hijos.
trata temas interesantes, pero no profundiza en ellos y al cambio de hoja deja atrás un problema para iniciar otro. Además hay muchos momentos que pudieron ayudar a conocer la cultura judía y el autor supone que conozco los ritos y tradiciones judías o similarmente remite a un glosario.
la parte que más me gusto es una discusión teológica con su maestro, donde pasa casi mágicamente de dudar de Dios hasta elegir ser rabino.
creó que fui víctima nuevamente de las ofertas de kindle, el libro fue muy barato pero no lo recomendaría mucho.

Me paso que para leer este libro me costo mas de 3 veces de lo normal, deduje internamente algo falla en este libro. No se cual es la razón, si es por la forma de narrar de Noah Gordon (que no la discuto - es mi primera obra que leo de este autor), ha sido por una historia anodina que no te transmite sentimientos de ningún tipo. a mi parecer la lectura es muy pausada y sin mucha emoción.

Al principio me atrapo con la historia de Michael cuando niño ese inicio fue muy interesante pero, a medida que avanza la historia, toma una deriva que aburre. Cuánto lo he sentido porque tenia unas grande expectativa cuando leí la sinopsis.

El Rabino es el primer libro que leí de Noah Gordon, poco después de que falleciera. Leo que también fue el primer libro que publicó. Me ha parecido una historia sencilla que explica la vida de los judíos americanos en los años sesenta. A través de Michael Kind, nos adentramos en su vida y en su formación religiosa hasta su decisión de convertirse en rabino reformista, más tolerante y abierto. Se enamora de Leslie, hija de un pastor protestante, y tendrá que anteponerse a los obstáculos que le impone su comunidad.
Es una libro que no contiene una gran épica o hazaña, pero el lenguaje es ameno, aunque creo que se disfruta más si se tiene algún conocimiento de cultura judía,