Review: A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World's Oldest Religion

A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World's Oldest Religion by Jonathan Sacks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rabbi Sacks is someone that I have for many years wanted to read. He’s written dozens of books about Judaism and religion, so it was always hard to know where to jump in. A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World's Oldest ReligionA Letter in the Scroll seemed to fit the bill. It is more personal and direct, not a weighty tome. Intended at first as a gift for his son on his wedding day, it is an attempt by Rabbi Sacks to answer central questions about Jewish identity. What does it mean to be Jewish? Why continue to be Jewish? Sacks' reply is both deeply personal and theological. To answer the question, Sacks retells the story of Judaism, its origins and developments through the millennia.

Sacks' discussion of faith and the nature of Judaism as a religion is, to me at least, novel. As Sacks argues, the faith of Judaism is not one of miracles and believing the irrational: it is as he puts it, more a call or a summons. It is a call to see the world as it is and to do something about it. He situates Jewish faith between a nihilism or cynicism that sees the world as it is but without a need to make it better and a utopian/mystical vision that rejects the world as it is for some other world. Judaism is of this world, this life: each of us must live in this world. For the believer, God created humans as the ones able to see the world as it is and how it ought to be, and that we are responsible for bridging the gap. This a compelling vision (and one that I think can secularized as well).

Sacks' discussion of the problem of evil or theodicy is quite interesting as well. In the face of the Holocaust, he says, we might reject the reality of God or the reality of evil. But if we reject the existence of evil, then Auschwitz is justified – at least from some unfathomable vantage point of God. On the other hand, Sacks argues, if we reject God for a blind, material universe then “there is no reason not to expect an Auschwitz” (180). Sacks says Jewish faith is the refusal take either horn of this dilemma: “each would allow us to live at peace with the world, and it is morally impossible to live at peace with a world that contains an Auschwitz” (180). Furthermore, Sacks argues, this world really is the only possible world or rather a world in which Auschwitz is a possibility is the inevitable result of God creating man. In many ways this is not a satisfying answer to the problem of evil (there are many ‘moves’ one could make here). But there is also something compelling about it: This is the world. It has tragedy and devastation. But it also has love, beauty and hope. We cannot ignore the former or let it overwhelm us; and we cannot forget the latter: we must live in the reality of both. Judaism, as Sacks casts is, is a way of doing just that.

The covenantal aspects of Judaism, as well as Sacks discussion of the dichotomies of the individual and the collective, the particular and the universal, were also very interesting. Though I am not capable of believing as Sacks does, I find much of what he says thought-provoking. It makes a kind of sense to me.

Sacks doesn’t see much future for Jewish life without the Jewish religion: I am more hopeful on that front. In part, I think a secular philosophy can provide justifications for the equal dignity and respect of all humans; the made in the image of the God is not the only way to get there. I do have some minor quibbles about Sacks comments about philosophy, and Spinoza in particular, but these don’t play major roles in the discussion and so do not ultimately detract from the book.

The central point of the book was an attempt to answer questions about Jewish Identity. Sacks gives his answer and there is much to commend in that: but I am not sure it fits with my view: both in the general answers one might give to these questions, but also with my own answers. I think Sacks would be okay with that. This is his answer and his answer made me think more about my own answer. I think that was, at least in part, one of his goals for the book.

For this interested in learning more about the uniqueness of Jewish theology, without having to wade into waters too deep, this is a good starting point.


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Review: The Missing Thread: A Women's History of the Ancient World

The Missing Thread: A Women's History of the Ancient World by Daisy Dunn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think the promise of this book is interesting: telling the history of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds with women at the center. I was hoping to learn about forgetten figures and thinkers; to find out about women that have been downplayed or ignored in the history. There is some of that, but this is more or less a retelling of ancient history. In that, it is compelling and Dunn tells the history well. But often the focus, particularly in the Roman period, is on the men and their wives or mistresses of these men. From there, we have speculation and extrapolation about their roles in history. There is also not a lot of focus on what life might have been like for woman more generally in these societies. In earlier periods, there is, unsurprisingly, a potentially confusing mix of stories, myths, and history. It is not always clear or obvious (at least immediately) what the sources are and how reliable or representative they are. There is a lot of speculation and extrapolation from thin data. While Dunn often does note this, it could be clearer.

The book is interesting and I enjoyed listening to it but it just doesn't deliver on the promise.

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Review: Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East

Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East by Uri Kaufman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent account of how the Yom Kippur War started and unfolded. It is clearly and succinctly written. Dispassionate but still captivating.

The underlying theme of the war (and the book) is captured well by this quote: “Fortunately for the Israelis, the Egyptian leadership would match their dysfunction and overtake it” (255). Israel’s overconfidence after 67 and the infamous ‘Conceptzia' led them to miss the signs of the coming war; and then early on there were many strategic and tactical errors. Nonetheless, the Israelis often got lucky in their mistakes. Though the Egyptians had the element of surprise, fought well, and had the advantage early on; they too seemed to get overconfident and made errors that ended up being more disastrous for them Israel’s errors were for Israel. And after a few days, the Israelis were able to get back the upper hand. By the end of the war, they could have destroyed the Egyptian Army and marched on Damascus. The book focuses much more on the war with Egypt rather than Syria. Kaufman does discuss the war in the north, but its significance was less. Like Egypt, Syria made surprising early gains, only to have these quickly reversed. But the fighting and consequences of the fighting along the Suez is what, as the subtitle of the book says, “created the Modern Middle East.” It is there that Egypt and Israel nearly brought the Soviets and the Americans into war but also to the eventual peace between Egypt and Israel.

The last chapter of the book discusses some of the longer term consequences. It does not go into any great detail about Camp David and the peace talks and treaty. But Kaufman does discuss the Agranat Commission that looked into the government's and army's early failures. Interestingly, Kaufman's view of the commission is that it was more scapegoat that an honest attribution of responsibility. That was new to me -- the commission is now held up as something so important and key for postwar Israel and that Israel needs as similar commission now. But if Kaufman is right, maybe not. Kaufman argues that in the years since the war and the commission, Golda, Dayan, and Elazar all end up with reputations that are unfairly tarnished. He expresses hope that in the future people can see how their contributions during the war, while far from perfect, where central in saving Israel from disaster and turning near defeat into victory.

This was not the resounding victory if 67. 73 was very nearly a total disaster. How close Israel got to actually using nuclear weapons is not clear, though Kaufman does show that there really were discussions. Israel was able to hang on and turn the tables but it really shouldn’t have been in the position it was in. In this way, Kaufman’s account mirrors so much of what happened 50 years later, almost to the day, on October 7, 2023. Israel’s overconfidence, it’s reliance on technology, its unrealistic sense of understanding the motives of its enemies, led it disaster – one in many ways worse than 73. Both were avoidable with leadership that didn't fall into the same traps.

The 73 war is another case study in the adage of armies preparing to fight the last war. Israel was prepared to fight a war like 67; but Sadat and Egypt presented them with different challenges. They had weapons, like the Saggers and SAMs, that they didn’t have or weren’t employed well in 67. And they had the element of surprise. Israel, though, quickly learned lessons on the battlefield as it fought to help it fight better and win the war. And much like the start of the war, we see something similar in Gaza today as the IDF learned how to fight this war as it fought it. The optimist in me hopes that Israel can, like in 73, achieve a victory that brings a peace to the region -- much like the victory of 73 helped to bring peace between Israel and Egypt.


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Review: Zion's Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature

Zion's Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature by Sheldon Teitelbaum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating collection of stories. The stories are quite varied; though there are two things that I felt ran throw them all. The first is that the default background was Jewish. This is hard to define or pinpoint exactly, but there was something just, well, Jewish about the stories. Sometimes it was explicit but other times, it was more just something there. The second thing is that almost all the stories, if not all, were a bit dark. As though one could sense a kind of underling traumatic or tragic in each one. Some were funny or sweet, but even in those there was some thing lurking underneath. Maybe these are really two sides of the same thing; but it is interesting that this collection of stories all seemed to have that element. Maybe this is the genre, or maybe it's the editors.

I think it's important to pay more attention to the "speculative literature" part of the title rather than the "Zion's fiction." The latter suggests science fiction, while speculative captures a broader range of stories: including science fiction, but also fantasy and horror. There are no bright lines between these genres, but there are certainly paradigmatic versions of each. In any case, these stories were all mixed, maybe a bit more heavy into the fantastical and horror elements. Only a few could be categorized as "pure" science fiction (if there is such a thing).

I'd probably prefer something more science-fiction-y and less fantasy/horror; but I still was interested in all the stories.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour

Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour by Mike Lupica
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was fun; a few surprises that fans of the Spenser-verse will enjoy. The plot was a bit unfocused, several elements that didn't have a payoff and confused things. Maybe these were meant as red-herrings, but if so they weren't well executed. Lupica has a good feel for Parker's characters and can emulate the witty repartee, but Parker's plot were tighter and more focused. Still I enjoyed it.

Two quibbles: I am not sure how this plays if reading it, but listening to it there were too many "he said"s and "I said"s in the dialogue. It was distracting in the audio. Overall, I like the narrator, though there was some uptalk that could be distracting.

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Review: Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History

Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by Nellie Bowles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An interesting look back at when the world went bat-shit crazy for a few years. Bowles has an interesting perspective as a former reporter at the NYT and self-described San Francisco progressive. She was an insider of sorts and as a journalist is able to approach her our journey through this craziness as a reporter would. It makes it a personal story without being overly so: she's covering herself and her journey.

There isn't any thing too deep here: Bowles is not digging into the philosophic or psychological ideas or motivations: she is reporting on them. She is reminding us of what the cadre of media and academic elites said and did at the time. This is important as people forget or smooth out what happened to seem less scary or crazy. Bowles reminds us that people really did say and mean defund the police. There really were people on the progressive left that pushed (and still do push ) racist "antiracist" ideas. And so on through gender, education, COVID polices, housing and homeless, prosecution.

Bowles started out in those camps, but slowly over time, reality pushed back and made her question a lot of what was being said and done. Some might say she's red-pilled or whatever, but she still seems to hold many of the same traditionally progressive views points but in more moderate and centrist ways. It's telling that a move to middle is regarded as something radical.




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Review: Robert B. Parker's Payback

Robert B. Parker's Payback by Mike Lupica
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As always, I love being back in the Spenser-verse. Lupica does a good imitation job and I enjoyed reading it. There are definitely some choices he makes that I don't think Parker would have, but the flow of the plot, the wit of the characters, and the dialogue are Parker-esque, or close enough.


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Review: SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient -Powered by the Science of Games

SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient -Powered by the Science of Games by Jane McGonigal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed and got a lot of the first part of the book where McGonigal discusses the psychology and philosophy behind games and the connections to our lives. Part 2 is practically focused discussing various ways to implement and use the approach. It's the self-help portion of the book. Part 3 are more detailed listings of quests one can do. I didn't listen to the latter (not really conducive to an audio book).

Parts 2 and 3 don't really work well for the audiobook, though I think quests and methods can be helpful. What's revolutionary about the approach is the process, not the ideas. It's a lot of ways to help tap into one's social network and inner strengths. Psychological, not a lot a new here. But the use of game-like behaviors and structures can be very helpful.

I plan to dig deeper into the scientific literature McGonigal includes; I think there is a lot to the connection between how we play games and how we can approach living our lives.


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Review: I Can't Stop Thinking About Var: Forward by Jonathan Wilson

I Can't Stop Thinking About Var: Forward by Jonathan Wilson by Daisy Christodoulou
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is primarily a book about VAR (Video Assistant Referee), its problems, and some ways to think about possible improvements. But there is an undercurrent of some deeper themes about the natural and limits of rule-governed orders and how to make sure they function well towards their aims.

It is a quick read, with many interesting ideas and analyses of VAR. The author discusses the way VAR has affected the rules and the games. She explores the why of these changes as well. She discusses how VAR might be improved, but also the limits to any such improvement. The writing is smooth and interesting.

It’s worth reading for anything interested in football, but also for those interested in the philosophy of sport. There isn’t any reference to the philosophical literature on these issues, but it’s not really about the higher-order questions here: it’s more practically focused. That said, the things she covers have relevance for those philosophical questions, the philosophy has relevance for the issues she is looking at.


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Review: Temptation of the Force

Temptation of the Force by Tessa Gratton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the better HR books. I felt like a got a clearer picture of the characters than in some of the other HR novels. The story cooks along with a good mix of personal scenes, dialogue, and battle scenes. The only downside is that there is little revealed; much, I hope, will be answered in the sequel. There is one significant occurrence in the novel, that as far as I know, is unique. No spoilers! The narration is great.

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Review: The Auschwitz Violinist

The Auschwitz Violinist by Jonathan Dunsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the third novel in the wonderful series that follows an Israeli hard-boiled detective in Tel Aviv in the late 40s and 50s. This one is set in 1950. Adam is following up on a suicide of a fellow Auschwitz survivor; as you might expect--there's more to this than the police think. He's also preparing to go on private vengeance mission to kill Nazis still in Germany. The story plays with ideas of vengeance and justice; desert and guilt, surviving and moving on. It also explores the complicated perception of survivors in Israel. Highly Recommend!

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Review: Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words

Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An absolute delight. McWhorter's way of presenting linguistics and language evolution is clear, entertaining, and persuasive. Grammar pedants might be put off by some of his conclusions: about "Billy and me" and the singular They, in particular, but he's too reasonable and careful in his argumentation to easily reject him.

My only objection is how short it is, I would have like a few more chapters.



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Review: Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins by Reed Farrel Coleman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Coleman's version of Stone is very good. Its bit grittier than Parker's, but still captures the characters and town that Parker created. The mystery is well put together and we learn more about some of the main secondary characters.

The narrator is excellent and does a good job differentiating between the voices.

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Review: Titan Song

Titan Song by Dan Stout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This series is fascinating in terms of the underlying mythology of the world. I am intrigued by various mysteries about magic, the origins of the different species, what is really under the city. The story has lots of action and some good humor. That said, I didn't love it. It sometimes tries a bit too hard to be noir and gritty. At times it falls into the 'telling instead of showing' trap. There was a bit too much self-righteousness about the downtrodden and the grasping rich and powerful. That gets a bit trite and repetitive after awhile. It's not unimportant for the story, but that's where the show me don't tell me comes in.

Still, if there was a book 4, I'd read it.

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