There are many different ways to contemplate and study words of Torah. We can study the intricacies of the Chumash, the first five books, mining them for how best to live our lives. Or we can focus on the prophetic writings, which speak to ethics beyond ritual. Fortunately, we don’t have t…
Pardes, paradise, the orchard: the opening epigraph of David Hopen’s novel “The Orchard” (Ecco/HarperCollins) quotes from the Talmud, telling the story of four rabbis who visited paradise. One dies, the second becomes insane, the third becomes an apostate and only the fourth emerges wh…
Both intermarried, but only one’s spouse converted. Both struggled with the religious aspects of Judaism, yet one felt strong enough about Zionism to make aliyah. Each became a writer, although their paths to being published greatly differed. Courtney Zoffness, who has won awards for her f…
Novels based on true stories: there are several ways these can be written. One is to create characters who borrow from the experience of real people, but who are definitely fictional. Another is to treat a real person as a character and write a fictionalized version of a biography or memoir.…
by Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Different opinions and rabbinic debate: those were staples of Jewish religious dialogue as Judaism moved from a sacrificial-based religion to a prayer-based one. As technology changed so did debates on what Judaism thinks about everything from electricity to plant…
