Waiting for Rain Review
The Jewish Week, September 24, 2008
Book Review
Reflections For the New Year
by Sandee Brawarsky
Jewish Week Book Critic
While parts of this country face hurricane season, those who till the land of Israel face parched soil at the end of a dry summer. Farmers hope for rain, and that in turn is a hope for life. This is a season of yearning, reflecting on harvests past and looking to the future.
The cycle of Jewish holidays marks the transition from summer to the rainy season. As master teacher Bryna Jocheved Levy writes in “Waiting for Rain: Reflections at the Turning of the Year” (Jewish Publication Society), “rain is where heaven and earth meet.”
“When the clouds finally burst and the first drops grace the ground, nature sighs with relief. The earth absorbs and ardently guards every drop, mysteriously transforming heavenly moisture into the power of life and sustenance. Plants begin to sprout, buds appear on trees, and flowers bloom. Man lifts up his voice in song, his prayers having been answered from on high,” she writes.
In Levy’s view, our souls are broken fields plowed by pain, and we long for refreshment and renewal. She points out that the prophet Isaiah draws parallels between rain and the word of God, “which quenches our existential thirst and revitalizes our desiccated souls.”
The prayer for bountiful rain, a final prayer of the holiday season, chanted on Shemini Atzeret, is an appeal for the revival of our souls. The melody chanted on Hoshanna Rabbah has echoes of the High Holy Days, and in many congregations the cantor again wears a white kittel, or robe, as on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.
Levy, who was born in the United States and moved to Israel 27 years ago, is a pioneer in the movement for women’s Torah study. In 1987, she was the first woman to earn a doctorate in Bible from Yeshiva University. She is now a senior lecturer in Bible at Matan: The Sadie Rennert Women’s Institute for Torah Studies in Jerusalem, and she also directs the graduate program in Bible, which she founded. This is her first book.
The author takes readers through the holiday season, from Rosh HaShanah to Simchat Torah, with thoughtful essays that shift from text interpretation to life. Looking closely at the liturgical and biblical readings associated with each holiday, she integrates biblical scholarship, literary studies and new readings of traditional commentary, along with psychological and emotional insights into the human condition. Her voice is poetic, contemporary and deeply religious. She finds much beauty and strength in the text and its meaning.
“Waiting for Rain” makes for good reading in preparation for all of the holidays this season, and for those who enjoy the tradition of reading during services, the book is a great complement to the mahzor, or prayer book.
In one piece about Rosh HaShanah, she writes of the power and symbols of memory, as she retells the story of Noah. In addition to her own analysis, she looks to the writings of Terrence Des Pres and the 14th-century Italian kabbalist, Rabbi Menachem Recanati. Throughout, she writes of relationships, leadership, language, prayer, love, wonder, struggle, good and evil, and faith.
In concluding an essay “Through Fire and Rain,” about Shemini Atzeret, she writes, “If we use the transformational opportunity afforded by the Days of Awe to mend our interaction with man and God, then in response, the Master of the Universe will relate to us by opening the gates of Heaven and bringing forth gentle rain.”
The book grew out of a series of lectures she gives every fall in Jerusalem and should bring her the wider recognition she deserves in the U.S. Levy’s newly launched Web site, exploring women and Jewish life, is
www.visionsvoices.org