I like to consider February to be the month of love. It’s Sweet Girl’s favorite holiday and she likes to draw hearts all over the place. This year, I was in Israel for Love Day, so we opened our cards over Facetime, which was still special.
I’m currently reading 8 books, which is a little much, I know, but I’m interested in them all! I also have a stack of TBR books that is a bit intimidating. I’m also taking a class about a Hebrew Mussar text and I found 2 other commentaries on it on my shelves, so I’m reading all 3 together. You would think I have a lot of reading time… I fall asleep soon after getting into bed at night, so I haven’t been very successful and reading much lately. I also planned to read on the flight to/from Israel, but mostly I slept.
I found this on Goodreads… you can see how many books you read (that you told them about, at least). According to this blog, I read 66 books last year. Interestingly, I was looking through some of my monthly book reviews here and there are some books I don’t even remember reading. Oy.
Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Mussar Movement: Seeking the Torah of Truth by Immanuel Etkes
Quite the scholarly biography of the founder of Immanuel Etkes traces Salanter’s groundbreaking methods in using ethics and psychology to round the Mussar movement. I read it because it was one of the suggested reads before going to Israel.
Etkes spends time on Salanter’s predecessors, places the Mussar movement within its historic and cultural context, describing other movements of the time and economic pressures on Jews in Russia.
City of Girls: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert
You take a run-down off off-Broadway theater, a young girl who has no real life plan, and a few other quirky characters and you have City of Girls, a fun coming-of-age story in 1940s New York. This is kind of a bizarre but profound story that I’m happy I didn’t miss.
“People will tell you not to waste your youth having too much fun, but they’re wrong. Youth is an irreplaceable treasure, and the only respectable thing to do with irreplaceable treasure is to waste it.”
Changing the World from the Inside Out: A Jewish Approach to Personal and Social Change by David Jaffe
I know Rabbi David through The Mussar Institute and also from his work with “The Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project.” This book is about how change requires self-awareness, caring, determination, and long-term commitment. His personal anecdotes helped me recognize myself in his stories of burnout, misplaced ambition, and countering discouragement in order to align behavior and values and create real change. Find out more about his work here.
“The paradox is that everything is really one big unity, but existence, at its core, necessitates separation and otherness. We can get confused by this otherness and forget how all creation and particularly all human beings are connected to the ultimate source of all value. To live fully means to engage this paradox and be, at once, completely oneself—unique and distinct—and at the same time cognizant that separation is only an illusion and we are all really connected. While otherness is essential for anything to exist, it is the root of suffering, oppression, and cruelty. Recognizing and acting on an awareness of the hidden unity and value of all creation, while respecting the need for difference, is key to building a more just and peaceful world.”
The Library Book by Susean Orlean
“It wasn’t that time stopped in the library. It was as if it were captured here, collected here, and in all libraries — and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well. In the library, time is dammed up — not just stopped but saved. The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.”
Primarily, this is a book about the fire that took place in the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986. It is so much more than that though! It’s about the role libraries play in our civilization, the various jobs of the professionals who work in libraries (especially interesting to me – I never would have imagined all that goes into running such an institution), and how that community pulled together to rebuild. The book and writing is so compelling that it reads like fiction.
“A library is a good place to soften solitude; a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you’re all alone. The library is a whispering post. You don’t need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen. It was that affirmation that always amazed me. Even the oddest, most particular book was written with that kind of crazy courage — the writer’s belief that someone would find his or her book important to read. I was struck by how precious and foolish and brave that belief is, and how necessary, and how full of hope it is to collect these books and manuscripts and preserve them. It declares that all these stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past and to what is still to come.”
Wonder and Auggie and Me: Three Wonder Stories by R.J. Palacio
I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.
You’re probably asking how I’ve not read Wonder yet. First of all, my sister told me I would bawl my eyes out (and who wants that?) and also SG flat-out refused. I ended up doing the 2-page test with her where I read 2 pages and if she still doesn’t like it, we put the book down. This time though, I didn’t even tell her what we were reading. Moms have to be sneaky like that with things other than eating your veggies. 🙂
I’d guess most people have not read Auggie and Me though, and that is a shame because the part about Julian is hugely cathartic and amazing. Highly recommend. (No, I have not seen the movie.)
In Search of the Holy Life: Rediscovering the Kabbalistic Roots of Mussar by Ira Stone and Beulah Trey
“Kabbalah served and can serve as the metaphorical framework to describe this universe, while Mussar provides the method for repair.” I read this while in Israel out of curiosity. It goes through several traits like Forgiveness, Curiosity, Equanimity from both a Mussar and Kabbalistic lens.
