But she hungered for a more authentic taste of Judaism.
And this wonderful book is the result.
I’m impressed that Abby finished the year, with all its fasts and feasts, praying and partying. And I’m even more impressed that she produced this book—it’s wise, thought-provoking, and funny.
I’ve known Abby since we were about the age when most of our friends were becoming bar or bat mitzvah. (Neither of us Olive Garden types went through the ritual ourselves at the time.)
Ever since, I’ve followed her career with a mix of naches (pleasure) and envy. I loved her work as a producer on 60 Minutes. And her book Stars of David, where prominent Jews—from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Larry King—reflect on their faith. And her book One and the Same, about her experience as an identical twin.
But this could be my favorite work Abby has ever done.
She achieves a beautiful balance—in many ways.
She balances passion and skepticism. Learning and memoir.
She balances humor and tragedy—which, as Abby points out, is a very Jewish thing to do. The holidays themselves careen from celebrations to penance and remembrance. As Abby told me, “There’s really no stretch of mourning and sadness that’s not broken up by revelry. The calendar doesn’t let you get too low without some dose of happiness.”
She balances the modern impulse to rush around with the ancient imperative to slow down (a huge challenge for a Type A like Abby).
She balances her individuality with the demands of community. Because unlike Netflix, the Jewish calendar does not conform to your own schedule. You don’t get to choose when to observe.
And she balances tradition with reinvention. She experiences the Orthodox route, but also experiments with ways to tweak the rituals (“For starters, I plan to add some games and quizzes to keep my kids engaged during Passover. Name the second plague? Frogs!”).
Her book has changed the way I look at Jewish rituals, history, and the religion itself. She is a dogged investigator and frank witness. Obscure holidays suddenly made sense; the ones I thought I knew took surprising turns.
A few years ago, I wrote my own book about the Hebrew Scriptures—The Year of Living Biblically. Mine was a much different journey. I was trying to follow the written law, the hundreds of rules contained in the Bible itself. (Do not shave the corners of your beard; don’t wear clothes made of mixed fibers.)
Abby’s journey is very different. She followed both the written and the oral Torah. She took on both the Bible and the thousands of years of commentary and ritual. Her quest is more explicitly Jewish.
And yet I did recognize one common theme in our books: the head-to-toe immersion in a topic.
Before I embarked on my book, I was frankly quite anxious. I was nervous about how it would affect my day job as a magazine editor and my marriage (the beard alone would be a crucible for my wife). I was anxious about the public reaction. I knew it would be easy for detractors to slam my approach as misguided. Would observant folks condemn me as too irreverent? Would atheists slam me for being too gentle on the Bible? Would I be afflicted by boils?
So I went to breakfast with a rabbi friend of mine, Andy Bachman, then head of Brooklyn’s Congregation Beth Elohim. And Rabbi Bachman told me a story (which I’ve written about before; but I figure Judaism is all about the repetition of stories, so maybe you’ll forgive me).
The story is a legend from the Midrash, and it goes like this: when Moses was fleeing the Egyptians, he arrived at the Red Sea with his thousands of followers. Moses lifted up his staff, hoping for a miracle—but the sea did not part.
The Egyptian soldiers were closing in, and Moses and his followers were stuck at the shore. It was only a matter of time before every one of them would be slaughtered. Naturally, Moses and his followers were panicking. No one knew what to do.
And then, just before the Egyptian army caught up to them, a Hebrew named Nachshon did something unexpected. He simply walked into the Red Sea. He waded up to his ankles, then his knees, then his waist, then his shoulders. And right when the water was about to get up to his nostrils, it happened: the sea parted.
The point, said Rabbi Bachman, is that “sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in.”
Thank you, Abby, for jumping in.
Rabbi David Ingber
ON THE JEWISH HOLIDAYS
Contrary to the other three hundred days of the year, when you’re running and doing and building and constructing, the Jewish holidays provide a kind of in-built way to pause and to gather yourself and regenerate. . . . Our lives can become so full of activities and to-do tasks that, in some sense, the soul becomes overwhelmed. We need to defragment our souls. We can be pulled in so many different directions, but the holidays help that part of us that needs meaning and connection and great purpose. . . . Holiday rituals are ancient technologies that carry contemporary wisdom. Judaism works.
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld
ON THE HOLIDAYS
Judaism at its best—the ritually Jewish things—are things that help you pay attention. The holidays are not about doing the Jewishly Jewish things—the things that only Jews do. They are about awareness and mindfulness and paying attention. How do you live a life when you’re paying attention?
IT WAS A sure conversation-stopper: “This year I’ll be researching, observing, and writing about every single Jewish holiday on the calendar.”
My non-Jewish friends nodded politely: “That sounds really interesting. . . .”
Non-observant Jews looked puzzled: “Aren’t there, like, a thousand of those. . .? I guess you won’t be doing much else this year.”
Observant Jews shrugged, as if to say, “Welcome to our world; want a trophy?”
I’m exaggerating. Slightly.
But what everyone seemed to be asking was “Why?” and “Why now?”
Why, when my two kids were teenagers and well past their bar and bat mitzvah, when my husband of twenty years was content with our middling observance, when it was kind of late in the game to change the game, did I want to spend the next twelve months steeped in the Jewish calendar, interviewing rabbis about each holiday, reading entire books about one single prayer, attending temple services I didn’t know existed, fasting six times instead of once?
All I knew was that something tugged at me, telling me there was more to feel than I’d felt, more to understand than I knew. It’s hard to describe feeling full and yet lacking—entirely blessed with family, friendships, and work, and yet annoyed that I hadn’t graduated much beyond the survey course when it came to Judaism.
I’m generally leery of “seekers” and the unceasing books about seeking a claim to offer a recipe for joy or insight. But here was a blueprint—thousands of years old—staring me in the face, and I’d never tested it. I’d already been drawn to Jewish life, but I hadn’t fully lived one. Judaism’s less-mainstream holidays seemed to separate the amateurs from the experts, and though I knew I’d never be fully observant, I also didn’t want to be a neophyte forever.
I grew up celebrating Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, two Passover seders, and the sporadic Friday Shabbat. But those are a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of holidays that flood the Jewish calendar. I’d watched how observant families adhere to an annual system that organizes and anchors their lives. I envied not their certainty, but their literacy. I wanted to know what they knew. I had a hunch