Good Jewish books

Do you like novels or true stories? I’m reading ‘The Network’ now, i forget the authors name. But he definately has a WILD imagination! He does keep my interest-which says alot.

bookworm who wrote the book youre talking about? It sounds great, I’d love to read it 🙂

I always enjoyed reading. When I was in yeshiva, the Rosh Yeshiva told me one day that I shouldn’t read. He said a good, frum person shouldn’t read novels even if they’re the “kosher” ones. He said it’s a waste of time and you gain nothing from it. He said a frum Jew should read a Navi if he needs to read. He said you could read it in English if you like. He said it has more than enough action and politics to keep anyone entertained.

This is dangerous because of how easy it is to say lashon hara. So I will hold myself back and only mention great, great books.

The new Avner Gold books are a breath of fresh air. Great reading, plot development, character development. I want to go back to The Promised Child and start reading them all over again. They’re a fun, adventurous ride too.

Meir Uri Gottesman has some magnificent books. I would say the same about his books too. There’s a new one, I don’t know the title, The Harp, Deep Blue and others. If you’re into a charming little read, try his Chaimkel the Dreamer (and R’ Charles Wengrov’s book, Zalman’s Menorah. Speaking of charming little reads, The Rabbi of 84th Street, by Warren Kosak [a secular but deeply sympathetic journalist] about Rav Chazkel Besser is agood read.)

Speaking of bios, there are some wonderful ones. In Every Generation, about the Yudelevitch family; My Footsteps Echo, about a 19th century meshulach; Greatness in Our Midst, about Rav Simcha Wasserman; many of the Artscroll bios, like Rav Pam’s.

And one more fiction before I have to run: Oh, I forgot the title. Sun inside Rain? by M. Bassara, Feldheim, very different and you will want to read this before your kids if that is how you handle things.

‘My Life on Wheels’ is also great. Its a true story of a girl coping with CP.

oh boy…

…and so, another Jewish mind is saved by the lack of desire to seek intellectualism.

I recommend the works of Rabbi Akiva Tatz and Rabbi Avigdor Miller.

Actually Mepal, I don’t get your point. School is not a place where one learns all one needs to know. School is where one acquires the skills to learn for the reast of one’s life. With the exception of my refusal to attend an intermarriage, no matter how important the person getting marriaed might be to me, I can’t think of a single opinion I had at 18 with which I wholly agree today. I’ve learned much more since finishing school than I could ever have in school. I’ve never read anything my Akiva Tatz. As to R. Avigdor Miller’s writings, I can’t deal with the cognitive dissonance he creates. His inspirational writings don’t jive with his often provocative oratorical rhetoric. Which was the essence of the man?

You gotto read Pyramid Base by Eli Shekhter. You read the book and think you know the end when suddenly . . .

Other books by this awesome author:

The Banker’s Trust (Out of Circulation and Not Available for Purchase)

The Most Wanted List (Out of Circulation and Not Available for Purchase)

Plan B (this one I didn’t read yet)

Pyramid Base -THE BEST!!!- (Out of Circulation and Not Available for Purchase)

Eli, if you read this post, you should know that your the best!

no problem. just notice the difference, that’s all.

thanks 😉

bookworm, any info on the OP? 🙂

I like novels, but only those that could be true

In that case I recommend historical fiction… One of the best books I’ve ever read is Every Man A Slave. It’s an amazing story set in the south around the time of the Civil War. The character development and plot are fantastic and well thought out. One caveat- it is a very long book, not a problem for me but if your time is very limited…Enjoy, and let us know what you think.

Bookworm, most of what I’ve listed are lighter reading, and even the serious scholoarship is not typicall read in the Beth Medrash. I read Horeb at night before going to sleep when I was in college. The Chajes books I read in schul Shabbat mornings when bored with the davening. Halachik Man I also read in my spare time when in yeshiva in Israel (whew was the Rosh Yeshiva mad at me for that one; madder then he was about the Sidney Sheldon novel my roommate was reading when he did the raid). Just becuase one puts his feet up, doesn’t mean the quality of what he reads needs to diminish. I never read fiction, with the exception of Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Wolfe, which are more in the line of social commentary.

Would you YU types kindly stop proselytizing

squeak, who’s prosletyzing?

You are intentionally proposing that he/she read books which, if he/she comes from a traditional Orthodox home, would be taboo. You yourself acknowledged the anger of your R”Y when he discovered one of your books. Yet you call these books “the basics” and gush about how “No one who aspires to be a Jewish intellectual can be without…” and how they are “books which enable the reader to formulate his/her own views on Judaism”. What do you call that if not proselytizing? It is for good reason that these books are taboo – they inspire nothing like what you claim. Rather, they draw the reader into the skewed version of religion that the authors present as truth.

Never mind that the OP was clearly asking for recreational reading, yet you used this opportunity to try and ram your hashkofos down everyone’s throat. When I clap “Al Chait”, I have in mind the reading of some of those books you mentioned. Have mercy on a yet-pure soul. Once in, these krumkeits can never get back out.

Nothing in the original post mentions “recreational reading.” What does that mean? How mamy poly-sybolic words need a book have to no longer be recretional? Secondly, this thread is rife with laudatory comments about the various books people recomend. Why am I not entitled to do the same? As to the “taboo” nature of the books, I didn’t know that Horeb or Mavo haTalmud are taboo. BTW is the Feldheim translation of the Mavo HaTalmud, the edition lacking an acknowledgemnt of its true author, also taboo? I seem to recall alot of guys in yeshiva reading it. Now please pay attention. I’m writing this very slowly so even you will understand. I was making fun of that Rosh Yeshiva. It seems Sidney Sheldon was ok with him, but the Rav Zt”l was not. Talk about “krumkeit” and “skewed versions of religion.” I don’t so much care that he opposed me reading The Halachik Man, but then what gives with not caaring about Sidney Sheldon? Then again my roommate wore a hat and I didn’t, so I guess the Rosh’s tacit approval of the book made reading it ok as it was “under rabbinic supervision.”

While we’re on the topc of important Jewish books. No serious library should be without the Hertz Chumash. It is the single greatest English language refutation of the documentray hypothesis written for a layman. It’s a shame no one has undertaken to update it in light of developments in Bible study since its publication; especially since JPS now buys into much of the secular scholarship. But I guess “dah ma shetashiv” is one those incipient “krumkeits”

squeak: while you’re at it, klap al cheit for the sinas chinam you have towards YU people, and ask mechilah from those you’ve insulted. Many of them were/are gedolim who were considered to be from the gedolei hador. Not only have you insulted them, you’ve insulted all their students and their way of life. You call it a “skewed version of religion”. I think your view of Judaism is skewed.

You really need to work on your ahavas Yisrael.

YW Moderator-72

Moderator

cantoresq

…The Chajes books I read in schul Shabbat mornings when bored with the davening…

maybe you can start a new thread (although it will most likely NOT get approved) about what to do in Shul on Shabbos mornings when bored with the davening. You may want to branch out to the even longer Yom TOv davening.

I guess that for the attention span of some people, actually davening and listening to the brochas and answering amen, following the Parsha and the Haftarah just isn’t sufficient for some people…

Posted 1 hour ago #

I’ve said many times that I find schul to be boring. There is nothing to listen to at the amud.

cantoresq- if that’s the case, then it’s high time you found yourself another shul

Nothing in the original post mentions “recreational reading.” What does that mean?

I never read fiction

Actually, the tone of the OP and the example given indicates recreational reading. Since you never do light recreational reading you couldn’t relate to the question. That’s not an attack, but rather a statement of fact that your suggestions were not what the OP was looking for.

As to the “taboo” nature of the books, I didn’t know that Horeb or Mavo haTalmud are taboo.

Horeb is certainly not a taboo sefer. Rabbiner Hirsch is only an unrecommended source in yeshivos because YU is a living example of what his writings can do in the wrong hands. Most unfortunate, because certainly someone with proper guidance can benefit tremendously from Hirsch. I’m sorry for not explicitly excluding that.

I personally am not here to be giving haskomos to seforim, or labelling them as taboo. Nor have I. Torah U’Maddah publications are taboo because mainstream rabbonim, rebbeim, Roshei Yeshivos, and moraei halacha do not accept that Solovetchik, nor his teachings and haskofos. Passing out copies to unsuspecting youths is proselytizing. No one should be reading these haskofos unless they know what it is beforehand, in which case it is their choice.

I was making fun of that Rosh Yeshiva.

No comment here. In any case, when you make such a remark, you have lost any traction you may have had in an argument.

It seems Sidney Sheldon was ok with him, but the Rav Zt”l was not. Talk about “krumkeit” and “skewed versions of religion.” I don’t so much care that he opposed me reading The Halachik Man, but then what gives with not caaring about Sidney Sheldon?

This is a good question, which should have warranted a discussion with your R”Y. I’m sure you did not discuss it with him, though. Sad, because you might have learned something. Instead you worked it out on your own, and that has not served you well. And the best you could come up with was the cynical refrain, that “he wore a hat”.

Sidney Sheldon is an example of light recreational reading. Other kids might enjoy Poe’s stories, Archer’s, King’s, or Tolkien’s (examples of authors I’ve seen around yeshivos). I’m sure many R”Y would oppose any and all of these names, but some allow it (for whatever reason). If a particular R”Y deems this type of book to be “neutral”, does that make The Halachik Man a “neutral” book as well? If you can’t see the difference, and why the latter would be offensive in a mainstream yeshiva, while the former is a question of bittul zman, then maybe I am not the slow one here, eh?