NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel related content and would like me to write a review, contact me for details of where to send me a review copy of the book.
I just read a fabulous book. Really one of the most interesting books I have read in the past few years. It was not, perhaps, the best written from a literary or academic perspective, but it was still one of the most interesting I have read.
"A Treasure Of Letters" by Rabbi Elozor Reich is a fascinating book.
The idea of the book is just that it is a collection of letters written by a yeshiva bachur studying in yeshiva in Israel to his family in England. The letters, many of them at least, were saved. Now, many years later, they have been compiled into a book.
Sounds boring, right? Wrong. In today's day and age, pretty much nobody writes letters anymore. We have cellphones and email, and communication is fast and instant. When I was in yeshiva nobody yet had cellphones and email was not in use yet by the general public - to talk home we had to arrange a time and wait for the payphone in the yeshiva to be available. I sent letters home and received letters from home. Not really pining for days long gone, but letters in the mail were a form of communication that is not the same as email and Facebook status updates.
Still sounds boring - sure, he probably wrote nice letters, but what do I care about his personal letters to his family? Nobody, I promise you, would be interested in reading the letters I wrote to my family when I was in yeshiva...
This book is a window to a different time. It is a slice of history. It is a look at what the yeshiva world was like in the 1950s, it is a look at the hassidic world, and it it is a look at Israel with a perspective offered on some of the various volatile issues of the time, especially that of giyus banos - the controversial drafting of women into the Israeli army that was fought tooth and nail by the haredi community.
Reich is a master name-dropper, and that is a major portion of the book. He got himself into the Gerrer Rebbe (whom I must say is surprisingly made to appear almost maniacal in the book), the Belzer Rebbe, the Brisker Rav, the Chazon Ish and many other names. Not just to get the quick bracha some of us can get nowadays, but he would show up and talk to the rebbe for 45 minutes, for example.
He describes what life was like at the time; how the tishen were conducted, how the yeshiva world related to Rabbi Herzog, what it was like to be in Israel at the time with needing special permits to send things abroad through the post office, what it was like to travel around Israel, what being in yeshiva was like at the time. It is a real slice of history, from one man's perspective.. And even if you don't like his position on the various issues, it is still an interesting look at an interesting time in Israel.
And there is an amazing story at the end of the A Treasure Of Letters about how he got semicha from Rabbi Herzog and how he met some young unknown avreich in a shul in Mea Shearim named Yosef Shalom Elyashiv ...
One can see from this book that even within the haredi world things were very different back then. The way people had access to the rabbonim, the gedolim, is unheard of today. To just go walk into someone like the Chazon Ish or the Gerrer Rebbe and have a chat with him would never happen today. He was buddies with a guy named [now Rav] Moshe Sternbuch. While it is also clear that he himself was well-connected through his family, as many of these important people knew who he was, it is still clear that anybody could just wander in and meet with these personalities - he did not describe needing to use protexia to get in.
If you want an interesting read, a look at the yeshiva world of a different time, a look at some of the great personalities in the haredi world of the previous generation, a look at some of Israel's issues during a turbulent time, then "A Treasure Of Letters" is for you.
NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel related content and would like me to write a review, contact me for details of where to send me a review copy of the book.
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------
I'm always on the lookout for a good read, thanks foor the tip.
ReplyDelete