Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen | Jewish Book Council
Every now and then a character steps clear out of the pages of a book and marches right into your life. Jonathan Rosen’s Deborah Green is one of those. I wanted to sit around her Shabbat table, singing late into the night. I wanted to take a long walk with her and discuss the meaning of life. I wanted to dance at her wedding. And every now and then, I wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her stubborn mind. Mostly, I wanted to be her friend and confidante. An early scene has Deborah stopping on a New York City street to tie the shoelaces of an obviously disabled, elderly stranger. I have known people who have done things like that right before my eyes. I have sincerely wished to be like them. I have always felt fortunate when one of them wanted to be my friend.
Deborah is a Reform rabbi with a traditional soul and a sincere thirst for incorporating a touch of spirituality into the mundane occurrences of daily life. She does it with a light hand and a touching integrity. When she meets Lev, more skeptical than she, more gun-shy about embracing life, she reaches out to share her vision of how life ought to be approached. He isn’t an easy sell. With a depressed and ill father, a schizophrenic best friend and a former girlfriend he knows he has disappointed, Lev knows that there are no easy answers. But Lev means heart and his turns out to be reachable after all. He discovers that uttering a blessing now and then makes him feel blessed, too. It gives him a strength he had not anticipated. It enables him to meet life’s challenges with grace and fortitude and with a renewed energy for tackling the obstacles in his path. As with the best literary characters, we watch Lev evolve and grow.
The book is not all touchy-feely emotion, though. The fast pace of New York City life adds a bracing dose of fresh air. And several scenes have a unique humor of their very own. Of note is one episode in which Lev, through a comedy of errors, is misidentified as a rabbi and, in order to avoid distressing a bereaved family, he finds himself performing a funeral with not the faintest notion of how such things are done. And he pulls it off, well almost, anyway. If you like your humor slightly dark, this scene is a gem.
Rosen has previously demonstrated in both fiction and non-fiction that he knows just what to do with the written word. His writing seems effortless and his prose flows merrily along in perfect service to his characters’ celebrations and sorrows. Joy Comes in the Morning is a joy to read any time of day.
Michal Hoschander Malen is the editor of Jewish Book Council’s young adult and children’s book reviews. A former librarian, she has lectured on topics relating to literacy, run book clubs, and loves to read aloud to her grandchildren.