Non­fic­tion

Lis­ten­ing to God: Inspi­ra­tional Sto­ries for My Grandchildren

Rab­bi Shlo­mo Riskin
  • Review
By – June 10, 2013
Rab­bi Riskin is the found­ing rab­bi of the Lin­coln Square Syn­a­gogue in New York City as well as the Chief Rab­bi of Efrat, Israel. This book is a col­lec­tion of anec­dotes about the author’s expe­ri­ences and mem­o­ries which impact­ed the lives and reli­gious growth of many Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­als strug­gling to for­mu­late a set of reli­gious prac­tice in the chaot­ic post-Holo­caust world. 

It’s delight­ful read­ing and Rab­bi Riskin ascribes cred­it to his wife, Vicky, and his men­tor in Jew­ish law, the late Rab­bi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (19031993). It is uplift­ing to know that there is a future to reli­gious study and behav­ior in a world which seems to be grow­ing increas­ing­ly vio­lent and dys­func­tion­al. High­ly acces­si­ble for lay read­ers, this work would also be wel­come in sem­i­nary, uni­ver­si­ty, and yeshi­va libraries. 
Mor­ton Merowitz holds degrees from Yeshi­va Uni­ver­si­ty, the Drop­sie Col­lege for Hebrew and Cog­nate Learn­ing, and the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York at Buf­fa­lo. He was involved in Jew­ish edu­ca­tion for some ten years and cur­rent­ly reviews non-fic­tion lit­er­a­ture which may be of inter­est and rel­e­vance to stu­dents and teach­ers of Jew­ish studies.

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