Customer Reviews

Adjusting Sights

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Too realistic to be thought of as fiction, Sabato's engrossing accounty of a tanker gunner's experiences in the Golan during the 1973 Yom Kippur War in Israel blend traditional Jewish liturgy with wartime action. The story explores the grueling physical and psychological realities of war experienced as a soldier the Israeli tank corps. Haim relates his personal experience as he seeks to find an answer to what became of his yeshiva friend and study partner Dov who joined the tank corps at the same time that he did. This is a gripping account of what it means to be a soldier and how just one individual tries to cope in the chaos of an unexpected war. Long after the story ends, liturgical phrases will be sure to pop up with new meaning in the reader's mind! This, my friends, is the ultimate never-ending story.

I read the novel in the Hebrew original -- and marked passages for sharing with friends and family! Using language that can be only described as beautfiul, the book brings us inside the deepest thoughts and fears and feelings of the yeshiva student turned soldier.

Rarely do we get to share the continuing struggles with memory and philosphy of a yeshiva head (the author is currently co-Rosh Yeshiva of the large and well-regarded Yeshivat Birkat Moshe in Maaleh Adumim. For me the most revealing portion of the book was the return to query (challenge?) the Amishonver Rabbi who blessed the author and his best friend on the eve of battle. Like the rest of the book, the section with the Amishonver Rabbi makes no attmpt to tie loose ends toghether. Recommended!

A terriffic account of one man's loss and recovery of his own soul. Haim Sabato provides an inside, in-depth look at the life of an Israeli tanker on the front lines, while describing his inner thoughts and feelings. A must-read for philosophers and military buffs alike Adjusting Sights is a timeless classic. In the book, friends are lost, comradeship is gained, bravery is swept aside and one man's quest for peace begins. Follow Sabato through the 73 Arab- Israeli war from his perspective. Feel every shot from the main gun, hear every clang of spent shells, and reflect in the prayers and thoughts of a lonely soldier.

This book was written by a man whom I personally studied under while spending half a year at his Yeshiva in Maaleh Adumim, Israel. I can not even begin to describe his pure love and dedication to everything he does, and how he touches the hearts of so many of his followers. He comes from a great family of Rabbis which mostly moved to Israel some 40 years ago. His approach to his student body seemed to be unattatched and uninterested, but I quickly learned the opposite was true-that he chose this method so that no student should feel left out, and he would always say that everyone should feel free to approach him to speak. I approached him many times and his advice is filtered from all impurities that a normal mind would usually take into account. Haim Sabato won many awards in Israel for his writings, and is very well known and recognized as one of the country's most prominent writers and Judaic scholars. He is also famous for his poetic talents- his ability to create poetic pieces in seconds make one of the world's most talented poets. This book, which was translated from hebrew, accurately represents all of what was going on at the time the book was written. A must read for all who can appreciate this greatness.

This is a thinly fictionalized account of a young man's experience in war. It was the Arab-Israeli war of 1973--the Yom Kippur war--and our narrator is suddenly called from the innocent life of a Yeshiva student to be a tank driver in the Golan Heights. The experience will change him forever. Friends from the neighborhood who go with him will never come back from this war. And he will come back changed, older and wiser.

The story of war, fear, horror and fatigue is strangely intertwined with memories of childhood, snatches of Hebrew poetry, and the endless dialectic of torah study. Conversations about religious texts and ancient commentaries lead to new insights about war, defeat, victory, survival and the meaning of life. There is more to each experience than meets the eye. Everything that happens has meaning, yet there is no lecturing or preaching. The young kids in those tanks are fighting a war, trying to survive and yet, striving for holiness, too.

The book is beautifully written, simple and powerful. I recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber

A couple of years ago I read it in Hebrew, and the impression it has left is only increasing with time, as images unexpectantly resurface. You open the book, and first the archaic language forces reorientation - the style, described as reminiscent of Agnon, is even more captivating than Agnon, but just as graceful; it is the same medieval language that Mendele Mokher Sfarim wrote in (Masaot Binyamin ha-Shlishi, for instance), among others who were absorbed into the world of Hebrew from their contact with Biblical, Mishnaic, and Halachic literature, with a hint of the Hebrew poetry of Spain's Golden Age. Such a rich style that you infrequently run into it at all today, let alone in a book relating war experiences in the 1970s written in the late 1990s! Just on that level, this book is a rare treasure, and i hope that even a shread of that ambiance will come through in the translation.. because in fact, I have been actively waiting for this translation in order to share the book with others; Through his use of language soaked in the richness of ancient texts, as well as his own inability to shake the images from those texts, we enter a field of battle like no other. Every situation he finds himself in evokes an image, which both enriches his own experience, the experience of reading his descriptions, and augments the wealth and value of the texts themselves. Providing inspiration and expression under these extreme experiences are what the texts are meant for. If you go to synagogue and open the prayerbook after reading this book, it won's be the same as when you did so before. Even kiddush over wine is not the same as when you did so before. ... Both people who define themselves as religious, as well as those who are just addicted to the power of the written word (i'm more the latter), should find something of value in this book. And if not, then learn Hebrew and read it again.

I picked this book up in the Tel Aviv airport and read it from cover to cover on the plane ride back to New York. The author presents a personal, gripping account of tank warfare on the Golan in the 1973 Yom Kippur War suffused with spiritual and philosophical radiance. Very spiritual, very deep...a wonderful extraordinary and transforming read.

This is a book about the Yom Kippur War. It tells the story of one young religious soldier .It describes beautifully his neighborhood home synagogue .And it tells of his experience in battle, and the confusion and difficulty of this. It is also the story of a friendship and of the hero's search to find his longtime friend who it turns out has fallen in battle. It is a very moving work. And the religiousness of the main character is not imposed or extraneous but rather so within that religious discussions in the book read naturally and meaningfully. The disorentiation and suffering caused by war are described here in a muted and yet most deeply felt way. A wonderful book on a sad and painful reality.

Although a bit repetitious at times, this is a work of passion. Young men, ripped from their studies, seek to wend their way through the chaos of war started on their holiest Day of Atonement. They must try to make sense of an illogical and frightening situation while safeguarding their physical and spiritual lives. It is a quick and worthwhile read, no matter what your beliefs, since it easy to sympathize with the characters.

This book is written with obvious love and passion. However, I was not able to become involved with the characters or get into the flow of the narration.

The story relies heavily on religious imagery and commentary. I have a hunch that deeply religious people with scholarly interests, especially religious Jews, will find the story very appealing. The main character cares deeply about his faith, and the war experiences are obviously an important test of that faith. I simply am not familiar enough with the sources and imagery to make the story come to life for me. I found myself stopping to try to figure out the connections instead of enjoying the story. In short, I found a story with a narrow and well-defined target audience, but that target audience simply was not me.

Besides personal reading pleasure, my other goal was to find a fictional work for an American audience. I teach a class on Middle East cultures to students with little or no background in the Middle East. Unfortunately, my students need a broader and more accessible introduction to Israeli fiction. I reluctantly leave this book to readers who are better able to appreciate its complexity and passion.