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The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption

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If you're fascinated by mysticism, if you like techno-thrillers, redheads, tough Jews, New York City and Scranton, Pennsylvania... If you think the end is nigh, if you're bemused by government ineptness but hate terrorists and evil angels... If you levitate or have spent any amount of time meditating in a cave, buried up to your neck... If you want to read only one book this year that features both a (pseudonymous) Lubavitcher rebbe (the Grand Master) and musician Leon Russell (the Master of Space and Time)... If you want to think about the Bible in new ways and have a laugh in the process... Then pick up Yori Yanover's "The Cabalist's Daughter."

It's better than whatever you're reading now.

The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption

Yori Yanover has crafted the Jewish answer to the blockbuster TV action series "24."

The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption by Yori Yanover is the most clever action-packed Jewish novel ever written.

This book is informed by Yanover's deep knowledge of Jewish religion and beliefs and his wide learning of kabbalah and Jewish messianism. Yori maintains a pace of action in this book that can rival that of any of the best screenwriters in Hollywood today.

I will be astonished if a savvy TV producer does not grab up the rights to this book. Yanover's story cries out to be adapted to a major creative TV release.

Who is this outstanding author? Yori is a well-regarded journalist and writer who also pioneered the Jewish Internet and virtually invented the Jewish blog.

I must issue this disclaimer. I worked as a colleague in awe of Yori at the Jewish Communications Network in 1996 and 1997. I am forever indebted to this man who showed me how to persevere in the face of great business challenges and maintain a focus on the tasks at hand - in this case inventing the Jewish Internet in a company that was run by the proverbial management team of well-intentioned amateurs.

Yori is at once a pious Jew, a heretical Israeli and a voracious consumer of modern pop culture. Nobody I know could craft a more clever assemblage of the latest news of the Jews as Yori did at JCN - every day of the year - with absolutely astonishingly brilliant photoshopped images, clever headlines and acutely on the money judgment of what was and was not newsworthy.

Now Yanover tells a story in this new book of a master cabalist in Brooklyn -- father of the messiah. With allusions to the Hasidic mystical dynasty and to ancestral legend, Yanover keeps one eye on Judaism's core beliefs and the other on the Kojak-like tensions that make up the Lower East Side of New York City.

Does this description of this book seem like it marks a totally fresh and novel writer's formula? You bet it does.

Is the world ready for Yori's outlandish messiah story replete with "firefights, helicopter battles and strange visions"? In an era that has witnessed one bestselling Christian apocalypse series of books after another it is high time that we, the founding dramatic Israelites, came back to the center of the stage and offered up our answer, as Yanover does indeed in this great new book.

What if after the great hasidic leader from Brooklyn had died, his followers cloned him? And what if his offspring came out a girl?

The Cabalist's Daughter does to the Jewish messianic tradition what The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy did to physics and philosophy. Using humor and comic-book drama, the novel depicts an age-old plot joining countless Jews and gentiles in an effort to redeem the world behind God's back.

The Girl, as the Cabalist's daughter comes to be known in pop lore, is raised by her biological father's henchman until, at age 20, she leaves home and begins to roam the countryside, challenging the status quo. Her miracles quickly spread her myth, which, in turn, attracts the forces of evil, supernatural and human alike.

Against a background of suicide bombers and rooftop sharpshooters, crumbling cities and a world economy gone mad, there she is, seemingly made up of light and air, skipping over the puddles of the Lower East Side, an indefatigable messenger of hope, with a ragtag gang of hapless apostles... until the inevitable day of reckoning.

The most brilliant part of the book are the homiletic passages, which play fast and furious with Jewish tradition. It is a thing of beauty and often very funny.

The plot is interesting, at times too violent for my taste, but acceptable. After all, thuis is a messianic girl we're talking about.

I'm definitely looking forward to a sequel.

I have long been a fan of Yori Yanover's incisive writing in his lively monthly, Grand Street News, but nothing prepared me for his brilliant novel, The Cabalist's Daughter, a tour de force of Jewish wisdom and wit that will engage your brain and keep your head spinning. Weaving ancestral legend, mystical inspiration, wild speculation and messianic prophecy into a dizzying tale, Yanover tackles the age-old struggle between good and evil. His unlikely heroine, a soft spoken messiah, roams through time and space performing miracles challenging the status quo and engaging in battles with angels of destruction joined by government agents. If you are intrigued - or baffled - by this description, be sure to buy a copy of this book.

The Cabalist's Daughter is a modern day thriller dresssed in the garments of a three thousand year old tradition. The action is gut-gripping and the tongue-in-cheek humor lively and intelligent. But underneath the suave surface the author grapples with the fundamental concepts of the Jewish tradition and the ageless question regarding human suffering. He takes nothing at face value and through his questioning arrives at a deeper understanding of the stories and ideas that have long been taken for granted. The machine that drives and connects the far flung ideas of terrorism, cloning, Kabbalah, and messianic redemption is a brilliant creativity and refreshing absurdity that rivals The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The Cabalist's Daughter by Yori Yanover (2008 Ben Yehuda Press)

Cabala (Kaballah) is all the rage in these early days of the 21st Century, and Yori Yanover's book The Cabalist's Daughter brings a great perspective and modern adventure to ancient mysticism. In this sense, the book is actually two books in one.

The first few chapters are an interpretation of the (Torah based) Cabalist's Handbook Of Practical Messianic Redemption - this is a thoroughly modern take on Torah - giving those who are familiar a new spin, and those outsiders (me) a peek into what Torah is all about.

Now on to the adventure - after the great Rebbe leaves this earth with no offspring, his followers feel that he was the one, yet, the world is without a Messiah - evil plots destruction and twenty years later WWIII ensues. But all is not lost - modern science creates a girl child, Nechama Gutkind. After a normal home schooled childhood, a very special couple come to tutor her. Then, she follows her destiny - changing the the world, one miracle at a time.

The Cabalist Daughter gives us a new, mystical view of New York City as seen by Angels, Demons and everyone who loves the city that gave birth to the Girl Messiah. It is a modern story with pimps, hookers, Native American reservations, global warming, covert government agencies, political graft, lotteries, gun battles and knife fights. But "the girl" as she is called in pop culture, quietly works her miracles - all the way imparting wisdom that we can all live by.

This is a modern multi-layered action adventure story with depths of humanity and religion. You'll be entertained, but you will also be forced to think, and look at today's modern conflicts in a whole new light.