Each of the poems in Seventy Faces arose in conversation with the Five Books of Moses. These poems interrogate, explore, and lovingly respond to Torah texts—the uplifting parts alongside the passages which may challenge contemporary liberal theology. Here are responses to the familiar tales of Genesis, the liberation story of Exodus, the priestly details of Leviticus, the desert wisdom of Numbers, and the anticipation of Deuteronomy. These poems balance feminism with respect for classical traditions of interpretation. They enrich any (re)reading of the Bible, and will inspire readers to their own new responses to these familiar texts.
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About the Author
Rachel Barenblat holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is a Jewish Renewal rabbi, ordained in January of 2011. She is author of four chapbooks of poetry: the skies here (Pecan Grove Press, 1995), What Stays (Bennington Writing Seminars Alumni Chapbook Series, 2002), chaplainbook (Laupe House Press, 2006) and Through, a self-published collection of miscarriage poems (2009.) Since 2003 she has blogged as The Velveteen Rabbi; in 2008, her blog was named one of the top 25 blogs on the internet by TIME. She is perhaps best known for The Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah for Pesach, which has been used in homes and synagogues worldwide. Rachel is a contributing editor at Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture. Her poems have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies, among them Phoebe, The Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, The Texas Observer, and Confrontation. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Organization for Transformative Works. She lives in the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts with her husband, Ethan Zuckerman, their son Drew, and their creamsicle cat. Find her online at velveteenrabbi.com.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Jean Morris
I love this book. Written from the heart of faith and study and published on the day of Rachel Barenblat's ordination as a Jewish Renewal rabbi, these are poems that reach out from a deeply informed and deeply felt specificity to the widest of audiences.
This is a wonderfully accomplished poet whose always accessible work resounds with the cadences of ancient scripture, of historical English-language forms and of modern poetry with all its playing in and out of form. Steeped in tradition and scholarship, she is in every moment a sophisticated and challenging writer, woman, mother and rabbi for today.
Here are characters and landscapes of old, familiar stories from the books of Moses retold, repainted in startlingly vivid thoughts and images - the flood wreaked by a God with post-partum depression, the looking around for the woman's view, the rueful wondering how these stories might have been less harsh and vengeful, how their harshness might serve now as a lesson in compassion.
It's an amazing and satisfying journey, that will grip readers from many religious traditions or none, who yearn, in these speeding, drifting times of ours, for a way into ancient and enduring songs and stories.
This is a wonderfully accomplished poet whose always accessible work resounds with the cadences of ancient scripture, of historical English-language forms and of modern poetry with all its playing in and out of form. Steeped in tradition and scholarship, she is in every moment a sophisticated and challenging writer, woman, mother and rabbi for today.
Here are characters and landscapes of old, familiar stories from the books of Moses retold, repainted in startlingly vivid thoughts and images - the flood wreaked by a God with post-partum depression, the looking around for the woman's view, the rueful wondering how these stories might have been less harsh and vengeful, how their harshness might serve now as a lesson in compassion.
It's an amazing and satisfying journey, that will grip readers from many religious traditions or none, who yearn, in these speeding, drifting times of ours, for a way into ancient and enduring songs and stories.
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I heard the poet talk about her project on the Woodrat Podcast (Google it; you'll find it) and was impressed with this book's vision and scope. 70 Faces takes me through the Five Books of Moses in a poetic Midrash, and one in which I feel the poet live through -- sometimes stand against, sometimes wonder at -- a text that has helped to form who she is. I'm learning a lot by reading the Pentateuch (I'm Christian) through again (using Everett Fox's The Five Books of Moses this time) with Rabbi Barenblat's poems beside me. Sometimes her poems counter what I think, and sometimes they go up the mountain instead of me like Moses. But they always surprise. They usually put me in the shoes of the stories' characters through a kind of natural sympathy and moral imagination that impresses me. Irony, playfulness, and a sensitivity to and respect for both the Scripture and the English language also mark her work. Barenblat easily mixes biblical and contemporary language. It's clear that the poet is at ease in both worlds.
Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a wonderful collection of poems, which I use both to ponder (they are often thought provoking) and to meditate on. They take up the themes of the Torah, and use Midrash to produce poems that bring the ancient texts to life, challenging and delighting the reader today.
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