Genesis: The Beginning of Desire [Hardcover]

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0827605218 | ISBN-13: 978-0827605213 | Publication Date: September 1, 1996 | Edition: 1st

An intellectually stimulating and personally uplifting exploration of Genesis. Genesis: the Beginning of Desire breathes new life into the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Rachel, and Joseph. Zornberg brings biblical, midrashic, and literary sources together, weaving them into a seamless tapestry and illuminating the tensions that grip human beings as they search for and encounter God.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In these reflections on Genesis, Cambridge scholar Zornberg combines the contributions of contemporary biblical criticism, in-depth exegesis, and prosaic exposition to produce spectacular readings of this first book of Torah. Basing this book on weekly lectures given in Jerusalem, Zornberg attempts to lead her hearers and readers beyond the fixed meanings so often ascribed to the biblical text. Instead, her readings urge readers to take seriously their task of cocreating the meanings of the text. A beautiful and arresting exercise in biblical literary criticism; highly recommended.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: The Jewish Publication Society; 1st edition (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827605218
• ISBN-13: 978-0827605213
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #811,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Erudition, May 29, 2001

By 

"macavity_1" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Genesis: The Beginning of Desire (Hardcover)

This is a truly wonderful book. This author draws on remarkable and broad fluency with text--from Shakespeare and Sartre to Harold Bloom, the Bible itself from Genesis to Chronicles, and rabbinic literature from the Tanhuma to Rashi to R. David Hutner. What pervades this textual fluency is a marvelous attention to language, to the words with which worlds are created.

This book is no easy read. I recommend reading each chapter twice and highlighting or underlining, writing notes in the margins and discussing passages with a partner as you go. Active reading is required, but isn't that just what "midrash," literally to "search" for the meanings of a text, is all about?

This is a study of the book of Genesis but it is also a study of rabbinic midrashic exploration of the book of Genesis. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Contemporary Reanimation Of Genesis., March 3, 2004

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Genesis: The Beginning of Desire (Hardcover)

Avivah Gottleib Zornberg has compiled her essays on the weekly Parsha, and a lifetime of learning and teaching, to write these extraordinary commentaries on the Book of Genesis. She shares her own personal struggles for meaning "to discover the ways in which life and text inform each other." With a particularly fluid writing style the author weaves together biblical, midrashic and literary sources - from Rashi to Shakespeare - and, for me, she makes Torah more accessible and brings biblical characters to life. The interpretations presented here are offered as alternative understandings to literal translations and not given as fact. The depth and detail with which Ms. Gottlieb Zornberg reanimates the texts of "Bereshit," is extraordinary. This is a truly beautiful book.

The title "Genesis: The Beginning Of Desire" is taken from Wallace Stevens' "Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction" - "...not to have is the beginning of desire."
JANA

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the heart as well as the mind, July 13, 1999

By 

John Marks [e-mail] (Rhode Island USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Genesis: The Beginning of Desire (Hardcover)

Zornberg's love, for the created order and its Creator, is just one of the refreshingly different things about this book, but perhaps in the last analysis the most important. If you are tired of titled and degreed fools who long ago stopped believing that God exists and cares about us, but have to keep publishing, get this book. But be prepared to invest time, and to sacrifice most of what you learned in Sunday School! Most highly recommended!