From Jerusalem to the Edge of Heaven [Hardcover]

Dr. Ari Elon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1996

From Jerusalem to the Edge of Heaven fuses different media and styles to explore vastly different yet inescapably connected moments in Jewish history: the ancient Babylonian yeshivah at Pumbedita; Jerusalem, a decade after independence; and Gaza during the Intifada. In his explorations, the author re-imagines essential concepts and defining structures of Jewish history and identity in profound, and profoundly disquieting, ways. The theme of children pervades the writings - lost children, perpetual children, and one child, Alma Dee, in particular. The theme of children is highlighted as well in the illustrations, details from Pieter Breughel’s Children’s Games.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published as an issue of an innovative Israeli quarterly called Shemot, Elon's long, autobiographical, postmodern narrative is rooted in a great love of Jewish tradition?in which everything is subjected to an endless process of "God-wrestling" and nothing is accepted at face value. Loaded with stories from the recent history of Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is a book about a panorama of Jerusalems both historic and mythic. Elon fills his book with huge vistas of learning and endlessly attractive word games, moving in time to important moments in the history of Jerusalem and the Jewish people. It's not a book for everyone, but it deeply rewards the effort required to read it.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Drawing on his Orthodox upbringing, his fascination with left-wing intellectualism, his university training in philosophy and theology, and his career in the army, Elon searches for meaning within the vast realm of the Judaic heritage to bring a new perspective to both the Jewish tradition and the current Israeli scene. His work draws on material previously published in the Israeli quarterly Shdemot and includes autobiographical data, Midrash, and now-dated reactions to the intifada. Elon weaves back and forth between Talmudic allusions and current events. In his explorations, he merges the boundaries between reality and fantasy. Elon centers on the theme of children as the single unifying thread binding together his disparate observations. While Frymer-Kensky's translation efforts are commendable, the layered levels of meaning that are inherent in the Hebrew text?which has a strong overlay of Kabbala, New Age, and feminist ideas?may leave the uninitiated reader perplexed. A challenging book for specialized collections.?Carol R. Glatt, VA Medical Ctr., Lib., Philadelphia
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 204 pages
• Publisher: The Jewish Publication Society; 1st edition (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827605250
• ISBN-13: 978-0827605251
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,703,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poetic Vision of Renewed Jewish Secularism, December 15, 2002

By 

"krchicago" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Jerusalem to the Edge of Heaven (Hardcover)

Ari Elon advocates a kind of Jewish pluralism, where being Jewish includes a cultural and ethical heritage but does not necessarily mean accepting rabbinic Judaism as a religion. He celebrates the Torah, and particularly the aggadic portions of the Babylonian Talmud, as a source of creativity and inspiration for secular and religious alike and hopes, through his teaching, to bring it to a wider audience. In Elon's view, only free-thinking Jews, grounded in but not controlled by their traditions, can have the creativity to be their own gods, to find uniquely Jewish solutions to the problems that beset Israel and Jewish culture more generally.

"From Jerusalem to the Edge of Heaven" is not so much an attempt to persuade anyone that Elon is correct, as it is an attempt to persuade that such a thing is possible and to provide a vision of what a free-thinking Jewish creativity might look like. The beginning and end of the book are a pastiche of autobiographical sketches, speeches given by Elon while teaching Talmud to secular Israelis, and Elon's imaginative diary of reserve duty in Gaza. These sections (some of which are more successful than others) provide context for the book's longest section, an extended fantasia, based on Talmudic stories, on what it means to live a life of learning and creativity. This seems to me an utterly original and mostly convincing understanding of the sages of the Talmud, with modern implications that are only hinted at in Elon's brief book.

Elon assumes some basic familiarity with Zionist leaders and ideas and with Talmudic aggadah, but he is writing for educated lay people, not scholars. His argument is mostly easy to follow, although I found it repetitive in a few spots. The style is poetic and idiosyncratic, but easy to read once you get into it. Recommended to anyone with an interest in secular alternatives that preserve tradition without becoming enslaved by it.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Amos and Zohar, Jews will read it centuries from now., March 17, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: From Jerusalem to the Edge of Heaven (Hardcover)

The book takes the form of dream-like midrash, mostly on the Talmud,but also on Elon's experience in the Israeli army AND in the Israeli peace movement. Call it mystical realism.

Such a book appears only once every few hundred years, in a generation of deep Jewish upheaval, like the mystical Zohar and the Prophet Amos. Jews will be reading it hundreds of years from no