Customer Reviews

Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I always read books written on the subject of Othodoxy with scepticism. Having been born and raised Orthodox, I can tell if the book or movie is authentic. Movies where,for example,the Chasidim wear their Talit to the meal, proves to me that most people that write about the subject, clearly do not live it. Klinghoffer's book, however, is totally authentic. His explanations into the origins of words, and his insight into the nature of the Halacha, not as law, but as a way of life, is refreshing.

I know that the bulk of Conservative and Reform Jews probably do not agree with his spin on their religion, however, I have to agree with him. History will bear out the fact, that Judaism by association of blood alone, will not survive. In my neighborhood we have an exceptionally large amount of Baaley tshuva and converts. I find it extremely impressive and am in awe of a person that generally gives up all that he has been raised to beleive, in search of something almost illusive: the truth.

After my divorce, I became semi-orthodox. I was angry at G-d, whom I held responsible, and felt that if he deserted me, certainly I had no obligation to maintain contact with him. On the outside I continued all the ritual, but inside I knew it was just a show. After my remarriage and subsequent death of my second husband, I reevaluated my religion and my beliefs and came to much of the same conclusions as Klinghoffer. G-d walks with me and I know that he is watching me...and not from a distance.

It would be simple if our religion could be relegated to an occasional temple trip, and not eating pork, but in our hearts, we all know that this is not what binds us together and maintains us as Jews. It is not only in the blood. It is in the heart and in the concrete observance of the Torah as well. From Abraham, to Unkelus to Ruth, some of our greatest Jews have come to us through conversion. I admire the author and other converts that have sought out the truth and the beauty of Judaism. You are an inspiration to those of us that take it often for granted.

David Klinghoffer's book is high on my list of books as a must read for all Jews, especially those who are searching for some sort of meaning and value behind Judaism. Klinghoffer makes it clear that Judaism in American has become a Judaism of vague cultural association which generally means nothing to the younger generations who are seeking meaning in their lives. Hebrew school offers no solutions, so young Jews seek out other paths, not knowing that all the meaning and spirituality that they want in life is located in the parts of Judaism that the Conservative/Reform temples voted out. I went to a very traditional Conservative Hebrew school and came out apathetic towards everything Jewish. Thank G-d, today I am a baal teshuvah. I was amazed how similar Klinghoffer's attitude towards Judaism at that point in his life was to mine and so many other Jewish children who have come to scorn Judaism through Hebrew school.

Contrary to what many other reviewers say, Klinghoffer's book is anything but condescending. He presents the truth from a Jewish perspective, even at the risk of embarassing himself with his own failings along the way. He presents the inevitable problems faced by so many baalei teshuvah when religious observance and current lifestyles start to clash. The confusing world where one might date a non-Jew but keep kosher and shabbos is where many baalei teshuvah can end up. Klinghoffer makes it clear that such illogical actions are a part of this process of discovering authentic Judaism and the confusion of leaving old habits behind. He goes through what seemed to be a logical progression to him, seeking truth through Reform and Conservative, even going to JTS, before coming back to Torah Judaism. In each step, he noticed something was lacking. For instance, he went to JTS to learn Hebrew to read the bible. They wouldn't teach biblical Hebrew to him, but suggested he go to the Christian Seminary down the street.

To those other reviewers who think that he is condescending to Conservative/Reform, I will remind them that he did not come into the process prejudiced against anything but Orthodoxy. It was after experiencing Conservative/Reform, and then fully experiencing Judaism that he could look back and realize the truth.

Klinghoffer's candidness and straightforward honesty make this book necessary information for anybody wondering more about the Judaism which they have been denied. His enjoyable and easily relatable writing style makes this book a pleasure to read--Five stars!

I first became aware of David Klinghoffer when I saw articles by him on the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion." I appreciated his comments and wanted to read more by him. So, I picked up this book.

I have mixed feelings about it. At times I got the strong sense that someone had informed the author at some point in his life that he was brighter than other people and that he didn't need to do the same intellectual work that others do. Further, I got the impression that, thanks to that perception, the author is a bit contemptuous of other people and a bit lax in presenting the facts.

I don't mean to make ad hominem attacks on this author, but if my perception is correct, it is unfortunate. Klinghoffer writes about Judaism and Christianity and troubled interactions between the two faiths. This interface is of world importance. One must be very circumspect when addressing these issues. For this reader, Klinghoffer was not adequately circumspect.

An example of intellectual laxity: Klinghoffer claims that Paul converted to Christianity from Judaism because he did not want to, or could not, follow Torah. This statement alone renders every reported fact in Klinghoffer's entire book suspect.

People who know nothing else about Paul often know that he converted as a result of one of the most famous conversions experiences in history. Paul's dramatic conversion is so famous that "road to Damascus" has become a phrase to describe a conversion experience of any kind, Christian or non-Christian, indeed, religious or secular.

Too, Klinghoffer implies that Catholics sing "Deutschland Uber Alles" as part of the mass. I'm a lifelong Catholic and I've never heard the German national anthem sung during mass. There is a Christian hymn that uses the same music, but I've never heard that in mass, either. Klinghoffer never makes any of this clear, which is unfortunate, given one incorrect current trend that equates Christianity with Nazism.

Klinghoffer is no kinder, in some ways, to Judaism. His description of a synagogue bar mitzvah in Los Angeles where rude Jews speak at football-stadium volume while a rabbi inveighs against evil "Goyim" creates, however inadvertently, a negative stereotype of Jews. This may be an accurate description of a real service, but it was not presented with enough context to render this passage comprehensible as anything other than an anti-Semitic caricature.

An example of the author's condescension is the misogynist way he discusses his Catholic girlfriend, Maria. Three times when talking about her, he says, "Women cry so easily." When Maria creates something artistic, the author describes her as "adorable" in a very condescending way.

Also, as a person of faith who struggles with the misogyny and homophobia in my own faith tradition, I found Klinghoffer's attempts to explain away the Levitcal association of menstruating women with abomination not at all convincing, and his association of homosexual love with death to be truly alienating.

In short, Klinghoffer works too hard to make God -- or our human understandings of God -- rational. In general, this reader was uncomfortable with Klinghoffer's tendency to set Judaism and Christianity against each other as if they were horses competing in a race. Certainly, Klinghoffer himself set these two traditions in competition with each other when he was deciding, like the nuns in "Sound of Music" how to solve the problem of Maria, his Catholic lover, but the stance of competition is not the happiest one for Judaism and Christianity to be assuming vis a vis each other right now. Rather, the two faiths had better learn to coexist.

On the other hand, this book offers truly precious moments that make up for the book's failings. At times the author loses his arrogance, his lax hold on important facts, and his contempt, and he writes of his own experiences from his own heart, and it is at those moments that this book is most valuable. When the author is most himself, and most vulnerable, he is the most powerful as a writer.

When the author, early on in the book, compares Judaism's appeal to him with the appeal a sunken ship holds for an explorer, his writing reaches its poetic height. When the author confesses that Catholic Maria married someone else and has children, and, yet, when he sees her, his former love for her seems to hover in the air as an almost palpable presence, when the author admits his yearning for his roots, biological or spiritual (the author was an adoptee), the sensible reader will not be able to avoid being moved, being taught, and being changed.

Too, at other times, Klinghoffer does a good job of presenting key facts. He is entirely correct in telling Maria that Jesus did not fit every model for a Messiah as presenting in Jewish scripture.

This reader hopes that Klinghoffer will continue to write in a confessional, memoirist vein, which was his strength here. This reader further hopes that Klinghoffer will sharpen his fact checking skills, and consider the impact of episodes like his description of his visit to the LA synagogue, and place such episodes in some illuminating context, if he does use them. This reader also hopes that Klinghoffer will lead with what he revealed here as his greatest strength -- reporting with courage and honesty his own unique experiences.

Klinghoffer's journey to orthodox and authentic Judaism should be compulsory reading for those Jews who sincerely consider Reform and Conservative "Judaism" a religious option. Unlike Klinghoffer these people waste most of their lives with the illusion that they are in some way worshiping and particpating in the religion of Moses, Maimonides and the other teachers of our people.

having met countless Baalei Tshuva - it is refreshing to find one as intelligent and understanding as K. is. Slowly but surely he comes to see Judaism and the Torah in its genuine and unadalterated form and recognise that to be a Jew there is no other option.

I am also impressed with the fact that he doesn't fall for much of the nonsense that many Baalei Tshuva seem accept.

It would be interesting for us readers if he wrote a follow-up book on his life as an orthodox Jew with its trials and tribulations and ups and downs.

It would also be fascinating to get his view on the Charedi communities - especiallly in Brooklyn and Jerusalem.

Davis Klinghoffer's book, written from the viewpoint of a religous, and political conservative, has its fascinating moments. Moments such as a do-it-yourself bris, or finally meeting his birth-mother and the subsequent trip to her homeland of Sweden. Troublesome in that Klinghoffer seems to delight in putting down those who don't believe as he does now. I would have much preferred to read about how he believes his belief system is the best, rather than the potshots at those who don't live up to his idea of what a Jew is. I can only attribute this as an offshoot of his political conservatism in which the equation liberal=bad is the operative idea. However, if one can get past the denigration, and read it as an very personal journey, it should be worth picking up

One hesitates to criticize a person as obviously intelligent, good-hearted, and well-meaning as this author, but this book is a difficult read. The sections dealing with his search for his birthmother are the strongest and most deeply felt. The passages where he dwells on his spiritual life are also, at times, moving. He strangely doesn't appear to be well-read in Judaica, which often makes his "journey" seem a tad shallow. More to the point, there's a definite air of self-absorption and--dare I say it?--greed to his narrative, or at least a boundless sense of entitlement that doesn't make him terribly likeable. He gives (doubtless unintentionally) an even shabbier portrait of himself in the chapter dealing with his treatment of his Catholic girlfriend, apparently unaware of his own dishonesty in the relationship. It's hard to swallow his sadness as genuine when it's largely brought on himself. There are some fine moments in this book, but it is a great deal of work to find them. The journey, sadly, isn't always the reward.

This book spoke to me more than any other baal-teshuvah story I've read. I came from a similar situation to Klinghoffer's and I found I could really identify with his concerns. I very much appreciated his honesty about his own backslidings and shortcomings. I felt he told the truth, even when it made him look bad, and he didn't gloss over anything, or make the journey sound easy. Although I didn't agree with all of his conclusions, I still respected how he arrived at them.

Very well-written and enjoyable to read.

An interesting topic and I recognized many U.S. Jewish communities of which I have been a part in the sometimes amusing, often troubling descriptions he provides of the contemporary Jewish community in the U.S. But the superbly anecdotal nature of the evidence against Reform and Conservative and for Orthodoxy could just as easily be turned the other way around, and many people, beginning BTs and Jews by choice, will have other evidence: the Orthodox community is threatening to them because of the daily non-observance of many of its members and its colossal tribalism; for someone who is searching for meaning, the mindless way that many orthodox communities seem to mumble their way through the liturgy seems more of an obstacle than a way to G-d. Many "beginners" are disturbed by the idea that kavannah could come from what seems to be mindless mumbling of syllables. Moreover, most orthodox communities come across as incredibly closed when you visit them either as a woman, a BT, or a convert. Another point: Klinghoffer's characterization of conservative communities in the US as unconcerned about observance is overstated. The conservative community that I spent the most time in had a very observant temple leadership, ANY convert spent two years in instruction, (and the members of the bet din were ALL observant of the commandments) and all bar/bat Mitzvahs had spent something like 8 years in Hebrew school: they could understand the Torah reading AND ask directions to the bus stop. Klinghoffer presents Judaism as an either/or dilemma: either you're Orthodox or you're just screwing around--there is no meaningful kind of Judaism outside of the orthodox community. I think, in contrast, that your experience of Judaism is simply much more related to which congregation you come in contact with. Because Judaism in the U.S. is not a religious body with a central authority that makes pronouncements about how community life will be conducted, every congregation is different; within the different ideological directions, there is a tremendous variation in practice, and in the end, observance of ritual is the most visceral level on which individuals can participate in Judaism. To Klinghoffer's credit, he points out something important about Reform in the U.S.: although the Reform movement has a specific ideology that tends to be anti-ritual in character, that ideology is, at least in theory, predicated on having enough information about traditional Judaism to be able to decide which rituals are meaningful. At present, however, most Reform congregations consist of people who know little or nothing about Judaism and don't really want to--so they're not making an informed judgement--and Reform rabbis, in my experience, do little to make the halacha comprehensible or attractive to their congregations (if out of fear or lack of conviction, I am uncertain). But his criticism of Reform based on Reform summer camps is trivial and ultimately irrelevant--what about homosexual encounters in the yeshiva, which are apparently fairly common? For every trivial piece of evidence he comes up with to condemn the Reform community, I could come up with a parallel in the orthodox community. I wonder if his experience of Judaism has any relationship to WHERE he experienced it (on both coasts, where the majority of Jews live). Judaism (reform and conservative) in parts of the country where Jews do not constitute a significant minority is much more like the Judaism Klinghoffer seems to want than most of the orthodox communities I have visited in the U.S. and abroad, because there is no way to be Jewish outside of the religious community. When there is no cultural secular Judaism present, Jewish identification takes place only in the religious sphere (I realize this conclusion supports his contentions that secular Judaism is meaningless).

Maybe this book should be subtitled "Blood, Blood, and More Blood, The Story of My Four Circumcisions and Search for Authenticity." David Klinghoffer is a former writer for The Washington Times, is a current senior editor of William F. Buckley's The National Review, and a contributor to Commentary and other periodicals.

This is the story of Klinghoffer's path of ba'alei teshuvah, or return, to Jewish Orthodoxy, his desire for a relationship with god, and his nurturing of a fear of god. It is his story of why Orthodoxy is the only path. I was intrigued that a major push to him came from his devoutly Roman Catholic girlfriend, just as major pushes to Judaism came from the non-Jewish spouses in Tirzah Firestone's and Stephen J. Dubner's Fall 1998 books on their religious returns. I also observed that his mother passed away when David was a teen. Firestone's brother died when she was a teen, Naomi Levine's father was murdered when she was a teen, and Dubner's father died when he was a pre-teen. Coincidence?

Let me be frank. By the second page of this book, I wanted to cast it aside. By page 250, my attitude softened and the story came together. My dislike of the book dissipated -- a tad. I was honestly alienated by what I sensed as his smugness towards his own religious upbringing, bordering on the insulting to the majority of his co-religionists who are not Orthodox. Must he compare Reform Judaism to Menelaus and Antiochus Epiphanes the Fourth, or the Central synagogue to a Byzantine Church? (I think it looks like the Budapest Orthodox synagogue.)

The book, I feel, is about an adoptee's search for authenticity, whether it is an authentic name for his high school (Miraleste), an authentic antique or pre-War apartment building, or authenticity in Jewish belief -- Orthodoxy. Is it a Jewish Pinocchio story? It is a story of the feeling that an adopted child and adult may be an imposter, and lacks the right blood, so much so that one becomes a hypochondriac with high BLOOD pressure, and gets circumcised four times in an effort to get it "right." It is a story of feeling out of place with Swedish-blonde looks in a synagogue of darker hair and skin tones.

In the later chapters, as he seeks out his birth mother, and travels with her to Stockholm, the book came together, for me. The book became more interesting and his thesis coalesced. If you overlook his jibes at the non-Orthodox and those culturally Orthodox adherents that are secret Agnostics, I can recommend this book to those who wonder why some people yearn for Orthodoxy.

"Shallow" is the word that reverbrated throughout my head as I read this book. While I do not wish to make this an ad hominem attack on the author, he did write a semi-autobiography with himself as the subject. The author comes across as a shallow, arrogant and unlikeable person. He treats his parents and brother coldly. He worries that his mother's cancer will spread to him. He uses his girlfriends. He is a hypochondriac of the first degree. My experience with Baalei Teshuvah (newly-repentant Jews) is that they usually fall into two categories: those that recall their former life and tend to be more tolerant of others, and those that pretend that their past life didn't really exist; that it was all bad; that they have been rescued from a brutish existence. Klinghoffer is of the second type. He strikes me as someone who has picked up the rules of Judaism but none of the wisdom. He becomes one of those BT, a la Ari Goldman, that would never eat a piece of treif but have no problem sleeping with every girl they can find. Is is really possible that he met *no* sincere and observant Conservative (not to mention Reform) Jews in his 30+ years? That there is no possibility that the Oral Torah (not to mention the Written) can no have no mistakes in transmission after 3000 years? Does he not know that Maimonides' 13 Principles of Faith "to which every Jew must assent" was already disputed by leading authorities in Maimonides own time? That the Masoretes almost two thousand years ago compiled books of variant readings of the Torah? Interspresed with his rather unintersting story are long passages of rather elementary sermons and simpistic Torah insights. No wonder he goes from one extreme to another. Klinghoffer's "return" comes across as so shallow, so uninformed, so naive that I have little doubt that if gains any wisdom at all in the next thirty years he will write another book titled detailing his next metamorphosis.