Customer Reviews

The Pigskin Rabbi

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While not the deepest book on the market, I found The Pigskin Rabbi to be fun, uplifting and an easy read. It's a clever premise, and Manus takes it everywhere it can possibly go without beating it to death. I recommend it highly as a fun, summer read.

The Pigskin Rabbi is a modern parable for doubting troubled Jews who live in a modern troubled society and face modern complex problems.

It is light breezy tongue in cheek and funny especially if you hear it in your head when you are reading it. The characters all stay true to their form and all have an eccentric point of view -- everyone but the main character who is the sanity in a bizzare world.

It drags in the middle as all sports books tend to, but that is minor. The games' descriptions are there to show how the many forms of anti semetism come up and how (in a less than ideal world) a man of principle might overcome them.

The choices the rabbi makes are not easy ones. Quite frequently he must deal with tradition and holy commands on the one hand, and a personal loyalty to those around him on the other. So he plays on Yom Kipper. But playing on Yom Kipper is not without its price. And his uncertainty is part of his courage. In the end he does things mostly for the betterment of those around him. Let others follow if they will. Let them be bewildered and angry if they will not.

He chooses and looses his women in exactly the same way. He looses the woman one would think he was suited for (a Jewess in Amsterdam), because she cannot judge worth and value especially when he becomes famous. He picks a gentile because what matters to her is him. She lacks his courage, but not his loyalty and the loyalty is so important. In a modern world, she has the ability to let him be who he wants to be without interference. She has an unspoken faith that he is wise enough to use his talents for the widest good. She may not understand it, but she understands him. His choice was the wisest one. She lacks the Jewish woman's intellectual depth but she more than matches her humanity.

He picks the right woman for the right reason.

The ending might irritate some, especially the death of Mad Dog. This is a parable. So Mad Dog's death showed clearly what the author was talking about when he offhandedly mentions that decent people through wars and threats become themselves barbaric. Critics will argue that that point should be made more of. But this book is about decency and maintenace of decency and what we need to do to accomplish this. Regret and guilt are the vocabulary. Action is the antedote.

Enjoy. It is a fun thoughful book. Sort of Bubbe's Chicken Soup for the Soul.