Customer Reviews

The Rabbi's Daughter

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I finished this book in a day and found it very hard to put down.
It reads as the memoir of a woman who grew up in a religious Jewish household, left the fray to lead a lifestyle of sex and "liberation" and returned to join the ultra-religious Hasidic community. The book promised to highlight the struggles a woman faced in choosing between a religious lifestyle and a non-religious one. And that is my biggest issue with the book. The religious lifestyle she describes consists of a joyless virtually loveless existence full of empty rules, stringencies, and empty relationships. The "non-religious" lifestyle she chooses consists of adultery, promiscuous sex, drug use, lesbianism, more drug use, and more promiscuous sex.
I had truly wanted to relate to the author, as I am a (mostly happy) Orthodox woman myself, but I do question what "life on the other side of the fence" might be like from time to time. I found it impossible to do so for two reasons. First the author's experience of Judaism was skewed, extreme, and not an accurate glimpse of mainstream Orthodoxy. Second, her non-religious lifestyle disgusted me and I have a hard time believing most secular people engage in half the things the author happily did in her pursuit of a "non-religious" way of life.
Like some other reviewers I found some of the incidents related strained belief. A woman who repeatedly professes to love G-d so much she joins the most extreme and ascetic Orthodox branch happily recounts how she lost her virginity in a synagogue of all places.
Her emotions just did not ring true to me. Nor did I really get a sense of genuine spirituality coming from the author.
I hope anyone reading this book realizes the views of this author are extreme and her experiences are not shared by the majority of Orthodox Jewish women. Some of us do live balanced, fulfilling and happy lives, and interact with genuinely caring and loving people.

This book is a self-centered memoir of an oversexed, confused woman who seems to delight in the sordid details of her adolescent life (which persists well into chronologic adulthood) and in blaming her problems on everyone except herself. Although the author claims on You Tube that she has changed names in order to avoid embarrassment, the descriptions are astoundingly thinly concealed, rendering it immediately apparent who her parents (a respected English Rabbi and his wife) were. Of greater concern, one wonders how her 3 children responded to reading of their mother's sexual adventures and fantasies, which she describes as occurring in a variety of places ranging from fecally soiled toilets to the sanctity of her father's synagogue. The idea, proposed by the author, that this book somehow informs the reader of the Jewish Orthodox world is preposterous. It is an astoundingly self-centered, blinkered, publicity-seeking "memoir" of a Rabbi's daughter with sexual, addictive and and other dysfunctions that can be summed up in 2 words---"total trash."

This was certainly readable, but I still wouldn't strongly recommend it- far too much lashon hara [literally, 'evil tongue' but less literally, true but gratuitious gossip] for my tastes about the author's parents. Having said that, this book certainly does display what it is like to be someone who oscillates between wacky sex-and-drugs permissiveness and wacky religion [which, by the way, is not typical of Orthodox Judaism; she was messing around with the right wing of the right wing, theologically speaking]. And the picture is not a pretty one.

At first glance, particularly with the provocative cover, this book seemed interesting. I was quickly debunked of this thought after only a few pages. Sin number one: Reva Mann cannot write. She would've benefitted greatly from a ghostwriter. The sentences are simple, analogies flat and cliche, descriptions not very three dimensional. Sin number two: This is ostensibly a memoir, yet there were a couple scenes that I found totally implausible; namely when she looses her virginity in her father's synagogue, then after the deed is done stands naked on the bimah, shouting "Halleluja!" The other scene which I found incredibly disturbing was when she described having sex with a strange man in her home, newly divorced with kids in the next room. When they were crying for their mother, she couldn't be bothered to stop and tend to them. She seemed to revel in the sordidness of it all. Which leads me to sin number three: Much of the book is devoted to her obsession with sex. The descriptions of her sexual longing and needs and acts are tedious, not to mention puerile. Her newly religious husband, Simcha, was swiftly disposed of when she found him unable to satisfy her sexually (ironic, since this is something which is required under Jewish law, and is even stipulated in the ketubah, marriage contract). Her need for "hot" sex was more important than her husband and young children.
Ultimately I found this book to be mired in self-pity (she discusses the broken dynamics of her family quite a bit without coming to any kind of closure about it all), and narcissism.

Reva Mann is a good writer and has had a very "unorthodox" life which she tries to give over to the reader in an imaginative way. I enjoyed her book and read thru it very quickly however I thought some of the passages were a little too graphic for my taste. I wondered what her kids would think reading thru their mothers book. I think Ms Mann elected to be true to herself over whatever fallout would come from writing this memoir. I lent the book to an Othodox woman who is from England who felt that it was not a true portrayal of Jewish life and marriage and would give people the wrong impression. Whatever the case may be, the book is worth reading for anyone interested in Jewish life, womens struggles and personal growth.

You can tell very early on that the author's search for a spiritual path will be foiled by her secular cravings. No Hassidic husband would tolerate the graphic descriptions of her past. And no Hassidic wife would revel in her hedonistic history.
Mann is so physically descriptive of her behavior and desires, that her repentance of her past, including drug use, promiscuous sex and abusive relationships, seems insincere. She enjoys talking about her past too much. It's simply a matter of time before her religious life will be eclipsed by her past and current appetites.
This could have been a fascinating memoir were the author less self-absorbed, and able to control her writing so you couldn't figure out what was going to happen so easily. But her writing mirrors her behavior, and neither were within her control.

I respect the author for her book and ability to be truthful. However, I found the book very disturbing and without any true closure or learning by the author. There is such beauty in Judaism that Reva passed up because she wavered from one extreme to another. The rest of us in the middle lead very peaceful and spiritual lives, even those of us coming from disfunctional families.

This book does not give a true 'insight' to the 'devoutely religious in the holy land'. For that, go to Naomi Ragen's Sotah. Nor does it give 'insight' into the 'normal impulses of a young woman'. I never felt those impulses and I certainly hope I have raised my children so that the depraved and dangerous impulses in the book are not 'normal' for them. The facts about the different rituals were superficial at best.

There are some important questions raised by the story, such as: What does it mean to find balance in one's life? balance between rules and freedom, balance between our roots and our personal nature? balance between old and new? etc. It looks at the place of compassion, kindness, forgiveness in our lives. It asks us to consider self-absorption and it's impact, regardless of how that self-absorption exhibits itself. It seems that everyone in this book is self-absorbed, not just the author.

The writing at the beginning of the book is quite poor. Only later on did it flow better.

I found it hard to deal with the graphic sexual descriptions, whether these were of sexual relations or sexual fantasies. It distracted me from the other aspects of the developing story. But, perhaps, that is just a reflection of how sexual feelings and urges were found by the author to be distracting. I would have liked to recommend this book to friends or my daughters, to use as a starting point for discussion on the questions above; however, given the sex in the book, I will refrain from doing so.

I feel badly for Sam given the exposure of his sexual preoccupations. Even with us not knowing his true identity, he knows it and I can only imagine what it must feel like for him to see himself described so on the typed page. On the other hand, perhaps Reva asked his permission and he gave it.

Regarding whether or not her children will read the book at some future time - I imagine the same dilemma occurs for actors and actresses who appear nude and in erotic scenes in the movies. I wish that people behaved more modestly. I don't find that graphic sex or eroticism advances the theme or plot or character development of any book or movie. It is gratuitous.

I am not sorry that I read this book. I just wish that it had been written better.

this is about trying to figure out where you belong to, a phase that all of us go through in some time of our lives.
Well written and not heavy.

i bought this book with high hopes. it was poorly written. you went from pitying the author, to being disgusted by her. i lent this book to 3 other people who had the same reaction. dont waste your money.