Highlighting: “Megillat Ruth Mesorat HaRav” by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Koren Pub. 2025. 212 pages. ISBN-10: 965781359X.
It has been over 40 years since Rav Yosef Soloveitchik stopped teaching. That’s about two generations of people ‘who did not know Yosef.’ Fortunately, the wellspring of teaching from the Rav didn’t stop 40 years ago.
Over the last few years, Mesorat HaRav Publications via Koren has published several works by Rav Soloveitchik. Released just before Shavuout, “Megillat Ruth” is the latest book with the Rav’s insights. Dr. Reuven Mohl compiled and edited the volume, which includes commentary from the Rav on Megillat Ruth, Akdamot, Yetziv Pitgam and Yizkor.
While nothing here has not been previously published in other writing, it puts all of the Rav’s thoughts and genius about Megillat Ruth in one place.
Highlighting: “Judaism: A Love Story” by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. Maggid. 2025. 304 pages. ISBN-10: 1592646964.
At the beginning of Exodus, we find that it only took about a generation for the new king in Egypt to not know who Yosef was—even though he was a very public figure from the previous generation.
It’s been almost two generations since Rabbi Shlomo Riskin left New York City and made aliyah. Since then, many in the U.S. have not heard of this influential figure. During his tenure as rabbi at Lincoln Square Synagogue (LSS), he was one of the most influential rabbis in America.
Rabbi Riskin was so successful at LSS and in kiruv that many called him the “Stevie Wonder” of New York Jewry, a play on his English name, Steven.
In “Judaism: A Love Story” (Maggid Books), Rabbi Riskin uses the Jewish holidays as a springboard for exploring the foundations of Judaism. His approach is similar to that of Dr. Rabbi Shai Held in “Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life”; Rabbi Riskin takes the reader toward a gentler form of Judaism.
The author is the perennial Zionist par excellence, thus an important part of the book is its focus on Yom Ha’Atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim.
Rabbi Riskin is a man of great intellectual and emotional depth. He opens the book by observing, “I firmly believe that Judaism is a love story, a romance between ourselves and God, ourselves and Torah, ourselves and our forebears, ourselves and our future generations, ourselves and every other Jew, ourselves and every other human on the earth.”
The book is a testament to Rabbi Riskin’s greatness and a most enjoyable and insightful read.
Highlighting: “Mastering the Mind” by Saul Clarke. Mosaica Press. 2024. 268 pages. ISBN-10: 1961602466.
The Torah does not take kind to forgetfulness. From Tehillim 137, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither,” to Pirkei Avot 3:10, where Rabbi Meir says that “whoever forgets one word of his study, scripture accounts it to him as if he were mortally guilty,” forgetfulness is taken quite seriously.
Author Saul Clarke has written an interesting book, “Mastering the Mind” (Mosaica Press), that helps readers retain their Torah knowledge.
Memory retention is a real issue. From the mundane, such as forgetting what we ate for dinner the previous night, to the problem those who learn any Yomi study deal with, memory retention is a real issue. Those who can master memory techniques will find that retention of their Torah learning is an associated blessing.
The book centers around how Torah and psychology can help us master our minds. It details the science of memory and includes various techniques for retaining more of what we learn.
Highlighting: “Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish” by Dr. Hannah Pollin-Galay. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2024. 312 pages. ISBN-10: 1512825905.
One does not have to be a linguist to know that languages are fluid. Oxford University, Dictionary.com, and many others publish their “Word of the Year.”
Language change is usually a slow process. But in “Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish” (University of Pennsylvania Press), author Dr. Hannah Pollin-Galay (associate professor in the department of literature at Tel Aviv University) has written a fascinating book on how the Yiddish language can be classified as BC (before Churban Europa) and AC (after Churban Europa).
She shows that there were no words in pre-Holocaust Yiddish to describe many of the atrocities. And the needs forced people to come up with new terms to deal with the terror of the concentration camps. It is this Khurbn Yiddish that developed during the Holocaust. There were simply no words to deal with what they were going through.
One of the most interesting sections details how the German word for Jew is Jude, while the Yiddish term is Yid. In Nazi German, “Jude” was more than a word. It was a visual emblem that rose above the rules of everyday language, and it could contain contradictory qualities—like repulsive inferiority and conniving intellect, backward religiosity and degenerate Bolshevism.
Nazi German also had compound words that contained “Jude” in order to use language to materialize and objectify race. They used these words to transform a fluid group of human subjects into material objects.
The Holocaust drastically changed the way Jews spoke Yiddish, which Pollin-Galay compellingly shows in this fascinating book. One does not need to understand Yiddish to appreciate this insightful book.
Highlighting: “Happiness in the Face of Adversity” by Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD. Mosaica Press. 2024. 196 pages. ISBN-10: 1961602679.
Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD is a mathematics professor and co-host of the “Physics to God” podcast. He is also the author of “Gematria Refigured: A New Look at How the Torah Conveys Ideas Through Numbers.” Naturally, one would expect most of his writings to be centered on the sciences.
But in “Happiness in the Face of Adversity: Powerful Torah Ideas From a Mom’s Parting Words” (Mosaica Press), he leaves the cold, complex world of science and enters the world of Torat Imecha.
The book details how his mother, the late Shani Feder, lived through horrendous illnesses straight out of the Book of Job. He notes that she passed away at the young age of 57, but not before having five major diseases, 12 major surgeries, over 100 medical procedures, and spending cumulatively seven months in the hospital. Yet with all that, which would turn most people into a depressed mess, she was a happy and optimistic person.
A few years before her passing, on Mother’s Day, she wrote a letter to her children. That letter forms the basis of the book. In it, she describes how to live a life of meaning and happiness, which her son comments on.
He shows how her commitment to Torah, combined with positive psychology, enabled her to remain happy despite a disability that would have crushed others.
This is a touching and beautiful story about a seemingly typical mother who transcended some of life’s most challenging moments.
Ben Rothke lives in New Jersey and works in the information security field. He reviews books on religion, technology, philosophy, and science. Follow him on Twitter at @benrothke.
