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Rabbi Panken's Jewish Interest Book Club

Past Sessions
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 15 Sivan 5781 - 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Uncovered: How I left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 11 Nisan 5781 - 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Kaddish.com
Wednesday, January 20, 2021 7 Sh'vat 5781 - 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 2 Kislev 5781 - 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - The Color of Love: The Story of a Mixed Race Jewish Girl
 
March 24, 2021 8:00 p.m.

Kaddish.com by Nathan Englander   Register now

When his father dies, it falls to Larry—the secular son in a family of Orthodox Brooklyn Jews—to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months. But to the horror and dismay of his sister, Larry refuses, imperiling the fate of his father’s soul. To appease her, he hires a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to say the prayer instead—a decision that will have profound, and very personal, repercussions. Irreverent, hilarious, and wholly irresistible, Nathan Englander’s tale of a son who makes a diabolical compromise brilliantly captures the tensions between tradition and modernity.

May 26, 2021 8:00 p.m.  Register now

Uncovered: How I left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home by Leah Lax

Lax begins her tale with her wedding day. From the start, she introduces an ongoing issue: the clashing of her old life as Lisa with her non-observant family, with her new life as Leah with her groom, Levi, and the rabbi that they devoutly follow. Leah is convinced that her sole goal in life is to marry and have children and to spend her life as a passionate,
Lubavitch woman. The only problem is that her true passion is elsewhere. Beneath her hair covering, her long skirts and tights, Leah desires to be with Ana, her childhood friend and unacknowledged love interest.

As a dutiful wife should, Lax hides this sinful desire and remains in a loveless, almost mechanical, marriage, hoping to find meaning in her existence. As she struggles through her family’s mental illnesses and her husband’s cold demeanor, she fights against motherhood.  Eventually, her loneliness changes her mind, but as much as her
children become a source of comfort, they also become a heavy load she must bear alone.
Her monotonous life requires caring for their every need but never for her own. She starts to slow-ly realize that she is no longer a believer and that she feels increasingly trapped: in her marriage, in her religion, even in her own skin. She must find a way out.

Lax’s writing impresses with the vivid descriptions of her deepest emotions. In one scene, she is in labor and her husband decides to stop at the bakery he works at before they go to the hospital. He believes it is his religious obligation to turn the oven on so that the challahs can be deemed “baked by a Jew.” Not one to argue with religious obligation, Leah patiently waits in the car. As her body begins to rebel she has a bleak thought: “Endure. But every day I endure: loneliness and embarrassing erotic dreams that wake me in the night, a muted cello song, muffled memories like muffled voices trying to push me off my stubborn path for God. What should be different now?”
 
What can be different? Lax finally learns that she has the power to change her destiny, regardless of who it may hurt along the way. Her life devoted to God, her husband, and her children is finally her own. It takes many years for her to come to this realization, but when she does recognize that her life doesn’t have to be so spiritless, suddenly she can soar.
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Tue, March 19 2024 9 Adar II 5784