It has only happened two times before when I finished writing and editing a book (my first in 2017 and the second in 2019), or on a much smaller scale after I finished writing and editing a high holiday sermon (far more emotionally and spiritually taxing than anyone realizes except for fellow rabbis and their spouses who have to live with them during the run-up to the holidays), but the relief and void that come in the wake of finishing a book are like nothing else I’ve experienced – I suspect it’s the same for every writer.

I have been silent on this blog for a while now as I finish editing my Memoirs that I hope will appear in the next six months or so.

I was invited more than a year ago to write by a publisher who read my translation of my great-granduncle’s Hebrew biography (Avraham Shapira of Petach Tikvah, Israel – 1870-1965), liked my writing and thought I had a good story to tell. I’m calling it From the West to the East – The Memoir of a Liberal American Zionist Rabbi. The result is a mashup of my life in Berkeley, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Israel that focuses on the most “cinematic experiences with broad shoulders” upon which I can hang other experiences and thoughts (my publisher suggested I write the book along these lines). This approach enabled me to focus upon those events, people, and values that made me who I am and drove me to do what I’ve done since I was a little boy, and that might be of interest to those beyond my family and friendship circles.

Revisiting the influence of a number of my most important mentors and models who inspired and touched me, as well as the events that shaped me was illuminating, to say the least, and was a journey into my memories that I believe we all ought to do for ourselves, the generations in our families, and anyone else who may be interested. Each of us has stories to tell, and they are far more interesting than we may think.

In my Introduction I quote from Simon Dubnov, an early 20th century Russian-Jewish historian who the Nazis murdered in the Latvian Ghetto of Riga. He said in his native Yiddish: “Yiddin, shreibt und farschreibt – Jews, write it down; write it all down;” also William Faulkner’s adage – “The past is never dead. It’s not even past;” and James Baldwin who wrote the same notion about history – “The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.”

This blog is a teaser before the book is published. I’ll let you know when with hopes that you will consider reading it.