8.18.2015

Review- Bridge Builder

Today I have a fun review and giveaway for you to enjoy as much as I did

This book really showed you into their life.. 
On a bleak Chicago Saturday in the winter of 1989, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and his wife, Bonnie, rose early and put on their Sabbath finery. That morning their firstborn, Tamar, was to celebrate her bat mitzvah, the coming-of-age party that marks the twelfth birthday of Orthodox Jewish girls.

They had moved from New York to Chicago eleven years earlier, once he had finished up school for rabbi’s 
To make ends meet, he held down weekend pulpits in small Orthodox congregations around the city, performed concerts, and sang at weddings with a band he put together.

Bonnie, his wife, saw this work as  emotional neediness, and she didn’t like it. She had fallen in love with a rabbi’s son, who had played basketball for the Yeshiva University High School team and performed Hebrew folk music for adoring audiences on the kosher college music circuit. Now he seemed different, a driven and exhausted man with a dream she neither understood nor shared. Bonnie had nothing against Christians. She had known some at Barnard. It was the sort of Christians Yechiel was working with, and sometimes dragging home for Sabbath dinner—Republican Christians, Reaganites, full of Jesus talk and pious curiosity about the Shabbat rituals. Yechiel, thank God, was still a Democrat. 

Family tensions were put aside that Shabbat morning, as they headed for the small Chabad shul in a strip mall near their home in Skokie. Yechiel’s downtown synagogue was too far for their friends and neighbors to reach on foot (Orthodox Jews are not allowed to travel by car on the Sabbath) 
He did not want a repetition of his own bar mitzvah, when the stress of performing in front of his father’s congregation gave him an unstoppable nosebleed that forced him to scratch his sermonic “D’var Torah” speech.

Tamar wouldn’t be commenting on the weekly Torah portion during the service—Orthodox girls don’t do that—but she would be the centre of attention that morning, asked to speak at the party afterward. Yechiel wanted to make sure that she would be relaxed and happy. 

They had decorated the hall in white and blue, for the occasion, they even replaced the stained table cloths with the theme color of blue. 
A large cake inscribed with the words “Mazel Tov Tamar” was placed at the head of the tables. 
Covered under his prayer shawl, Yechiel Eckstein felt something else: a sense of defiance. He was a seeker and a self-examiner, a chronic critic of his own motives. But at this moment he trusted his vision. A bridge uniting Christians and Jews could be built, and he felt destined to be the engineer. 

He had no idea how hard the work would be, the price it would exact. He only knew, with a certainty he had never before felt, that he had no choice but to go ahead.

Now thirty years later, Eckstein recalls that certainty. “I felt humiliated and alone. It was the worst day of my life. But I never thought I was wrong. It didn’t even occur to me to quit. I have a personal relationship with God and I felt at the time that it was a divine mission, what is known in Hebrew as shlichut. 

Sitting in the back of the shul that day, I thought about Abraham and Isaac. In the book of Genesis, God commands Abraham to take his son ‘to the land I will show you.’ He doesn’t tell Abraham where it is. He simply expects Abraham to obey. I had a moral certainty that came from God. And I still feel it. That’s what has guided my work and my life, from the beginning until today.”

I have a book that you could win today and I know you will enjoy this book- he really shares his heart and I truly enjoyed reading it.

If you do not win though, you can buy from right over here 


a Rafflecopter giveaway


"Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.
 Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”

5 comments

  1. Great review. It sounds like a really interesting book. I would love to win a copy, so I entered. Thank you for hosting this giveaway!

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  2. Wow it sounds like a great book! I think it sounds a little similar to Girl Meets God, I think that's the title. Its about a Jewish girl who chooses Christianity.

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  3. I am so intrigued with biographies, especially ones that really show their spiritual walk and where it has lead them today. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Sounds like an interesting book. The synopsis kept me enthralled right to the very end. I'd love to read it.

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  5. Hey Terri. It's great to see you jump into book reviews and this one sounds good!

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