How Do You Spell God? - Softcover

Rabbi Gellman holds an earned doctorate in philosophy from Northwestern University. Rabbi Gellman is married to Betty Schulson and has two children, Mara and Max. He is the senior rabbi of Temple Beth Torah in Melville, New York. He will be the next president of the New York Board of Rabbis.

Grade 6-9?Comparative religion for the middle school set? Yes, and brilliantly done by Gellman and Hartman, who expertly simplify, without reducing, their complex subject. The authors celebrate the varied beauties of holiness with a genius for clarifying the abstract (e.g., characterizing religions by the questions they most want to answer, or categorizing them as "tribal" v. "open"). The holy books, teachers, places, and days of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism are described with appreciation, liveliness, and humor in a direct, conversational style that eschews both contractions and big words, but leans real often on an adverbial "real." If you don't mind this bit of grammatical freethinking, then there's only one major drawback to the book. A two-page discussion of ordination never mentions women priests in the Anglican Communion and nuns and non-Orthodox female rabbis rate the same brief nod given to altar girls. If feminists will be displeased, so will animists: African and Native American wisdom is occasionally quoted, but no serious consideration of these religious orientations is offered. Nevertheless, this extraordinary title is so full of wisdom, good sense, bad jokes, and great stories?not to mention solid information?that it deserves to earn its authors a star in their heavenly crowns.?Patricia (Dooley) Lothrop Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.