YUTOPIA

🎵 It’s the most…wonderful time…of the year… 🎵

Once again, it’s time to review the books I’ve read over the past year and share my favorites with fellow readers. Plus with my memory in gradual decline,¹ it’s a nice opportunity to revisit ideas that may have slipped my mind over the course of life.

This year the tally is 58 books, keeping up with my average of about 50 a year. In terms of content, I found myself reading more memoirs than usual and I caught up on some “classics” that everyone seems to recognize and reference but few have bothered to read.

This is not a comprehensive list of all the books I read, nor is this a ranking of these books as the “best” of anything; they’re roughly listed in chronological order of reading. Instead, I prefer to share the books I enjoyed reading in hopes that someone will find and enjoy something they otherwise might not have encountered. Enjoyment does not imply agreement with or an endorsement of their arguments, only that I found their content stimulating and engaging.

In what has become an annual tradition, every December I review the books I read in the past year and pick out my favorites to share with other avid readers. 

This is not a comprehensive list of all the books I read, nor is this a ranking of these books as the “best” of anything. Instead, I prefer to share the books I enjoyed reading in hopes that someone will find and enjoy something they otherwise might not have encountered. Enjoyment does not imply agreement with or an endorsement of their arguments, only that I found their content stimulating and engaging.

According to Goodreads, I’ve read 52 books this past year, which is about my average, though parenthood understandably puts a crimp in my “spare time.”

And now, on with the list!

For almost as long as there have been rabbis, there have been rabbinic insults. Whether sages were calling each other children, referring to one’s younger brother as “the firstborn of Satan,” or exchanging, “God save us from your opinion” with each other, rabbinic discourse was not always as dignified as we might imagine.

But even if a degree of incivility is justified by rabbinic tradition, some insults are seen as outside the boundaries of acceptable discourse. One such insult is referring to a “Rabbi” with scare quotes. 

Common objections include that rabbinic scare quotes are a uniquely offensive insult because it not only dismisses the personal effort (and sometimes money) invested but it is a complete delegitimization of everything the individual’s professional credentials and religious affiliations.

For their part, those who address rabbis with scare quotes would probably concede to these criticisms because that is entirely the point.

In which we discuss Bamidbar Rabbah 2:23 and Bamidbar Rabbah 2:24 and God’s grief over the deaths of Aharon’s sons Nadav and Avihu.

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Vayikra Rabba 34:14 provides lessons about charity from how to treat one’s ex-spouse.

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In which we turn to Vayikra Rabba 27:8 for a counterintuitive take on the ramifications of sin of the Golden Calf

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Podcast (whats-the-point-of-the-midrash): Play in new window | Download

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In what has become an annual tradition, every December I review the books I read in the past year and pick out my favorites to share with other avid readers.

This is not a comprehensive list of all the books I read, nor is this a ranking of these books as the “best” of anything. Instead, I prefer to share the books I enjoyed reading the most in the hopes that maybe someone will find and enjoy something they otherwise might not have encountered. Enjoyment does not imply agreement with or an endorsement of their arguments, only that I found their contents stimulating and engaging.

According to Goodreads, I read 63 books in 2021. Here are the ones I enjoyed the most.