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Jul 26, 201170greengirl rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
This story is an historical Jewish crime drama. I don't think that I've read a story with that descriptor before! The story is very dense with many different characters, some do not seem all that important to the telling of the story. It took a while to get into the flow of the novel. I read this as an e pub book. I think an actual book may have been better as I could have looked up all the Jewish words and phrasing more easily in the glosery. Once I did get into the story I liked it. I felt like I was there with the main characters. I really enjoy learning about other times, history, other cultures. The characters are extremely well developed and the dialogue is very authentic. Here are two quotes from conversations with the main Characters. 1 “The Talmud encourages us to look at every side of an issue, every detail, no matter how trivial, because the work of finding a satisfactory answer is never done.” “But how do you enforce a rabbinic opinion if it's not enshrined in law?” “We don't.” “Then what do you do?” “We learn to live with conflicting opinions.” 2 “The Rabbi Isserles sounds like a very practical and wise man. A real... uh.. what's the word? A hasid?” “You probably mean a tsadek.” “What's the difference?” “A hasid is a pious man who always keeps to the letter of the law, and a tsadek is righteous man who finds meaning in the gaps between the letters of the law.”