Casting Lots
Creating a Family in a Beautiful, Broken World
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- USD 13.99
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- USD 13.99
Descripción editorial
Susan Silverman grew up with parents who were, both before and after a devastating loss, atheists. Yet, as a young adult, she shocked everyone who knew her ("But you were elected Class Flirt in high school!") and became a rabbi. What was not surprising, however, was that she built her own big, unwieldy family through both birth and adoption, something she had intended from childhood. With three daughters and two sons ("We produce girls and import boys"), this unique family becomes a metaphor for the world's contradictions and complexities-a microcosm of the tragedy and joy, hope and despair, cruelty and compassion, predictability and absurdity of this world we all live in. A meditation on identity, faith, and belonging-one that's as funny as it is moving-Casting Lots will resonate with anyone who has struggled to find their place in the world and to understand the significance of that place.
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Rabbi Silverman (Jewish Family and Life), who always dreamed of adopting a child, chronicles her journey from her home in Massachusetts to an orphanage in Ethiopia to do just that. Silverman and her husband, Yosef Abramowitz, an activist and writer, had three daughters when they adopted Adar, who was relinquished by an unknown birth mother and gathered into the Silverman and Ambromowitz's family at the age of nine months. They would eventually adopt a second Ethiopian son. Though the title may sound solemn, Silverman's writing is anything but; like her sister, comedian Sarah Silverman, the author has a keen sense of humor and embellishes her narrative with laughs. For example, the night of the baby's circumcision, her husband cuts the tips off all the vegetables served for dinner. The memoir also describes how she embarked on the path to become a rabbi, though her parents disdained religion and at the onset she didn't even know the Hebrew alphabet. On occasion, she weaves in tales from the Bible, relating them to contemporary life and particularly her own story (Moses, for instance, was abandoned by his mother to save her son from harm). Devoted to family, faith, and her partnership with God, Silverman paints an honest portrait of an imperfect but loving household. Readers of many traditions will enjoy Silverman's tender adoption story.
