Arts & Entertainment
Ma•io's Restaurant
Cover Story: Summer Reading
Troy • Detroit
NONFICTION
14a
from page 73
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During the month of July Mario's . will not be
punching Entertainment Cards
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Att. FM 04. AND TRAOITION
•
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Pounid Lobster
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Only
Every Thumday
Filet
on Ala Carte
•
3,95
includes: Potato Vegetables & . Bread Basket.
Dine-In Only, Reservations Required..
Hot valid with any other special or on holidays.
Around
Sarah's
Table
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includes: Potato, Vegetables & Bread Basket.
Dine-in Only. Reservations Required.
Not valid with any other spedal or on holidays.
RESTAURANT OF TROY
RESTAURANT OF DETROIT
NORTHERN ITALIAN CUISINE
NORTHERN ITALIAN CUISINE
248.588.6000
313.832.1616
4222 Second St. • Detroit
BUY ONE
GET ONE
FREE
With this ad
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•
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(248) 968-9495
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625640
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%TN
6/28
2002
78
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We need your gently used books!
1,r, The Friends of the Detroit Public Library needs
books for its Used Book Sale which will be held on
September 13 & 14. All donations are tax deductible
and benefit the Summer Reading Program. Please
brhig your items to Main Library, 5201 Woodward, one
block North of Warren.
Phone 313-833-4048 for more information.
•
J. F. :5
AROUND SARAH'S TABLE
By Rivka Zakutinsky and Yaffa Leba
Gottlieb
(Free Press; 239 pp.; $24)
S
OPEN
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JULY
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Mario's...Since 1948
1477 John R at Maple • Troy
' 41
Innovatively organized, Around Sarah's
Table portrays the diverse lives of 10
Chasidic women who gather weekly at
Sarah's home for a gourmet lunch and
a discussion of Torah, and how it
relates to their lives.
"To accomplish despite challenges"
is Sarah's motivation as she and her
guests study the Torah teachings of the
Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel
Schneerson.
Aspects of their conversations will be
familiar to readers; these are the stories
of women challenged by balancing
motherhood and career. They struggle
for patience in dealing with cranky
toddlers and seriously ill husbands.
The conversations also will be new
territory to some in that Jewish obser-
vance and faith in God and Torah play
such a pivotal all-encompassing role in
their every thought and deed.
The women who gather around
Sarah's table each week come from all
walks of life. One is a lawyer, another
an author and publisher. There are
emigrees and born Americans. Their
way to observance is just as varied.
Some, like Glicka, were raised in
Torah homes. Others, like Susan, now
known as Shaina, were drawn to
Chasidism as adults. The introductory
text to Shaina's story is God's well-
known edict to Abram: "Go out, from
your land, from your birthplace, and
from your father's house to the land
that I will show you."
Shaina found the initial changes of
observance — dress, diet, new name
— less stressful than those revolving
around family and friends.
Readers eavesdropping on these
women's conversations can glean won-
derful nuggets of learning.
This reviewer always assumed the
blessing for handwashing dealt with a
commandment to wash or perhaps
purify hands. At Sarah's table, one
learns that although the action is
washing, the blessing says, "uplifting,"
which is a reminder that "hands can
be used for lofty purposes, which
could include eating, drinking ... and
diaper changing, depending on the
intent with which it is done."
Some of the insights seemed
stretched, too simplistic even for a
forum that takes learning so seriously.
In Klara's story we learn that 'America"
can be interpreted to mean. "Nation
(Am) Empty (rek) of God (Koh)."
Russia becomes "rasha" or "evil,"
and Africa is parsed as "Anger (af)
Empty (rek) of God (Koh)."
Such interpretations struck this read-
er as linguistic sleight of hand, espe-
cially when read against the women's
more weighty insights into the text.
These quibbles aside, Around Sarah's
Table offers lasting food for thought
and spirit.
— Debra B. Darvick
ART LOVER
By Anton Gill
(HarperCollins; 528 pp.; $29.95)
Peggy Guggenheim, one of the stan-
dard-bearers for a privileged German-
Jewish American family with name-
brand status in the art world (her
father, Benjamin, abandoned the fami-
ly and perished on the Titanic), spent
more time pursuing lovers than works
of art. She kept a little book in which
she listed her sexual conquests.
Relentlessly, she went after writers and
artists she admired, and the list includ-
ed Samuel Beckett and Max Ernst
(with whom she had a short marriage).
There is the suggestion in Art Lover,
Anton Gill's entertaining biography,
that there are more affairs that he can't
be bothered to mention or discover in
the life of this female Casanova.
At some point, it suffices to repeat
I
art i /over
A Biography of
Cawlkh ' pia".
.