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Father Of Us All
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Book examines the legacy of the biblical patriarch
Abraham, the man at the heart of the world's
three great monotheistic religions.
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J
DEBRA B. DARVICK
Special to the Jewish News
LUNCH SPECIALS $495
Don't Forget...The Sheik caters all occasions
B
ruce Feiler's latest book,
Abraham: A Journey to thC
Heart of Three Faiths
(William Morrow; $23.95),
is sure to fly off the shelves every bit as
quickly as his fifth book, Walking the
Bible: A Journey By Land Through the
West Bloomfield
Five Books of Moses, published last
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year.
Feiler, an intrepid and gifted
(248) 865-0000
reporter
whose ear is attuned to issues
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simultaneously global and personal,
has written a must-read book for this
post-Sept. 11 world.
Indeed, that day's terrorist
attacks were the impetus for
this nonfiction exploration of
the legacy of the biblical patri-
arch Abraham in the Jewish,
Christian and Muslim traditions.
Enjoy gracious dining amid a beautiful
As Feiler recalls it, he was working
(1
atmosphere of casual elegance
on a sequel to Walking the Bible when
1
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his brother phoned that fateful
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September morning and told him to
look out the window of his Manhattan
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apartment. At that moment, he wit-
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nessed the Twin Towers falling in
lower Manhattan.
"It was the most beautiful day any
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tem....
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of us could remember," he says, "and
like everyone else, I was mute for sev-
eral weeks.
"Then, in the weeks that followed,
70 14
everyone began to hear these ques-
V4 •
tions: Who are they and why do they
hate us? Why can't the religions get
along?"
Feiler heard one name echoing
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behind
those conversations.
II
,
"One
man stood at the heart of all
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three religions that seemed to be at
II
war — Abraham. I realized that he is
I
PER PIECE 11
CHICKEN
II Every Day
TERIYAKI I 14 the father of 12 million Jews, 2 billion
Christians and 1 billion Muslims.
Rice
• Soup • Salad I
until
2:30
EVERY SATURDAY UNTIL 4 PM II
L
.....
That's half the humans alive today.
I.
(.9
But who was he?"
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426-0203
Feiler's answer to the question,
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9 Mile Rd.
"Who
is Abraham?" is a fascinating
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exploration
of the man whose relation-
Monda - Saturda 11-9:30 • Sunda 4 -9
ship with God changed the world.
And pursuing that answer gave the
author a new understanding of his
Jewish identity.
007110
te
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2002
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The patriarch Jews hold dear is also
deeply meaningful to Christians and
Muslims. And in true Jewish form, the
book's original question has left Feiler
with another question, one that he
now poses to his readers: "Can
Abraham be a vessel for reconcilia-
tion?"
A Tangle Of History
In addition to a crack reporter's deter-
mination to go the mile for his story,
Feiler has a novelist's eye for detail.
"No one is alone in Jerusalem: even
the stones know your father," he
writes.
As he enters a Judaica store in
the Old City, his eye falls upon
a cardboard box filled with
shofars. He writes: "A tangle of
polished rams' horns claw out
of the top like some snarl of pet-
rified squid."
The analogy is as jarring as it is
effective.
Feiler brings this same eye for detail
to the task at hand — learning from
scholars and clergy Abraham's history
and how each of the three monotheis-
tic religions used Abraham's legacy to
define their own flock's identity.
Feiler takes a subject as complex as
that tangle of rams' horns and pulls
out each strand, dissecting its history,
its theology.
Abraham is a crash course in com-
parative religion and a provocative
challenge for self-examination, as the
author shows how each religion
claimed Abraham's legacy for itself and
its followers.
Feiler's encounters with theologians
and other experts in the field are as
instructive as they are challenging. He
relays his conversations with the likes of
Reverend Petra Heldt, a German
Lutheran minister who heads the
Ecumenical Theological Research frater-
nity in Jerusalem; Sheikh Abu Sneina,
the imam of El-Aksa; and Jon Levenson,
a professor of comparative religions at
Harvard and a leading authority on the
history of Judaism. They provide food
for thought and discussion to last weeks
if not months or years.