September 2005 - אָב .. אֱלוּל תשס״ה Av..Elul 5765

My family and I want to thank you all for your love and concern following the death of my beloved father, Bert Manhoff. He was a wonderful man and will be deeply missed.

Now it is time to look ahead to the coming year. We all join in wishing all of you a very happy and healthy new year. 5766 promises to be a historic year as events unfold in Israel and the rest of the Middle East. We can only pray that the nations of the region will continue on the path to peace, democracy and stability.

Finally, I want to thank you for the six month of sabbatical that I used to begin a novel based on my dissertation. As many of you know, non-academics do not easily read my doctoral thesis. If you read Hebrew, Aramaic, biblical Greek and a smattering of German, and would like to try to read All of My Kingdoms: Semitic Idiom in the Synoptic Gospels and Related Jewish Literature, there is a copy available to borrow from our synagogue library.

Since my doctoral research focused on Judaism of the first century and the origins of Christianity, I have begun writing a novel about two Galilean Jews who are searching for a presumed prophet, Yehoshua of Nazareth. [Yehoshua is Hebrew for Joshua, Jesus of Nazareth's name in the language of his people.] My characters have heard that Yehoshua is an extraordinary healer, and one of them has a critically ill younger sister. But my characters, Isaac and Eli, are always one step behind Yehoshua and his entourage. Wherever they go, Isaac and Eli are told of deeds related of Jesus in the New Testament's Gospel of Matthew. But when they try to find him, other Jews ask them if they are not looking for someone from our tradition. For example the stories about Jesus' healings in the gospels are remarkably similar to those of Haninah ben Dosa. Rabban Gamaliel stilled the waters of the Mediterranean, just as Jesus stilled the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Many of the sages excised demons just like Jesus.

Most of the 120 pages that I have written so far are conversations between my two main characters and the people they meet along the way. But every detail describing the first century has been meticulously researched. I have spent the past few months adding to my knowledge of the time, by reading about the food, dress and geography of the region.

I have had a great deal of fun creating characters like the baker whose wife corrects every detail of his story about what he saw Yehoshua do. It was also amusing to imagine how the pig herders might have felt about Yehoshua curing the demoniac of Gadera by exorcising the demons into their herd. A lifetime of work literally went down the drain, when their pigs ran off of a cliff and they drowned in the Galilee. Who ever thinks about their side of the story?

I look forward to continuing my work on this project, in my spare time of course. I also hope to share with you in the coming year some of what I have already written. For now, I wish you a happy and prosperous new year.

L'shanah tovah tikateivu,

—Rabbi Harry A. Manhoff, Ph.D., D.D.

July/August

Index

October