I wrote a book I’ve referred to before, “The Bible According to Eve.” I am sure people will ask me “How did you get the idea to write it?” or even “Why did you write it?” Of course, there is a certain amount of egotism in this: it has only today been advertised in Hadassah Magazine, including on Hadassah’s website.
Yet I do have a story. I was at work one day and the funniest thing happened–I have Bipolar Schizoaffective disorder, so perhaps it is not as weird as I wish I could say it was. I “saw” myself in a hallucination with one of my closer male friends. I saw God and Aher, as opposites. It was not Satan but “Aher,” the anti-rabbi of the Talmud of whom there are various stories about how he lost faith in God. Anyway, I wrote it all down as a poem, adding here, subtracting here. As I did I had the inspiration–if that isn’t saying too much–that I could write a whole book of all the Women of the Hebrew Bible. It would honor both God and Woman–and hence be necessary today in light of the challenge that modern feminism poses to religious tradition, resting as much of it does on male authority. So I wrote the book.
I have always believed, when taking on a task, that it is best to set my sights are “big.” As Teddy Roosevelt said,
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
I believe in writing–when I can–“big books” and not slim volumes.
I republished this because I wanted people to be able to read it on my author’s page with Amazon.com.