Provocative, funny, moving, revealing — this remarkable book will make you laugh and cry (sometimes simultaneously) as it takes you behind the scenes of Jewish life’s most hectic, frustrating, and satisfying job.

This riveting journal takes us on a vivid and unforgettable tour of forty years in one of the most successful careers in the American rabbinate, as Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, one of the best writers in the profession, records his achievements and defeats, his hopes and disappointments.

We’ll meet some unforgettable characters, like the unique “shochet” of Atlanta; the Polish Catholic who hid a Jewish boy during the Holocaust; those who never fail to give charity and those who never do; the woman who never misses a funeral; saints and scoundrels; movers and meek; arrogant and humble, and many more.

We’ll deal with the mystery of the missing mechitzah, attend a reception where the poor are the guests of honor, and devise Hebrew names for Butch and Nicholas. And we’ll enter the rabbi’s mind as he ponders if he is really accomplishing anything for Torah and Judaism in this world.

Few books offer such revealing insights into human nature and contemporary Jewish history, and do it with such wit and perception.