The Hebrew Bible's fascinating narratives about women have occasioned some of the most important biblical scholarship of the last generation. Lillian Klein contributes to that wealth with her absorbing studies of key figures in the narrative material: Deborah, Jephtha's daughter, Delilah, Jael, the whore of Gaza, Kaleb's daughter Achsah, Hannah, Esther, the wife of Job, David's wife Michal, and Bathsheba. With a marvelous eye for the telling detail -- or its absence -- Klein examines the biblical portraits, often unfortunately brief, of these women and the dynamics of gender, power, and honor at work in their stories. A remarkably lucid and careful scholar, Klein has surfaced the underlying and ironic ideals of womanhood in a society that both honored and marginalized women in stories of seduction and rivalry, deviation and obedience, public shame and private power.

The book of Esther describes how a genocide threatening the Jewish people was averted through the bravery of Esther, the wisdom of Mordecai and the unity of their people. It also reveals the God who quietly -and sometimes unexpectedly- works behind the scenes to order the events of our lives.

A summer party and a thunderstorm bring relationships into focus, as three women must decide how to move forward in this humorous and dramatic tale of intersecting lives. Eleanor is bored with her two sons and a husband who ignores her when she reconnects with Phil, a man she knew in high school. Phil's wife is leaving him because of his philandering, most recently with the younger Sarayu. Eleanor's friend Kaye doesn't approve of Phil, but she has her own problems: too much drinking and a fraught relationship with her husband and daughter, who are building a boat together. Poignant and acutely observed, We Have Everything Before Us is unsparing yet sympathetic as it details the unsettling junction of illusions and reality.

This is the first book-length attempt to focus on female biblical figures in the ancient rabbinic writings of midrash and Talmud. Primary rabbinic sources employed by the author bring new life and insight into the stories of Eve, Deborah, Hannah, Serah bat Asher, and others. As women and men today attempt to reevaluate past historical models, it serves us well to understand the values and inner workings of rabbinic thinking. The examination of what the sources actually say, and not what others would like them to have said, enable reinterpretation of women's role to proceed on an honest and authentic basis. Biblical women, reclaimed with contemporary midrash, can become paradigms for our modern lives.

Using narrative devices such as allusions and free associations, multivalent expressions, and irony, the author of Esther wrote a story that is about a Jewish woman, Esther, during the time of the Persian exile of Yehudites, and the Persian king, Ahasuerus, who was in power at the time. At various junctures, the author also used secret writing, or we could say that he conveys mixed messages: one is a surface message, but another, often conflicting message lies beneath the surface. For instance, the outer portrayal of the king as one of the main protagonists is an ironic strategy used by the author to highlight the king's impotent, indecisive, "antihero" status. He may wield authority-as symbolized by his twice-delegated signet ring-but he remains powerless. Among all the concealments in the story, the concealment of God stands out as the most prominent and influential example. A growing number of scholars regard the book of Esther as a "comic diversion," the function and intention of which are to entertain the reader. However, Grossman is more convinced by Mikhail Bakhtin's approach, and he labels his application of this approach to the reading of Esther as "theological carnivalesque." Bakhtin viewed the carnival (or the carnivalesque genre) as a challenge by the masses to the governing establishment and to accepted social conventions. He described the carnival as an eruption of ever-present but suppressed popular sentiments. The connection between the story of Esther and Bakhtin's characterization of the carnivalesque in narrative is evident especially in the book of Esther's use of the motifs of "reversal" and "transformation." For example, the young girl Esther is transformed from an exiled Jewess into a queen in one of the turnabouts that characterize the narrative. Many more examples are provided in this analysis of one of the Bible's most fascinating books.

NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS FINALIST • “Part personal quest, part testament, and all thoughtfully, compassionately written.”—The Washington Post “Esther Safran Foer is a force of nature: a leader of the Jewish people, the matriarch of America’s leading literary family, an eloquent defender of the proposition that memory matters. And now, a riveting memoirist.”—Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching. So when Esther’s mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation—that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust—Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine, determined to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and gives her the opportunity to finally mourn. I Want You to Know We’re Still Here is the poignant and deeply moving story not only of Esther’s journey but of four generations living in the shadow of the Holocaust. They are four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers, determined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.

"Superabundant, more-than-we-can-ask-or-imagine grace is continually flowing. The Father is initiating. The Son is releasing it. The Spirit is conveying it. And yet most people, even many believers, are missing it, or only occasionally tapping into it. They're not living in the flow." In The Esther Blessing You'll explore the remarkable flow of grace. You'll see how grace flowed in the lives of Mordecai and Queen Esther. You'll learn how you can live in the flow. You'll see the connection between grace and reigning. You'll find that reigning in life does not equal getting the royal treatment. You'll see the toxic results when people seeking the latter embrace narcissism. In The Esther Blessing, you'll find: This blessing is available to you. Like all God's blessings, it will call you into, and flow out from, intimate relationship with God himself.