By Michael Malina
This is the honest, educated musings of a Jew who represents a
vast spectrum of those believing Jews who do not conform to traditional
Orthodox thought. And yet, when you read between the lines, you
see that the author is looking for those selfsame answers that
seem to quiet the heart and soul of many Orthodox Jews.
The author has asked many of the important, difficult questions
that pervade the book of Bereshit to laymen and (Orthodox) rabbis
alike. Sometimes he comes away satisfied and sometimes the answers
only lead to other questions -- questions that both an honest skeptic
and an honest believer have in common.
As a child, Michael Malina
attended a unique Talmud Torah which was operated by an Orthodox
synagogue, the Kingsway Jewish Center, in Brooklyn, New York.
During the years before his bar mitzvah, he was exposed to Jewish
religious customs and ceremonies, the Hebrew language, the prayer
book (in its unexpurgated Orthodox version), and the text of the
Chumash, together with Rashi's commentary. After his bar mitzvah,
the extraordinary zeal for Jewish learning of his first teacher,
Rabbi Samuel J. Chill, enabled him to continue my Jewish studies
until he graduated from high school.
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