Azriela Jaffe, Unexpected Gifts: A Novel, Menucha Publishers, (c) 2013, ISBN 978-161465-132-1, 255 pages.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO– “Everybody’s got tzuris,” my late father, Martin B. Harrison, liked to point out. Were he alive to have read this book, he’d have tapped it authoritatively, and said, “What did I tell you?”
Some of the important characters are a lonely spinster; a hyper-active child; an overweight woman; an abusive, alcoholic husband; a widower with a kidney transplant, who is trying to raise a young girl; a baker with a broken arm –just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill neighborhood, I guess.
What makes all these folks somewhat different than your stock set of literary characters is that they all are Orthodox Jews, who pray regularly, follow the laws of kashrut, and have incorporated Jewish ritual into nearly every aspect of their lives.
There also is a secular Jewish woman who fears she is losing her son, whom she had enrolled in a yeshiva so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the bullies in public school. The child responds well to the warmth of the Orthodox community, making the mother fear that he is rejecting her.
Who better than Hashem to keep track of all these plots and subplots and to provide unexpected gifts that may help the various characters with their problems — assuming that they have the saychel to recognize how the gifts can change lives for the better, and the humility to accept them.
One lesson in this book is to recognize that our troubles may weave into a larger pattern, which we, as mere mortals, may not understand, but which we should try to accept with the equanimity borne of the trust that there is a benevolent God.
As literature, this book, with seemingly all-too-convenient plot resolutions in the form of unexpected gifts, may not survive the scrutiny of critics. But as a religious testament, it is proves to be an interesting look into the everyday lay world of the observant community.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com