In “Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul,” (Flatiron Books), Naomi Levy, the Rabbi of the Los Angeles based Nashuva spiritual community has woven a complex tapestry of a book inspired by the chance discovery of an Einstein letter. Along the way, Levy shares autobiographical stories, challenges her congregants have faced, as well as prayers and blessings at the end of each chapter, all bound by Levy’s own unified theory of listening to, and leading with your soul. Although the publishers categorize “Einstein and the Rabbi” as “Religion: Judaism” it is a book that anyone, or rather everyone, will find compelling, moving, and (at least in parts) worth considering.
Naomi Levy
Now for my disclaimer: Naomi Levy’s husband, Rob Eshman was until recently the editor of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles where I was a columnist and continue to be a contributor. Over the years, although I am not a member of Nashuva, I have occasionally attended services there and have on occasion socialized with Levy and her husband. And LA being LA, I know some of the people who appear in the book (either by name or pseudonymously). Now on to the review:
The framing device of the book, and one of its major threads is Levy’s quest ignited by reading a single letter that Albert Einstein wrote. In the letter, Einstein writes that “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe.” Einstein explains that although our consciousness may lead us to believe we are separate, believing so, Einstein says, is an “optical delusion” and that freeing oneself from this delusion is “the one issue of true religion” and that to try and overcome this delusion “is the way to reach the attainable peace of mind.” Levy is so struck by this which completely reflects her personal and spiritual worldview that she launches on what becomes a three-year quest to find out what triggered the letter and its response.
The letter was written, Levy discovers, to a bereft Dr. Robert S. Marcus whose beloved 11 year- old son had died of polio. When she investigates further she discovers that – Here I am torn between revealing what Levy discovers which is, in its own way, mind-blowing and denying future readers the impact of reading it themselves – so, suffice to say it involves a not inconsequential Rabbi at his own spiritual crossroads, child survivors of the Holocaust, and in a significant cameo, no less a personage than Elie Wiesel himself.
Along the way, Levy relates moments of her own personal history such as: her father’s murder when she was a teenager and how that impacted her life and choice of vocation; meeting her husband and their marriage; as well as her own bout of cancer and the complicated and potentially disfiguring surgery she endured on her road to recovery. There are stories as well about persons in her community whom she has counseled regarding seeming insurmountable crises be it a stale marriage, someone who has lost their spouse, or even how to find forgiveness for the unforgiveable: an accident that resulted in the taking of a life.
Levy does not present these as isolated events, but rather within the context or universe she suggests we all inhabit. In this way, “Einstein and the Rabbi” is also a manual, a spiritual how-to-book with practical suggestions for meditating, reigniting the spark in your marriage, and finding meaning in work and in life. Each chapter ends with a prayer or a blessing Levy has fashioned based on the chapter’s teachings.
It is worth noting that Levy is herself writing within the context of a long and storied mystical tradition in Judaism. Present day Judaism, particularly its American variants, adheres to a Germanic Ashkenazi rationalist tradition, filled with intellectual learning that is often rigid and ritualistic and leans on what it calls “tradition.” However, there is another tradition that stretches as far back as there are Jews and that concerns the spirit and the soul more than it does the head and the brain. You can find those more mystical traditions in the Jewish sects whose phantasmagorical allegories are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, or in the texts of the 15th and 16th Century Kabbalists Rabbi Isaac Luria, and Rabbi Joseph Caro (some of whose concepts Levy uses in her book).
In the more recent past, Hasidic Judaism originated in the 18th Century as an anti-intellectual embrace of an ecstatic Judaism filled with dance and song. In the 1930s, the noted scholar Gershom Scholem resurrected the Jewish mystical tradition in his writings. And in the 1960s the Havurah movement began as a way of creating Jewish fellowship, a warmer circle of friendship, food, and prayer.
All of which is to say that the Jewish mystical tradition is not some fringe outlier or new age salve but rather a universe unto itself in which with “Einstein and The Rabbi,’ Levy plants her flag firmly, giving a contemporary interpretation of how one can lead with one’s soul. Finally, and this is why the book is for people of all faiths, or people of no faith, Levy’s faith (her prayers, her stories, her teachings, her blessings) is meant as a beacon to all people, a universe, like Einstein’s that is available to any who would do the “soul work” and seek to attain what Einstein called “peace of mind.”
As I said earlier, “Einstein and the Rabbi” is a tapestry and it is hard to say how Levy manages to weave all the various threads into one whole — but she does. Not all of the book will necessarily appeal to all people -- so let me reiterate that the story of Einstein and Dr. Marcus’ correspondence is truly remarkable and it is worth reading the book just for that; but equally remarkable and worth reading is the story of Einstein and the Rabbi – Naomi Levy.