{"product_id":"faith-for-beginners-isbn-9780812973204","title":"Faith for Beginners","description":"An acclaimed short-story writer has created a miraculous first novel about an American family on the verge of a breakdown–and an epiphany.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the summer of 2000, Israel teeters between total war and total peace. Similarly on edge, Helen Michaelson, a respectable suburban housewife from Michigan, has brought her ailing husband and rebellious college-age son, Jeremy, to Jerusalem. She hopes the journey will inspire Jeremy to reconnect with his faith and find meaning in his life . . . or at least get rid of his nose ring.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s not that Helen is concerned about Jeremy’s sexual orientation (after all, her other son is gay as well). It’s merely the matter of the overdose (“Just like Liza!” Jeremy had told her), the green hair, and what looks like a safety pin stuck through his face. After therapy, unconditional love, and tough love . . . why not try Israel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet in seductive and dangerous surroundings, with the rumbling of violence and change in the air, in a part of the world where “there are no modern times,” mother and son become new, old, and surprising versions of themselves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFunny, erotic, searingly insightful, and profoundly moving,\u003cb\u003e Faith for Beginners\u003c\/b\u003e is a stunning debut novel from a vibrant new voice in fiction.“Aaron Hamburger takes a deceptively simple situation–an American family visiting Israel–and spins a rich, complex, often profound comedy about religion, sex, politics, and love. He has an excellent eye and ear for the absurd, but more important, genuine sympathy for the hopes and confusions all people share under our cartoon surfaces. And nobody has written a better mother and son.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003eChristopher Bram\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eLives of the Circus Animals\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eGods and Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Aaron Hamburger elucidates a truth about the search for faith: that the journey forward is seldom blissful. In Faith for Beginners, Hamburger peoples a volatile political setting with a handful of characters pursuing transcendence–through culture, through mortality, through the spirit, through the flesh. For Hamburger’s seekers, what transpires is risky, chaotic, and surprisingly tender. For his readers, exhilarating.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003cb\u003eDave King\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Ha-Ha\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eAaron Hamburger is the author of the short-story collection The View from Stalin’s Head, for which he was awarded the Rome Prize by The American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded a fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and won first prize in the David Dornstein Memorial Creative Writing Contest for Young Adult Writers. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Out, Nerve, and Time Out New York. He teaches writing at Columbia University and lives in New York City.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A LIST OF PLANTS THAT GROW OUT OF THE WAILING WALL\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    1.HENBANE, or “SHIKARON” (“intoxication” in Hebrew). When ingested,   induces a state of deep, colorful hallucination and finally a very   pleasant death. Most common plant in the Wall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    2.PODOSNOMA. Roots can crack rocks to draw out water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    3.SICILIAN SNAPDRAGON. Prefers high altitudes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    4.HORSETAIL KNOTGRASS. Antidote for snakebite and the evil eye.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    5.THORNY CAPER. Makes an excellent marinade for roast chicken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    6.PHAGNALON. Small and shy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was an intolerably hot morning near the end of June. A mother,   father, and son named Michaelson floated on a cruise ship off the coast   of Haifa, along with the other 251 members of the Millennium Marathon   2000. As they approached the harbor, their ship was briefly turned back   by a black military helicopter, chartered to reenact the drama of   Holocaust refugees sneaking into Palestine during the British Mandate.   The Michiganders offered a light round of confused applause, and as if   by command, the helicopter instantly swirled away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Sweaty, bleary-eyed, and a bit deaf from the chopping of the   helicopter, the Michaelsons collected their luggage and duty-free bags   and streamed down the gangplanks with the other Michiganders. Aliza,   the rabbinic intern, tried unsuccessfully to lead their group in a   chorus of “Jerusalem of Gold.” Her lavender song sheets fluttered down   the side of the boat into the murky green water of the harbor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On dry land, they received commemorative T-shirts with a   handprint-shaped outline of their state and the message “THE Millennium   Marathon 2000! What’s good for the goose is even better for the   Michigander!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Isn’t that a riot?” said Mrs. Michaelson, fifty-eight years old and   often called handsome. She held a shirt up to the chest of her   bored-looking son, who clearly did not think it was a riot. Her   husband, busy emptying his nose into a hankie, had no opinion. And to   tell the truth, Mrs. Michaelson herself didn’t think it was a riot   either. She was distracted by the heat as well as the realization that   this was the first time she had ever set foot in Asia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Before she could explore the continent further, their group was   confronted by three air-conditioned buses, two unlicensed Russian   photographers, who were chased away by the police, and one rabbi. His   name was Rabbi Sherman, but he encouraged them to call him Rabbi Rick.   He looked younger than Mrs. Michaelson had expected—though actually in   his forties, he could have passed for thirty-five—and more attractive   than any rabbi had a right to be. He was also unusually hairy. The top   of his head, his arms, his hands, the back of his neck, and even his   feet, peeking through the gaps in his brown leather sandals, were all   covered in black wool.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Rabbi Sherman, riding in the first bus of their caravan, led them to   their hotel, which boasted a commanding view of the harbor. Mrs.   Michaelson took it in alone on the terrace after dinner. A sultry   breeze blew in from the purple water of Haifa harbor, where the   crescent moon was reflected as a series of white dashes on the waves.   Within minutes, her dress was sticking to the skin under her arms and   along the neckline.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Clutching an empty wineglass, Mrs. Michaelson closed her eyes and   imagined she was having a religious moment. A trickle of sweat inched   its way down between her breasts; a mosquito tickled her ear. “It’s so   late. . . .” she murmured.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A high, sharp voice, like a seagull, cried out, “Who’s there?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Someone moved in the shadows. Mrs. Michaelson made out the wide smile   first, a wall of chiseled white teeth. The smile belonged to a short,   sharp-chinned woman with pointy elbows jutting out of a glittery   tissue-thin shawl. She padded up to Mrs. Michaelson in her bare feet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Sherry Sherman,” said the stranger, her right hand thrust forward like   a gun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mrs. Michaelson, who wasn’t the type to accost strangers minding their   own business, gave a bored smile, as if she were placing her order at   dinner. When she smiled, her kind gray eyes pressed together so tightly   it was impossible to see into them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’m sort of a den mother to you folks,” Sherry said. “Rabbi Rick and I   live together in Tel Aviv. No, no, nothing like that. Of course, I’m   much too old for him. And there’s one more small matter: he’s my son!   By the way, your dress is stunning. Did you find it in New York City? I   hope you don’t mind spilling all your secrets.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “This?” Mrs. Michaelson said, holding out the material so that Sherry   Sherman could admire the workmanship more easily. “It’s just something   I made. The pattern was easy.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You made it?” said Sherry, fluffing her tight curls with the tips of   her fingers. She was bony and spry like a cat, not a bit like the tall,   strapping rabbi, who plodded ahead of their group with his shoulders   thrown back like the Great White Hunter. “I don’t know anyone who still   sews. Maybe a button, not a whole dress. You really made it? Now that’s   special. But aren’t I interrupting? I heard you talking to someone.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I wasn’t talking to anyone . . .” said Mrs. Michaelson, who talked to   herself so often that she’d had plenty of practice making excuses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Hush! Do you feel that breeze? That’s a typical Middle Eastern cooling   breeze blowing in off the Mediterranean. Take a moment to let it soak   into your skin.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mrs. Michaelson took a moment, but didn’t notice anything particularly   special about the breeze. Chatty women made her feel like the chubby,   soft-spoken girl she’d been in grade school, always dressed in stiff,   frilly dresses suitable for antique dolls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You’re here for an adventure. Am I right? In that case, I’ll have to   keep my eye on you to see how it turns out. If only I could visit   Israel for the first time all over again.” Sherry sighed, then recited,   “ ‘If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.’   That’s from Psalms.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’ve heard that one,” Mrs. Michaelson said, smashing a mosquito on her   neck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “ ‘In Jerusalem, everyone remembers he’s forgotten something, but he   doesn’t remember what it is.’ That’s by Yehuda Amichai, one of our   great poets.” Sherry stared directly at Mrs. Michaelson, who looked   away, back at the harbor. “You seem to have a case of the jitters,   dear. It’s natural. I see it in all you first-timers, especially   Americans. Listen, I’ve lived in Israel for six months, so I’m   something of an expert now, and I can tell you we’re far safer here   than in the States. Street crime’s practically unheard of. Death by   tourism? Extremely rare.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mrs. Michaelson preferred not to dwell on morbid subjects like death.   Someday she would die but, thankfully, when it happened, she wouldn’t   be around to know about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “If we change how we live, then the terrorists win,” Sherry said with a   firm nod. “You’re far more likely to die in a horrible car crash at   home than by a bomb in an Israeli marketplace, but do you stop driving?   No. You minimize the risk by wearing a seat belt, which, thanks to   Ralph Nader, is now standard in all vehicles. Rabbi Rick and I have   decided to vote for Nader in November, but he’d never tell you that,   because my son makes it a point to stay out of American political   debates. Can I ask why you’re holding that wineglass?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “To calm my nerves” would have been the honest answer. At dinner, Mrs.   Michaelson had slipped it into her purse when her son wasn’t looking,   in case one of the waiters forgot her warnings and filled the glass by   accident. She’d imagined the resulting scene: Jeremy grabbing the glass   of wine in a fit of weakness, downing it in a single greedy gulp, and   then falling to the floor, where he’d lie twitching like an epileptic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But how to explain all that to Sherry Sherman, who said, “Oh, I see   it’s a sore subject. I never pry,” and padded away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For two weeks, their troika of air-conditioned buses trekked up and   down the Holy Land, from the snows of Mount Hermon (no snow in summer)   to the sandy wastes of the Negev (hot, poisonous winds, and dreary   scenery).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mrs. Michaelson applauded for an orchestra of Russian immigrants   playing Gershwin at a kibbutz in the Galilee, though she didn’t really   like Gershwin. Too showy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She ate pita pounded thin and then toasted over an open fire by   Bedouins in a desert camp in the Negev.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Good?” they asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Good, good!” she reassured them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She watched Mr. Michaelson, who’d mysteriously dropped the title   “Doctor” when he got sick, rape the Holy Land of its souvenirs:   heart-shaped blue-glass eyes, inflatable camels, Dead Sea mud masks, a   book of Golda Meir’s favorite falafel recipes, an antique Roman coin   that came with a certificate of authenticity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She received a welcome kit with a miniature cake and an airline-size   bottle of kosher red wine (she confiscated Jeremy’s bottle while he was   in the shower), a Millennium Marathon Daily Bulletin photocopied on   goldenrod paper, and a plastic bottle of from sand to land sand, which   Jeremy dumped into her glass of wine one night at dinner to prove he   wasn’t the least bit tempted to steal a sip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She pressed flesh with the mayors of Tel Aviv, Rishon Le-Tzion, and   Eilat, where their hotel offered free samples of peppermint foot   lotion, which she used to massage her bunions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She witnessed a phalanx of ten women dressed all in black standing by   the side of the highway near the Megiddo junction. Perfectly silent and   still, the Women in Black carried signs in Hebrew, English, and Arabic   calling for the end of the “occupation.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She quickly learned the two ways to say “No thanks, I’m stuffed” in   Hebrew, a matter of life and death in a country where tourists were apt   to be pelted with unwanted extra helpings. The first expression meant   “I’ve had enough to eat.” The other, which wasn’t particularly nice,   meant “I’m so full I’m going to explode like an Arab.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She clipped a photo of Ehud Barak from the International Herald   Tribune, because he looked exactly like her father when he’d been   Barak’s age. Back then, her father woke up at six a.m. to work at his   grocery stand, then came home late, his hands chafed raw from washing   vegetables in ice water. She loved him, but she used to hate touching   his hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She posed for a picture beside a camel tied to a parking meter and   invited Jeremy, standing a few feet away from everyone as usual with   one of his cigarettes, to pose too. And, just for the picture, could he   take out the safety pin he’d seen fit to stick through his nose? (There   was nothing they could do about the green stripes in his hair, though   by pretending to pat him on the head, she often managed to smooth out   the sharp edges of his “faux Mohawk,” a pyramid of hair cemented with   gel.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It wasn’t a safety pin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It looks like a safety pin,” Mrs. Michaelson said. “What’s the   difference?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jeremy pulled at the metal, stretching out his nostril. “This is   sterilized. Also, for your information, camels aren’t the least bit   biblical. They weren’t domesticated until six hundred years after   Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At times like this she saw some of her own awkwardness in him, and she   couldn’t help laughing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Why do I open my mouth?” he said. “You never listen to me anyway.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So Mrs. Michaelson stood alone by the unbiblical camel, blinked away   the beads of perspiration dripping into her eyes, and claimed to be   enjoying herself. She recalled the dignity of the Women in Black   silently protesting near Megiddo and imagined that by taking the   picture she, too, was staging a silent protest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As soon as the camera flashed, several charming Bedouin boys jumped   down from the olive trees and came running at them, shouting, “Money!   Money!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mostly she sweated. Miserably. They all sweated. Everywhere the   Michiganders traveled, guides and drivers and souvenir hawkers told   them how unlucky they were to visit Israel during a sharav (Hebrew) or   a hamsin (Arabic), a blistering heat wave. These hamsins (most Israelis   preferred the Arabic word) scalded the Levant every summer, but there   hadn’t been one this bad in a while.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “We didn’t have one so bad for maybe fifty years, giving or taking,”   said Baruch, their Israeli driver, as they churned along Highway 1 from   Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. She preferred Baruch to Igor, who stank of dill.   Beside her snored Mr. Michaelson, leaking threads of drool from the   corners of his mouth. She was so glad to see him enjoy a good sleep,   she didn’t care how he looked. Jeremy sat four rows behind them and   pushed up his hair. He’d caused a sensation that morning by pinning his   name tag to the zipper of his camouflage cutoffs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “The last time we had such a hamsin, it was a few weeks after our War   for Independence,” said Baruch, his shirt unbuttoned down to his navel.   He was always trying to impress her by careening around the edges of   sheer cliffs or aiming their bus at fruit stands in picturesque stone   alleys. “I was a boy, but I still remember everywhere there was   shooting and crazy men with guns in their hands.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Terrifying,” she said as if she cared, but she’d heard so many hamsin   stories by then, they blended together. She was surprised there was no   commemorative T-shirt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “That’s only the start, my dear Shoshana.” Baruch always called her   Shoshana, Hebrew for Rose, though it wasn’t her name. “In a hamsin, a   man can get all turned around. Normal becomes crazy and crazy becomes   normal.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mrs. Michaelson had dreamed of exactly that kind of transformation for   her son when she’d signed them up to visit Israel. No luck so far, and   now they had only five days left before they returned home. She felt   ashamed when she thought of how naïvely she’d pushed them all to come,   and at such expense.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Their bus grunted uphill, slouching beneath a heraldic banner across   Highway 1: Peugeot welcomed them to Jerusalem, Mrs. Michaelson’s final,   though perhaps best, hope. If Jeremy was going to find himself, where   could be more fitting than the capital of the Jews’ home turf?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Almost fifteen years earlier, Mrs. Michaelson had transferred her two   boys to Jewish Day School after an economically and educationally   challenged African American boy had punched Jeremy’s older brother,   Robert, in the jaw at recess. Robert went about religion in the same   methodical, businesslike way he went about everything. Jeremy, however,   decided at the tender age of six that he wanted to become a prophet.   He’d dress up in a white beard and black robe and quote passages from   his Children’s Bible to point out the family’s sins. For example, they   washed milk and meat dishes in the same sink, and ate swordfish, which   in infancy had scales like a kosher fish should but then lost its   scales in adulthood. He began wearing a yarmulke to meals and then all   the time. After his bar mitzvah, he attended an Orthodox shul and wore   a wrinkled cotton shirt with fringes under his clothes.Author of The View from Stalin's Head ; [quote]-Christopher Bram, author of Godsand Monsters","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303159419109,"sku":"NP9780812973204","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812973204.jpg?v=1767726665","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/faith-for-beginners-isbn-9780812973204","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}