| The God Stories - Introduction - Contents - Reviews - The "Lilith" Chapter |
Leila Berg
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The Inside Jacket copyWhen God made the first human being from a handful of earth, air, fire, and water, a man-and-woman-in-one who was meant to live for ever, what then? And when at the creature's demand God divided it into two separate equal halves, and the Woman, Lilith of the long unbraided hair, left the Man because he would not accept that they were equal, what then? And when the Man demanded another Woman, so that God made him a smaller one with hair tamed and braided, who would do only as the Man wished, what then? Then they had to leave the Garden of Delight, and God gave them three gifts - a Staff blue as the sapphire sky with on it one word, All-That-Is; a Cloak picturing every animal, every bird, and every fish they had named; and a Book that had in it the song of the sun and the thoughts of the rain and all Knowledge that was worthy to be told. And what then? As the Talmud says, God made people because God loves stories... The God Stories is a celebration of the spellbinding stories that some readers first meet, in part, in the Bible. Through her research of the Talmud and of folklore, Leila Berg lyrically and successfully reclaims these stories for everyone, religious and irreligious, aged nine to ninety. |
| The God Stories: - Introduction - Contents - Reviews - The "Lilith" Chapter |