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As a Driven Leaf




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Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Must read for the thinking person
As others have said -- this is a must read, it is brilliant and magnificent. It is a 2000 year old story that rings true in every generation. And here's why:

Have you ever wondered -- What is faith? how do you know the truth of what you believe in? what if you have doubts? how do you find the truth? and at what costs. These are some of the spiraling questions you will deal with when reading about Elisha.

You fall in love with Elisha, and understand his quest. You sympathize with his love of his friends. And then the book tightens its grip on your heart. Just as these questions of Truth are hard, life too is hard. And Elisha makes decisions that you can't understand. They hurt. And he struggles with this part of himself too. Is he motivated by logic or by love? Where is his loyalty? What does it mean to be part of a people or an empire? Is there good in the heart of men? in the core of a government?

The author paints a wonderful landscape, highly colorful and accurate in most cases, and modified only to be accessible to the modern thinker.

In the authentically Jewish writing style -- the heroes are flawed, the villains are fully understood, and everyone suffers. So you leave the book with an emotional charge. You are both sad and enthused. And better for reading the book. At least more humble.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - My own personal reading may not be the right one
I had heard and read much about this work when I enthusiastically began to read it. It in the beginning swept me up, and I felt myself going through a true reading and intellectual adventure. Elisha Ben Abuya (Acher) the one who entered the Pardess of Jewish Mystical learning and came out a heretic, seemed at first a heroic and tragic figure of great intellectual courage. But as I read on, and the number of his involvements and adventures increased and as I began to wait for counter- arguments to his lack of faith, I began to lose patience .And in time I also began to lose sympathy . And this because I had the sense that Elisha Ben Abuya ' lost it' in a deeper sense than losing his ' faith' I had the sense he lost something even more fundamental in Judaism his goodness and kindness to other human beings. In other words the harassed and persecuted intellectually Elisha ben Abuya should it seems to me have found a way to ' care more for those he hurt and damaged in his own community and people' In this sense as I read he turned in my mind and heart more and more from being a hero to being a betrayer.
And in time I lost patience with him .And instead of the book connecting me more strongly with the Jewish Tradition as I had hoped it left me with the sadness of abandonment.
My own personal reading may not be the right one, but as great as was the hope in beginning the work so the disappointment in reading to its end.



Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Very open-minded
As a Driven Leaf is not a good example of how to write fluid prose and dialogue, but it is a good example of how an interesting story can overcome some stylistic limitations.

Written by Jewish Milton Steinberg in 1939, As a Driven Leaf is surprisingly open-minded. I emphathized with the main character, Elisa Ben Abuyah, because he (like myself) was raised to be a Jew and ended up going on a search for truth that he could not find in religion. I was expecting that this would be a piece of propaganda, that Elisha would discover by the end of the book the way of the Lord, yada yada yada, and would go back to the Jews and be welcomed with open-arms and live happily ever after. Suffice to say that did not happen.

The characters, beyond Elisha, are not developed terribly well and the dialogue is often perfucntory and merely serving to announce a character's feelings or advance the plot, but this is still a commendable book. The ending is very good and in keeping with the spirit and tone of the novel (although based upon historical characters and times this is a piece of fiction), the historical setting is vividly depicted, and as mentioned, the book is very open-minded and worthy of a read. 8/10


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Inspiring and Thought Provoking
This book was inspiring and yet at the same time made you think about the existence of god. Mr. Steinberg does a great job of putting you in 1st/2nd century Palestine and yet at the same time engages you in a analysis of the meaning of God and life. Set with such know historical figures as Rabbi Akiba, he blends in this real historical character of Elisha ben Abuya and brings him to life. The characters are real and you feel their pain. An amazing read.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - As A DRiven Leaf
As A Driven Leaf is a novel about Elisha Ben Abuya, a character in the Talmud who became a heretic, a non-believer, an apikoras to Judaism. He was one of the most learned rabbis of his generation who nevertheless lost faith, who abandoned the Jewish community, who denounced the Jewish religion and way of life as false, and who sought to find the absolute truth of the universe in the Graeco-Roman world around him.

Elisha dies a lonely, isolated, and tragic man, not at ease in either the Jewish or Graeco-Roman world. As I read this beautifully written novel, I felt empathy for Elisha Ben Abuya, for as a committed Jew, I too am on a personal quest. Abraham Joshua Heschel once defined the purpose of Judaism as "seeking answers to ultimate questions of existence." When I engage in Jewish life, I often feel compelled to look inside myself and to search for answers to life's ultimate questions.

On the other hand, I feel alienated from Elisha Ben Abuya in that I have a different starting point in my search and a different area where I am searching.

Elisha Ben Abuya was born and educated in an isolated Jewish community. He chose to abandon that community and to search for answers to life's ultimate questions in another world. I, conversely, have been born and have been educated in an open, secular world. I have not necessarily chosen to abandon that world. I have chosen to explore Judaism, however, and to seek answers to life's ultimate questions through that exploration.

Milton Steinberg's As A Driven Leaf is a book which has helped me in that intellectual and spiritual search. I am sure it has helped others who feel they are living in two worlds simultaneously to search on that path as well.

Elliot Fein teaches Jewish religious studies at the Tarbut V'Torah School in Irvine, California.





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