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February 27, 2004/Adar 5 5764, Vol. 56, No. 23
Retelling the story, reuniting the people
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
It is the quintessential story of a rabbi counseling an eager student to "go study."
Nearly 20 years ago, Jill D. Glenn presented herself at Rabbi David Rebibo's office with nothing more than a desire to learn and an insatiable supply of questions.
"He opened his door and welcomed me," says Glenn. "He would feed me books, and then I would come back to talk, sometimes once a month, sometimes every two weeks, sometimes every few months."
Glenn, who was then single, newly arrived in Phoenix and working as an investment adviser (and later served as director of the then-endowment fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix), became immersed in the world of Torah.
"I was in two worlds, one in the normal world, one in my head," she recalls during a recent telephone interview from her Lake Tahoe home. Glenn and her husband relocated there in 1998.
The result of her years of study under Rebibo's tutelage is the recently published, "Resurrection and Reunification, The Fulfillment of Prophecy for the Children of Israel" (The Twelve Stones Press, $70 hardcover). Creative consultant Ellen Palestrant wrote the book's preface and Rebibo, the foreword.
What appears to be yet another coffee table book, with its glossy cover, handsome color illustrations and beautiful Hebrew calligraphy, is a substantive tome with serious purpose.
Using her depth of knowledge, gleaned as Rebibo tells it by navigating "the heavy waters of Talmudic polemics, midrashic erudition, zoharic mysticism, the world of prayer, commentaries and contemporary writings," Glenn creates for the reader her vision of Jewish humanity, with its underlying foundation of Torah and its objective of unity and coherence.
"The whole purpose of writing the book was to explain who we are as a people," says Glenn, "what is our mission, our legacy, our rightful place on this earth."
The book is steeped with references to the 12 tribes (Twelve Stones Press, established by Glenn and Rebibo in April 2000, refers to Joshua 4:4-7, where 12 stones are used to symbolize the tribes) and allusions to the oneness of the Children of Israel. As Rebibo writes, "Each of (the twelve tribes) formed a contributing portion within a greater whole; a collection of individuals congregated in unity. Twelve parts constituting The Whole; no whole without the twelve parts."
Divided into seven sections - the dream, the journey, the vision, the awakening, the redemption, the resurrection and reunification, and the Sabbath of peace on earth - "Resurrection and Reunification" begins with Genesis 28:12, the story of Jacob's ladder, illustrating the connection between the material world and the divine.
"I want to take the reader to the top of Jacob's ladder and then on a journey through time to see how the story unfolds," says Glenn. She also seeks to invest the retelling with personal resonance, reminding readers "we are the people in the book, not of the book."
Form and color, as well as textual excerpts and commentary, are integral elements of Glenn's storytelling technique.
The rich color plates that separate each chapter, the vivid hues of the color wheel that adorn many pages, the image of the tzitzes, ritual garment worn by observant Jewish men, with its tangled gold and blue threads used as a template, are fraught with meaning for Glenn. She explains that the circle figures prominently in her work because it is integral to the Jewish story.
"Families are seen as circles," she explains, "and therefore, extended families, which we are, simply become a larger circle."
Color reflects the beauty of the Jewish people's destiny, says Glenn. She color-codes each section of the story: purple/beginning, blue/separation, green/land/our inheritance, yellow/enlightenment, orange/ social ordinances, red/review and witness, all the colors/the Sabbath.
Blue has special meaning, playing on the biblical passage that commands that a thread of blue be attached to the corners of tzitzes, or ritual fringes.
Glenn says the book can be used as a guide to study Torah.
"I'm hoping to inspire others to go back and look at our text with new eyes."
The book was written, at the urging of Rebibo and Palestrant, over the course of four years. Glenn, who graduated from Connecticut College in 1967 with a double major in comparative religion and art, and then did two years of graduate study at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, wrote the text as well as created the original artwork.
She grew up in a Reform home in a Catholic neighborhood in Albany and is quick to dismiss denominational affiliations. Her whole premise is to find ways for Jews to connect - to be part of the circle - and recover what she calls "a holy state of being."
"We have to lose the words Orthodox, Reform, Conservative," she says, "and become the children of Israel."
Rebibo writes in the foreword of "Resurrection and Reunification," "It is within our power to decide on how to direct our destiny. We can direct it toward the perpetuation of divisiveness or towards unification."
Glenn says her goal is to inspire a return to Torah that will open up "the distinct and real possibility that we can reunite and proceed into the next step of our development as a whole people."
Glenn's book is currently available at Israel Connection, Phoenix, and The Jewish Quarter, Scottsdale.
Details
- What: First in a series of colloquia, "On Common Ground - The Language of Faith and Peace," with Rabbi David Rebibo, Beth Joseph Congregation; Rabbi Robert Kravitz, American Jewish Committee; and Jill D. Glenn
- When: 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 2
- Location: Beth Joseph Congregation, 515 E. Bethany Home Road
- Reservations: 602-277-8858 or 480-970-6363
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