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If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir Kindle Edition
**WINNER of the 2018 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the 2018 Sophie Brody Medal for achievement in Jewish literature**
**2018 Natan Book Award Finalist**
**Finalist for the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in Women's Studies **
The Wall Street Journal: "There is humor and heartbreak in these pages...Ms. Kurshan immerses herself in the demands of daily Talmud study and allows the words of ancient scholars to transform the patterns of her own life."
The Jewish Standard:“Brilliant, beautifully written, sensitive, original."
The Jerusalem Post:"A beautiful and inspiring book. Both religious and secular readers will find themselves immensely moved by [Kurshan's] personal story.”
American Jewish World: “So engrossing I hardly could put it down.”
At the age of twenty-seven, alone in Jerusalem in the wake of a painful divorce,Ilana Kurshan joined the world’s largest book club, learning daf yomi, Hebrew for“daily page” of the Talmud, a book of rabbinic teachings spanning about six hundredyears. Her story is a tale of heartache and humor, of love and loss, of marriageand motherhood, and of learning to put one foot in front of the other by turningpage after page. Kurshan takes us on a deeply accessible and personal guided tourof the Talmud. For people of the book—both Jewish and non-Jewish—If All theSeas Were Ink is a celebration of learning, through literature, how to fall in loveonce again.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSt. Martin's Press
- Publication dateSeptember 5, 2017
- File size2.8 MB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"I have now read the book three times ... If All The Seas Were Ink got me through a difficult year." ― Adam Lenson, Medium
"Rich and evocative.... By the end of Kurshan’s enchanting and illuminating memoir, we feel that we have come to know her as intimately as we have come to know the Talmud." ―Jonathan Kirsch, The Jewish Journal
“Piercingly intelligent...Riveting...What Kurshan has produced is entirely novel.”―The Times of Israel
“It takes a brilliant intellect to study the Talmud the way Kurshandoes...If All the Seas Were Ink provides a true and clear exampleof text study that benefits the soul as well as the mind.”―The Christian Century
"An elegant, engaging and daunting tale of the many paths of human passion...This delightful and deep story of life made me feel as if Kurshan and I had several leisurely dinners together, or had met regularly at a cafe." ―Rochelle L. Millen, Hadassah Magazine
"Gripping." ―JewishMediaReview
“Kurshan… writes beautifully about the complexities of love, loss, shame, growth and the things that matter. .. For her, the ancient pages are alive with ideas, and in them she finds both light and a new lightness of spirit.” ―Sandee Brawarsky, The Jewish Week
"Valuable for its lessons, whether one is religious or not." ―Southern Jewish Life
“[Kurshan] is a gorgeous writer, emotionally honest and perceptive…She has written a beautiful and inspiring book. Both religious and secular readers will find themselves immensely moved by her personal story and the raw courage of the journey she has undertaken.” ―Elaine Margolin, The Jerusalem Post
"I am loving this memoir...[Kurshan] writes like nobody’s business." ―Jeffrey Salkin, Religion News Service
"From the moment I picked up If All the Seas Were Ink, I was not able to put it down...Highly recommended... No background in Talmud is needed to appreciate Kurshan’s intriguing story. When you turn the last page, you will walk away feeling talmudically enriched and already hoping for a sequel." ―Rabbi Judith Hauptman, Lilith Magazine
"[A] magnificent new memoir." ―Forward
"Kurshan’s intellectual dexterity and emotional vulnerability make this a gripping, smart read." ―Kveller
"There is humor and heartbreak in these pages...Ms. Kurshan immerses herself in the demands of daily Talmud study and allows the words of ancient scholars to transform the patterns of her own life." ―The Wall Street Journal
“Lyrical and erudite. … Kurshan’s memoir gives us insightful contemporary readings of talmudic passages while demonstrating how life can accrue added richness when set against the backdrop of the Talmud.” ―Sarah Rindner, Jewish Review of Books
"[Kurshan] became one with the Talmudic lessons, seeing them everywhere and applying them to being a Jew and a mother in the modern era." ―The JC
"Engaging...a compelling read, especially for―but certainly not limited to―students of the Talmud." ―The Jewish Exponent
“Clever and witty… Kurshan is a fabulous writer; her clarity and simplicity propel you along almost unaware that you’re reading…So engrossing I hardly could put it down.” ―Neal Gendler, The American Jewish World
"Delightful...The most enjoyable feature of the book is the brilliant and creative integration of the daily Talmudic folio Kurshan studies with experiences of her life." ―Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, The Lehrhaus
"What makes Kurshan’s memoir unique is her explication of the text...this is an introduction by someone who is trying to live both with and in the text." ―Beth Kissileff, Tablet Magazine
"Uniquely beautiful...an amazing feat." ―The Jerusalem Report
"Intriguing." ―Kirkus Reviews
"The splendidly written book is made all the more compelling by Kurshan’s willingness to share her vulnerabilities. .. This book was a great surprise to me, and one of my favorites of the year." ―Howard Freedman, The Jewish News of Northern California
"[A] brilliant, beautifully written, sensitive, original new book." ―Joanne Palmer, The Jewish Standard
"An important, interesting and often light-hearted book." ―David E.Y. Sarna, Jewish Link of New Jersey
"Kurshan weaves together intensive Talmud study with personal pain, work, spiritual seeking, and literature." ―NJ Jewish News
"Kurshan committed herself to the Daf Yomi...she reports on how this daily discipline brought humor and wisdom and insight into her life." ―Rabbi Jack Riemer
"If All The Seas Were Ink is a book about passion of many varieties―romantic passion, religious passion, aesthetic passion, but above all else, passion for knowledge. The word scholarship is too tame to do justice to Kurshan’s wild passion for the written word, whether the word is found on a page of Talmud or in a sonnet of Wordsworth. The blend of her loves makes for a rich and fascinating life, which makes for a rich and fascinating book." ―Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away
"If All the Seas Were Ink is such a moving memoir. Kurshan's portrait of everyday life in Jerusalem enriches her recounting of connecting to centuries of intellectual curiosity and conversing with bygone generations. How wonderful to explore this great volume with such a sensitive and thoughtful guide." ―Susan Isaacs, author of Long Time No See
"In this deeply personal and often hilarious story, Kurshan shows us how the Talmud’s thousands of strange and demanding pages become a conversation about how best to live one's life in an imperfect world. Kurshan awakens us to our imperfect world’s hidden magnificence―and to the power of literature to inspire human resilience. A stunning, gorgeous memoir." ―Dara Horn, author of The World to Come
"With this memoir, Ilana Kurshan enters the exclusive club of daf yomi learners, a club that was, for generations, restricted to men. Hers is a stunningly original voice in the world of Torah and the world of literature. Go run and read this book." ―Ruth Calderon, author of A Bride for One Night
"When a woman as incredibly well-read as Ilana Kurshan commits herself to studying the Talmud daily for seven-and-a-half years, the results are mind-expanding, both for her and for readers of If All the Seas Were Ink. An utterly original book." ―Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of Jewish Literacy, Rebbe, and A Code of Jewish Ethics
"An intimate and eloquent portrait of a young woman’s passionate loves and fears… Kurshan writes as a woman of (as she puts it) ‘Dickensonian sensibilities:’ clinging to her privacy while exposing her vulnerability, seeking the resonances between her mind, soul and body, and revealing an acutely sensitive intelligence, a wry self-awareness, and an active sense of the absurd." ―Avivah Zornberg, author of The Murmuring Deep
"Kurshan's beautiful prose weaves the trials and tribulations of her personal seven-year journey together with the Talmud texts she's learning. I applaud, and am awed, by this moving and remarkable memoir." ―Maggie Anton, author of Rashi's Daughters
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
If All the Seas Were Ink
A Memoir
By Ilana KurshanSt. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2017 Ilana KurshaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-12126-4
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Epigraphs,
Author's Note,
Introduction: One Day Wiser,
A Note on the Talmud,
I. THE ORDER OF FESTIVALS,
YOMA — Alone in Jerusalem,
SUKKAH / BEITZAH — Temporary Homes,
ROSH HASHANAH — The Book of Life,
TAANIT — Two by Two,
MEGILLAH — Who Knows?,
MOED KATAN — Trapdoor Days,
HAGIGAH — Torah from the Heavens,
II. THE ORDER OF WOMEN,
YEVAMOT — Lentils in My Pot,
KETUBOT — I Am a Jewish Man,
NEDARIM / NAZIR — Ascetic Aesthetics,
SOTAH — A Still Unravished Bride,
GITTIN — Writing Divorce,
KIDUSHIN — Toward a Theory of Romantic Love,
III. THE ORDER OF DAMAGES,
BAVA KAMA / BAVA METZIA / BAVA BATRA — Suspended in a Miracle,
SANHEDRIN — Another Lifetime,
MAKKOT / SHEVUOT — Sarah Ivreinu,
AVODAH ZARAH / HORAYOT — Frost at Midnight,
IV. THE ORDER OF HOLINESS,
ZEVAHIM / MENAHOT / HULLIN — Holy Eating,
BECHOROT / ERCHIN / TEMURAH / KERITOT / MEILAH / TAMID / MIDDOT / KINNIM — Poets & Gatekeepers,
V. THE ORDER OF PURITY,
NIDDAH — A Folded Notebook,
VI. THE ORDER OF SEEDS,
BERACHOT — Writing About Prayer Is Easier Than Praying,
VII. THE ORDER OF FESTIVALS (AGAIN),
SHABBAT / ERUVIN — A Pregnant Pause,
PESACHIM — Take Two,
SHEKALIM — Weaving the Talmudic Tapestry,
YOMA — Encore,
Acknowledgments,
Notes,
Praise for If All the Seas Were Ink,
About the Author,
Copyright,
CHAPTER 1
YOMA
Alone in Jerusalem
When I began studying tractate Yoma, I hung a xeroxed map of the Temple inside the front door of my studio apartment — right in the spot where hotels generally feature a floor map with the nearest fire exits marked. Most of the tractate is essentially a guided tour of the Temple, following in the footsteps of the high priest as he enacts the various rituals of Yom Kippur. With each page of Yoma I tracked my path on the map as I wound through the Temple's chambers and vestibules. I witnessed as the high priest slaughtered goats, sprinkled blood on the altar, and donned gold-and-white vestments with a breastplate and tinkling bells.
My apartment was tiny and square, with a kitchen counter and mini-fridge against one wall, a bathroom in the opposite corner, and a desk along the adjacent wall beneath my only window, where I hung my laundry out to dry over a narrow ledge that my cultured European landlady generously referred to as a "Romeo and Yooliet balcony." The floor was made of square tiles decorated in a green-and-brown floral pattern. There was no couch or armchair or other place to sit, but I so rarely had visitors that it didn't seem to matter. My bed was lofted above the kitchen area up a steep and rickety ladder leading toward a high ceiling, and it wasn't a proper bed but just a mattress that I'd purchased secondhand and transported home precariously on the roof of a cab. I had no proper bookshelves, so I stacked my books in the closet. Another stack of books served as a nightstand on which I rested my glasses if I remembered to take them off. Most nights I fell asleep reading with the lights on, my novel collapsed over my face like a tent with my nose marking my place.
The heroine in one of Margaret Drabble's novels revels in the "spinsterish delight" of crawling alone into bed with a book, and I could relate — not just at the beginning of the night but also at 3:00 a.m., when I woke up pleased to have those stolen midnight moments to my conscious self; and in the early morning hours, when I arose before my alarm clock and read by the light streaming through my open window. I had books I would read only in bed; they lived under the blankets and waited patiently while I read more respectable volumes during daylight hours. Writing in bed, too, was a newfound pleasure. There were entries in my journal that I was able to write only under cover of darkness, as if I could not expose these negatives to the harsh light of day. And there were, if I was honest, many negatives. But I was rarely honest.
For a while I could not own up to the reality of my situation because I did not even know who I was. Each morning I walked mechanically to the library to continue working on the book about the Temple's destruction I'd begun ghostwriting during the year my marriage fell apart. I was grateful that the material was not my own because I was incapable of original thought. I felt cut off from the ideas that had once animated me and from the emotions that had once transported me. One night Andrea came over to regale me with stories of her latest crush. "He works at the coffee shop where I've been writing my articles," she gushed. "I mean, just to make some money on the side. He's really a writer. He's given me a draft of his novel to read, and it's a love story! How much should I read into that?" I didn't know what to tell her. Romantic love seemed like a thing of the past, a place where I had once lived and whose hills and valleys I could map out with complete accuracy, yet a place to which I was sure I would never return. I resolved that if I was destined to spend the rest of my life alone, then at least I should not feel lonely. While I remained warm toward the few friends I had, I treated myself with cool indifference. I imagined that if the temperatures within plummeted low enough, then any hopes I dared to harbor would scamper to the corners and die in the cold.
Every so often, though, those feelings rose to the surface, and I had to confront what I knew to be true: That I have always been a hopeless romantic, and that my sense of romance is deeply bound up in my passion for literature. That I memorized "The Lady of Shalott," Tennyson's long ballad about unrequited love, when I was a teenager. That in college, I used to stroll along the Charles River at sunset reciting Byron's "So We'll Go No More A-Roving"— not to a man, but to whichever girlfriends were willing to put up with my romantic melodrama. That I dated several men in college and beyond, but I was still imagining myself as Anne of Green Gables, and none could measure up to Gilbert Blythe. That ultimately curling up with a good book always surpassed the inevitable awkwardness of real courtship, with its silly questions of what to wear and when it was OK to write back and how to interpret that passing glance. That all this seemed to change when I met Paul, who wanted to curl up with me and my books and play Paolo to my Francesca. And that when our marriage collapsed, the entire edifice of literary romanticism that I had constructed for myself seemed to collapse beneath me, and I was convinced that my love life — that imaginative world informed by Byron, Barrett-Browning, and the Brontës — was over forever.
But I spoke of this to no one, even when Andrea suddenly grew self-conscious after all her enraptured gushing and said to me soberly, "And what about you? How are you?" The Talmud in Yoma (75a) cites a debate between two rabbis about what a person should do when distressed, based on a verse from Proverbs: "If there is distress in a man's mind, let him quash it" (12:25). The Hebrew word for "quash it," yashhena, sounds like yashena, "distract," but also like yisihena, "tell." According to Rabbi Ami, the distressed individual should distract himself with other things. According to Rabbi Assi, he should tell of his woes to others so that he feels less burdened by them. I followed Rabbi Ami, choosing distraction over confession. Were I to attempt to narrate our failed marriage, I would surely just blame myself: I was not mature enough, I had not sufficiently taken into account the needs of others, I had not worked hard enough at it. I may have been a self-avowed romantic, but I'd failed at the most important romantic relationship. How had this happened, how? I wondered, echoing the repeated "how" of Lamentations — the book of the Bible known in Hebrew as Eichah (how), in which the prophet Jeremiah elegizes the Temple. I fingered the drawstring on the window shade above my desk as I read about the crimson thread in the Temple that miraculously turned white at the moment on Yom Kippur when the people's sins were forgiven.
Living alone, I identified with the high priest who was sequestered for seven days prior to Yom Kippur in a special chamber of the Temple to prevent him from contracting impurity. During this period other priests appointed a "backup wife" for him in case his wife were to die, since he was required to atone for his household and could not do so unless he had one. This may sound terribly unromantic, and indeed the Talmud is often regarded as a highly unromantic text, particularly when it comes to the transactional nature of marriage. But this is only because, for the rabbis, the object of longing was rarely wives, or even other women. Rather, when the rabbis wax most poetic, they are frequently speaking about the Temple, which was destroyed generations before the Talmud's inception.
In learning Yoma, I became swept up in the romance of Temple lore. I dreamed of the seven-branched golden candelabra, the sink where the priests rinsed their hands, and the muchni, the clanking mechanical pulley system that lowered the sink into a pit of water beneath the Temple floor. I shared in the rabbis' nostalgia for the Temple's glory days — particularly the First Temple era, when the priests were not yet corrupt (or so the rabbis claim) and the ark of the covenant still stood in the Holy of Holies. By the time of the Second Temple, the Talmud teaches, the Holy of Holies was empty and the ark had disappeared, leading to mystery and intrigue surrounding its whereabouts.
There is a Talmudic story about a priest engaged in Temple service who once noticed that one of the paving stones in the floor was slightly higher than the rest (Yoma 54a). He went out to report on his discovery to his fellow priests, but "he had not yet finished speaking when suddenly he died." (This kind of instantaneous zapping is a common trope in rabbinic stories.) The Talmud concludes that this must have been the place where the ark of the covenant was buried. Surely anyone who came so close to discovering the hidden ark would not live to tell the tale. This passage continues with a story about two priests who were busy picking worms out of the wood that was set aside for burning on the altar. One of them dropped his axe — presumably on the spot where the ark was buried — and immediately a fire broke out and consumed him.
The more dramatic the Talmud's stories, the more they took on a life of their own. One evening while washing the floor of my apartment, I noticed that one of the tiles was loose. I had already covered the floor with soapy water and was soaking it all up with a rag affixed to a sponga pole — the traditional way to clean the floors in Israel — when I came to that loose tile and trembled. I approached it with trepidation, half expecting fire to come forth and consume me if I put down my bucket of soapy water in the wrong place.
The rabbinic discussion of the Temple is fiery and passionate, at times bordering on the erotic. The rabbis relate that even though Jericho is a full ten-parsa distance from Jerusalem, the women of Jericho did not need to put on perfume because the scent of the incense wafting from Jerusalem was so powerful. Even the goats of Jericho would sneeze when their nostrils were tickled by the fragrance. In Jerusalem the scent was so concentrated that it was not just ordinary women but also brides who could forgo any fragrance. The incense, made of cinnamon, saffron, cassia, myrrh, and other spices whose names are as seductive as their scents, intoxicated the sages of the Talmud. As one elder reports, "Once I went to Shiloh [the site of the portable sanctuary where Jews worshipped prior to the First Temple], and I breathed in the scent of the incense from between its walls" (Yoma 39b). As I imagined the spices wafting from the Temple's clefts, I could almost hear the breathless panting.
Of course, there is no nostalgia for what remains; nostalgia is the longing for what once was. No one who is happily wed grows nostalgic about marriage, as Byron quipped in Don Juan: "Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife / He would have written sonnets all his life?" And one does not speak nostalgically of a Temple that is still standing and operational. Not surprisingly, the opening chapter of tractate Yoma includes a lengthy discussion of the reasons for the Temple's destruction. When it comes to the First Temple, these reasons are all related to the Jewish people's sins against God: the Temple was destroyed because of the sins of idolatry, or adultery, or murder. In explaining the sin of idolatry, Rabbi Yohanan quotes a verse from Isaiah (28:20): "For the bed shall be too short for a man to stretch himself out on it." He explains that this verse refers to a couch too narrow for both God and an idol to lie on (Yoma 9b). The imagery invoked is the intimate space of a bedroom, a reminder that the Temple was the space of the most intimate connection between God and Israel. As Rav K'tina states, "At the time when Israel would go to the Temple on the festivals, they would roll back the ark curtain to reveal the cherubs, who were hugging each other, and they would say: Look at how beloved you are of God, like the love between a man and a woman" (Yoma 54a). This same passage compares the poles that protruded through the ark curtain to a woman's breasts poking through the fabric of her dress. God has no place to sleep because there is an idol in His bed, and on account of that idol, His most intimate chamber is destroyed.
One evening as I sat learning daf yomi on my Romeo and Juliet balcony, I was suddenly transported to fair Verona, where I laid my scene. I imagined Juliet leaning her cheek against her gloved hand as Romeo gazes up at her under cover of darkness. Juliet sighs ("Ay me!"), and Romeo hangs on to her every sound and gesture ("She speaks! O, speak again, bright angel"), wooing her from below in language reminiscent of the Song of Songs, which Shakespeare seems occasionally to invoke ("Stony limits cannot hold love out"). I imagined the balcony as the site of many subsequent late-night trysts, as it is the one place where the lovers can speak freely to one another without risking the wrath of the Montague and Capulet clans. Surely Juliet longs, each day, for night to come, so she can go out on her balcony to speak to Romeo.
And then I imagined that one day, Juliet comes home to find that her parents have boarded up her balcony. Her window is covered with wooden planks fixed crudely to the wall, and pieces of the railing, hacked at with axes and spades, lie strewn on the street below. "Her gates have sunk into the ground, he has smashed her bars to bits" (Lamentations 2:9). Juliet is utterly distraught: how will she see Romeo that evening? How will she communicate with her lover? "See, O Lord, the distress I am in! My heart is in anguish" (Lamentations 1:20). It is not only her balcony she has lost, but the whole elaborate system of semaphores and scheduling that she and her lover have constructed to ensure that they see each other regularly. Juliet wails. "Bitterly she weeps in the night, her cheeks wet with tears. There is none to comfort her of all her friends" (Lamentations 1:2).
The rabbis, in mourning the Temple, were not just mourning a physical edifice but an entire system of connecting with God — one that involved daily sacrifice, fragrant incense, elaborate vestments, and golden trumpets. I, too, felt that I was mourning not just my marriage but all my romantic dreams — dreams that involved late-night roving and star-crossed love. I'm not sure if, after the destruction of the First Temple, the Jews dared hope that there might someday be a second. I only know that in my own life I harbored no such expectations.
* * *
I was convinced I'd never re-marry, but one night my imagination got the better of me and I pictured myself again a bride. It was late Friday afternoon during that magical, mystical time the rabbis refer to as "between the suns," on the cusp of the day that is waning and the night about to fall. (I suppose the English equivalent is twilight, meaning "two lights.") Uneasy about the prospect of a long evening alone, I put on a long white flowing dress and walked outside to head toward synagogue. But then I changed my mind and instead set my steps toward the walls of the Old City, entered the stone gate, and walked down the narrow cobblestone paths to the Kotel, the last remaining wall of the Temple, singing the prayers to welcome Shabbat along the way. I've never felt any special connection to the Kotel, but I was eager to visit the site of all the rituals I'd been reading about for weeks in tractate Yoma. And there was something thrilling about the notion that the Temple Mount — the object of thousands of years of Jewish longing and the place toward which Jews the world over direct their prayers — was just a half-hour walk from my apartment. "Arise and shake off the dust of the earth / Wear glorious garments reflecting your worth," I sang, feeling my soul increasingly uplifted with each successive stanza of the mystical prayer Lecha Dodi, "Come My Beloved," in which the Sabbath is greeted like a bride.
When I reached the Kotel I had already finished chanting Maariv, the evening service, and so I whispered a few words of silent petition and turned back toward home. I learned in Yoma that the high priest was supposed to enter the Holy of Holies and offer only a short prayer, lest the people waiting anxiously outside grow worried that he had somehow behaved incorrectly and would never emerge from that holiest of places (Yoma 52b). My prayers, too, lasted only seconds, and I didn't even bother to elbow my way through the crowds of devout worshippers between me and the wall. I did not need to touch the cold stones because I could feel the weight of their history when I pressed my fingers against the Talmudic page. By the time I got home, the sky was pitch black, and I was hungry and exhausted, ready to learn daf yomi over dinner and collapse into bed.
(Continues...)Excerpted from If All the Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan. Copyright © 2017 Ilana Kursha. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B06VV16XZX
- Publisher : St. Martin's Press (September 5, 2017)
- Publication date : September 5, 2017
- Language : English
- File size : 2.8 MB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 300 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #220,498 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #6 in Talmud (Kindle Store)
- #36 in Talmud (Books)
- #219 in Jewish History (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Ilana Kurshan is the author of If All the Seas Were Ink (St. Martin's Press, 2017) and Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights (Schocken, 2005). She has translated books of Jewish interest by Ruth Calderon, Benjamin Lau, and Micah Goodman, as well as novels, short story collections, and children’s picture books. She is a regular contributor to Lilith Magazine, where she serves as the Book Reviews Editor, and her writing has appeared in The Forward, The World Jewish Digest, Hadassah, Nashim, Zeek, Kveller, and Tablet. Kurshan is a graduate of Harvard University (BA, summa cum laude, History of Science) and Cambridge University (M.Phil, English literature). She lives in Jerusalem with her husband and four children.
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Customers find the memoir insightful and personal. They describe the pacing as spectacular, moving, and creative. Readers praise the writing style as magical and straightforward. The memoir is described as a tale of heartache and humor.
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Customers appreciate the author's insight into her personal experiences and reflections. They find the book insightful and engaging, revealing the author's unique ability to connect Talmudic learning to her personal life. Readers describe it as an erudite yet intimate account of her learning and experience.
"...There are countless passages in the Talmud and elsewhere extolling the supreme merits of learning; in a famous passage, when the Rabbis are debating..." Read more
"...It deepens and enriches both your sense of an ancient people who have lost an intimate connection to their ruler and that of a young divorcee in the..." Read more
"...Ilana Kurshan is not only very intelligent but is also such a gifted and knowledgeable writer who is obviously capable of conveying highly personal..." Read more
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Customers find the memoir's pacing captivating and engaging. They describe it as a beautiful tapestry of life told in an imaginative, creative way. The author's thoughtful and honest writing style is appreciated. Overall, readers find the memoir thought-provoking and inspiring.
"This memoir will stay with me for a long time. It's just so beautiful and smart and inspiring and honest...." Read more
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Customers praise the writing style. They find it thought-provoking and inspiring, with straightforward prose that reads like a novel. The author is described as knowledgeable and skilled in using words to convey emotions, characters, and situations. Readers appreciate the author's humor, wit, and personal insights expressed through her writing.
"...is not only very intelligent but is also such a gifted and knowledgeable writer who is obviously capable of conveying highly personal information..." Read more
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""If All the Seas Were Ink," is a richly-textured, well-written and emotionally touching memoir...." Read more
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Customers find the memoir humorous at times. They describe it as a tale of heartache and humor, love and loss, marriage, and family.
"...between my world and the author’s: her quirky, shticky, humorous insights...." Read more
"...This memoir is a tale of heartache and humor, of love and loss, of marriage and motherhood, and of learning to put one foot in front of the other by..." Read more
"...I LOVED IT and her humor tid bits throughout... She inspires me even more to expedite our aliyah; after 23 visits I pictured every place she spoke..." Read more
"After spending my week swimming in Ilana Kurshan's lush, funny and aspirational memoir, I'm already itching to wade in again -- pencil in hand to..." Read more
Customers praise the author's talent. They find her ability to capture a range of perspectives impressive. The book is described as an extraordinary memoir about an extraordinary individual.
"...Ilana Kurshan is not only very intelligent but is also such a gifted and knowledgeable writer who is obviously capable of conveying highly personal..." Read more
"...Love her title, though! Beautiful, is it a quote from a poem?" Read more
"...Ilana is brilliant, matching authors and poets alongside Talmudic rabbis...." Read more
"This was the most amazing, down to earth memoir of a fascinating young woman who finds her way through the bumps in life through a former men's only..." Read more
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A personal female story interwoven with Talmud Study
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017This memoir will stay with me for a long time. It's just so beautiful and smart and inspiring and honest.
A little background is necessary. Daf Yomi (a page a day) is a practice that's been around for about a century but become very popular in the last ten. In doing "daf yomi," a participant reads one "page" (it's really a folio page which is equal to about 3-4 pages a day usually) of Talmud a day until she finishes the entire thing in seven years. Reading the entire Talmud is a monumental accomplishment. It's massive. It's often compared to a sea, as it's deep and wide and can be both refreshing and overwhelming.
So, Kurshan takes the brilliant step of telling her life story during the seven years she was doing daf yomi. How wonderful. In less intelligent and empathetic hands, this could have been robotic or cold. Or it would have felt tremendously forced. There are so many pages of Talmud which one would be hard pressed to connect to one's life. But Kurshan does it. Each chapter of her memoir is named after one of the Tractates of the Babylonian Talmud.
I was initially temped, upon finishing the book, to think, boy, Kurshan was pretty lucky. A lot happened to her during the seven years she studied the daf. But that's not what happened. In the book's last few pages, Kurshan explains that she started doing daf yomi in the first place because her life felt unmoored; she was looking for something constant, some center. The Talmud became that center. You have to read it every day of your life for seven years whether you want to or not. What happened, as I would imagine happens whenever we read literature or history or poetry is that her study and her life became entwined in a way that makes book nerds like me (and Kurshan) very happy. So in the best possible way, Kurshan's life informed her understanding of what she read every day in Talmud, and conversely, her reading that day made her interpret reality through a lens she wouldn't have otherwise had.
I'm not saying this to brag; reading is like breathing for me. I'm a lifelong learner in a fundamental way. IDEALLY, everyone would be no matter what one's philosophical, ideological, political or spiritual bent. But the rhythms of Jewish observance provide ample opportunity to make this ideal a reality. There are countless passages in the Talmud and elsewhere extolling the supreme merits of learning; in a famous passage, when the Rabbis are debating which is more important, deeds or study, the "winning" argument winds up being study---because study LEADS to deed. I bring this up merely to suggest one of the reasons I LOVED this book: I felt like I was encountering a kindred mind and spirit. Kurshan takes her spirituality, her poetry, her family, her mortality, her country, her food, her exercise very seriously; indeed, she inspires me because ALL OF THOSE INFORM ONE ANOTHER. I strive towards accomplishing this in my own life.
What a book!
- Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2017A great memoir shows the author on a journey from one point to another. This book does that and more – it took ME on a journey from one point to another. You see, it was challenging for me to start reading Ilana Kurshan’s story. I was intrigued and wanted to learn about the life of a young, American Jerusalemite, but I was put off by the whole Talmud thing.
I started learning “gemara” in fifth grade and didn’t stop for the next twelve years. I studied in a yeshiva high school, spent a year studying in Israel and then four years in an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva in Baltimore. I was immersed in Talmud and talk about the centrality of Talmud. And even before I left Orthodoxy years later, Talmud came to have only negative associations for me: the pilpulistic discussions that more often than not descend into a spiral of absurdity, the oppressive judgmental reality of “halacha”, the impossible to fulfill ideal of never-ending-learning.
So I started reading with a heart that was at least half-closed. The open part of my heart was pleased by Kurshan’s artfully crafted words but the closed part was threatened by discussion of Talmudic passages and what they would arouse in me. That closed part began to open when I realized that familiar topics were presented in ways I’d never encountered before. The author often approaches Talmud from a literary perspective (not oppressive or triggering for me) and when she does view the learnings through a theological or spiritual lens, it is always with a humanistic grounding. This was thoroughly refreshing and enabled me to reframe Baba Metzia and Yoma and Gittin and allow them back onto the bookshelf of my life.
Even more rewarding than the fresh perspective on the Talmud is the way Kurshan weaves Talmudic lessons into her inner world. If in the past I experienced Talmud as constricting, I now found it to be expansive. Talmud, the way author teaches it, opens a path into her rich inner world.
It was at a time in her life that the author was freshly divorced that the daf yomi cycle was up to the tractate of Yoma. Kurshan was studying about the period of time after the destruction of the first Holy Temple and before the building of the second. She compares her state-divorced-to that of the Jews in between the first and second temples, not knowing if there would be a second chance. This equation feels organic and believable. It deepens and enriches both your sense of an ancient people who have lost an intimate connection to their ruler and that of a young divorcee in the twenty-first century.
In parts of the book that I enjoyed less- few and far between- it felt like the balance was slightly off and the text was more Talmud lesson than memoir.
One aspect of the writing served as an especially strong bridgehead between my world and the author’s: her quirky, shticky, humorous insights. One day while swimming laps she was reviewing the week’s Torah reading in her mind. She imagined a swimming pool divided into seven lanes. In each lane swimmers would be taught one of the seven parts of the Torah portion. “Torah reading is also known as ‘leyning’…and so each ‘lane’ would double as a ‘leyn’. ”
I had always thought that this silly kind of thinking resided exclusively in the feverish minds of under-showered, tzitzes-flying yeshiva boys, like I used to be. Again, how refreshing to find this (unusual!) connection to a Harvard and Cambridge educated literary scholar!
It’s been said that a great memoirist finds “the universal in the singular, and vice versa”. Ilana Kurshan’s enchanting writing pulls you into her singular world and expands your universe.
Top reviews from other countries
- Howard GanzReviewed in Canada on November 8, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Excellent book.
One person found this helpfulReport - Leah Rauhut-BrungsReviewed in Germany on July 28, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Kurshan is a scholar
If all the seas were ink, is called a memoir, but it is so much more it is a book that shows you the way to and into the Talmud. An amazing writer like Kurshan understands it so perfectly well to make you "greedy" for more to know and to learn. She is a born scholar. I will treacher this book, it is like a diamond for me
One person found this helpfulReport - Goldele RaymentReviewed in Australia on December 13, 2017
4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and meaningful
I really enjoyed the way to classic Talmud was woven into they authors life in real and relatable life situations. She handles the conflict between out dated biblical concepts and modern ones well
One person found this helpfulReport - Clare ThorpeReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2018
2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating study in compulsive and obsessive life patterns.
I read this book for a Daf Yomi study group. It was meant as an inspiring journal of an individual woman’s study. Instead it reads as a case study of sublimated eating disorders, body distrust and OCD. She admits she’s a “compulsive” studied and revels in it, which is fine. It’s just not very helpful for the rest of us.
Her disordered thought patterns leak into her attitude to pregnancy (her body “serves her well” by not developing stretch marks) birth, (she boasts about drug free labour as if it’s a morally better way to give birth) female creativity (only women who give birth are “like the creator”)
Funny that in talking about “the Arabs” she lives near she fails to notice that they’re all in service and menial jobs.
I could have read all this happily had she not shown that she values “the poet” as more important than “the gatekeeper”. Not every can be or wants to be an author. That doesn’t make what we do any less valuable.
So all in all this is a gushy and self indulgent romantic fantasy written by a woman with a lot of privilege.
4 people found this helpfulReport