The Doctor and the Rabbi
By Aimee Bender
2013
First Published
3.50
Average Rating
19
Number of Pages
“'The Doctor and the Rabbi' is a short but intense story about the modern interplay of faith and reason, and it moves quickly to the heart of the matter, from the doctor’s doubt to the rabbi’s dependence on his care," writes Alana Newhouse, editor-in-chief of Tablet and guest editor of this issue, in her introduction. "Its two characters remain unnamed, at once specific and universal, a rationalist doctor and his fiercely patient rabbi struggling with the eternal questions of doubt, belief, mercy, and love—over coffee and over medical tasks—as they sort through donation piles for a holiday gift drive. In lines like this, Bender expertly sketches out intellectual conundrums in a deeply human way: 'He wondered if giving her atheist blood might in fact turn her into an atheist, and he felt guilty at the thought but also pleased—like she could come over to his house and they could browse his bookshelves, shoulder-to-shoulder, and read Sartre together, or a dash of Camus, and then stand on chairs in old-fashioned hats and drop apples from great heights to the floor.'”
Avg Rating
3.50
Number of Ratings
14
5 STARS
7%
4 STARS
57%
3 STARS
14%
2 STARS
21%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
Aimee Bender
Author · 17 books
Aimee Bender is the author of the novel An Invisible Sign of My Own and of the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Willful Creatures. Her work has been widely anthologized and has been translated into ten languages. She lives in Los Angeles.
