Casting Lots

January 4, 2016
Rabbi Silverman (Jewish Family and Life), who always dreamed of adopting a child, chronicles her journey from her home in Massachusetts to an orphanage in Ethiopia to do just that. Silverman and her husband, Yosef Abramowitz, an activist and writer, had three daughters when they adopted Adar, who was relinquished by an unknown birth mother and gathered into the Silverman and Ambromowitz’s family at the age of nine months. They would eventually adopt a second Ethiopian son. Though the title may sound solemn, Silverman’s writing is anything but; like her sister, comedian Sarah Silverman, the author has a keen sense of humor and embellishes her narrative with laughs. For example, the night of the baby’s circumcision, her husband cuts the tips off all the vegetables served for dinner. The memoir also describes how she embarked on the path to become a rabbi, though her parents disdained religion and at the onset she didn’t even know the Hebrew alphabet. On occasion, she weaves in tales from the Bible, relating them to contemporary life and particularly her own story (Moses, for instance, was abandoned by his mother to save her son from harm). Devoted to family, faith, and her partnership with God, Silverman paints an honest portrait of an imperfect but loving household. Readers of many traditions will enjoy Silverman’s tender adoption story.