Rabbi Mayer Schiller is a Skver-Rachmistrivka chassid with a passion for the ideology of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch. Born to a non-observant family, Rabbi Schiller became a baal teshuvah in seventh grade after he and two friends embarked on an unusual experiment: to live as Orthodox Jews for a month. He is the author of The Road Back: A Discovery of Judaism without Embellishments and The (Guilty) Conscience of a Conservative.
What books are currently on your nightstand?
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester; Scottish Football Supporters’ Guide & Yearbook 2016 edited by John Robinson; The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan; and Becoming a Reflective Teacher by Robert Marzano.
What’s the best book on Judaism you’ve ever read?
I’d prefer to combine a few, but if I must, Herman Wouk’s This is My God. I am defining “best” here as best writing and Judaism as Orthodoxy.
What kind of reader were you as a child? Your favorite books and authors?
I read a great deal. Loved the library. Most reading was in history, mythology, and sports. My favorite readings were Clair Bee’s Chip Hilton sports series and Classics Illustrated. I also read a lot of DC Comics.
If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?
If you had included film, I would say Disney’s “Davy Crockett” with Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen. Book, though, would be Clair Bee’s A Pass and a Prayer from the Hilton series. Both taught idealism and integrity, honesty and courage, and the fortitude needed to navigate life’s suffering and ambiguities.
If you could require Jewish leaders to read one book, what would it be?
Anything that would help them realize that other peoples seek meaning in community and continuity just as we do and that this, too, is the will of G-d. There are not many works from an Orthodox perspective that illustrate this point, but Yosef ben Shlomo Hakohen’s The Universal Jew published by Feldheim in the early ‘90s is a good place to start.
Hidden gems: Which Jewish book or author should be widely known but isn’t?
Any article or book by my tenth-grade rebbe in Breuer’s, Rabbi Shelomoh Danziger, who taught me far more than the fourth perek of Shevuos. In particular, I’d recommend his essay, “Rav S. R. Hirsch – His Torah im Derech Eretz Ideology,” which has re-appeared recently in The World of Hirschian Teachings.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
I have never been able to become enthused over Rav Yoseph B. Soloveitchik’s writings. Not that I reject his implicit embrace of the totality of existence, just that I prefer the more explicit, systematic treatment of this orientation found in Rabbis Lichtenstein, Lamm, Carmy, etc.
As to “put down without finishing,” I’ll mention When the Storm Breaks: Rock Against Communism 1979-1993 by Robert Forbes and Eddie Stampton. Although informative, it had a bit too much detail and too little reflection to get me through all 415 pages.
Thirty-five years ago you wrote The Road Back: A Discovery of Judaism without Embellishments. Which three books would you recommend to an aspiring baal teshuvah today?
I’d really like to know more about the individual, but assuming he is a reflective lad, I’d suggest Rabbi Yisroel Miller’s In Search of Torah Wisdom; Judaism’s Encounter with Other Cultures edited by Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter; and, just because there is so much good stuff on so many matters, Tradition, issue of Winter 2014, sub-titled, “Essays on the Thought and Scholarship of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein.”