When Rabbi Berel Weinmakes a statement like that, you know you are in for a remarkably enjoyable reading experience. As a speaker, historian, and teacher, Rabbi Wein never disappoints. Most people, as someone once said, see but do not observe. Rabbi Wein observes. He sees a “story” in a seemingly trivial event, and then turns a spurt of laughter into a thoughtful exploration of an important theme in life.

In this book, Rabbi Wein looks back at a lifetime rich with learning and achievement. From the perspective of an incredibly crowded and productive career, he looks at the world and, as he calls it, shares his “musings and observations” with a public that has enjoyed and admired his writings and teachings for decades. To him these are second thoughts; to many others they will be stimulating prods to step back from habit and look at themselves and their world with fresh and enthusiastic eyes.

Everything about the author and his writings is suffused with lessons of the Torah, Talmud, and the traditions of the yeshivah and rabbinate.

This book is a sheer joy. Provocative, humorous, thoughtful, stimulating, and informative -- Second Thoughtsis filled with all the marvelous qualities one associates with one of our generation’s favorite rabbinic leaders.

* * *

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Berel Wein is the rabbi of Congregation Bais Torah, Suffern, New York, and the Rosh Yeshivah of Shaarei Torah of Rockland. He is a member of the Illinois bar, the former Executive Vice-President and Rabbinic Administrator of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and an avid student of general and Jewish history. He is the recipient of the Covenant Foundation’s Jewish Educator of the Year award for 1993. He is the “author” of a popular, major cassette series on Jewish history, which has made his “Chicago accent” internationally known. Rabbi Wein is the author of Triumph of Survival -- The Story of the Jews in the Modern Era, Herald of Destiny -- The Story of the Jews in the Medieval Era, and Echoes of Glory -- The Story of the Jews in the Classical Era,which have received wide acclaim.