Let's Talk: A Rabbi Speaks to Christians

By: Michael E. Harvey

Narrated by: Bob Harvey

Let's Talk is designed for Christian clergy and lay people to expand their knowledge about the Jewish aspects and roots of their faith. The book addresses misconceptions, unintentional antisemitism in liturgy or interpretation, beautiful comparisons, and helps listeners understand the difference between the historical Jesus and modern-day Judaism.

Let's Talk: A Rabbi Speaks to Christians is a handbook for Christian clergy, church leaders, and lay people who wish to expand their knowledge about the Jewish aspects and roots of their faith. Easy to follow and use as a reference guide, the chapters outline misconceptions, unintentional antisemitism in liturgy or interpretation, and beautiful comparisons, and helps listeners understand the difference between the historical Jesus and modern-day Judaism.

The author hopes this book can help listeners in three specific ways. The first is simply to learn from the content in order to shape one's own journey toward scholarship and interfaith education. In this way, the book can serve as a jumping-off point for new discoveries, new philosophical views on old topics, and a hunger for new material. Second, the book can be used as a teaching guide for adult education sessions of any size. Sections can be turned into worksheets or curricula, and then taught. Book clubs can listen to and process the material, chapter by chapter, and bring their questions and comments to a discussion setting. And third, this volume can be consulted as a handy reference guide when a question, a situation, or a conflict arises, to find a solution.

The volume seeks to diminish conflict between Jews and Christians as it opens interfaith dialog and eases tensions from mistakes in the past.

©2022 Michael Harvey (P)2022 Michael Harvey

Engaging, Informative and accesible

Full disclosure: I have been provided a review copy by the author, I am also approaching this from the lens of an ex-Christian, and current Jewish conversion student.

Audio and special note: First the one small negative. I docked one star from performance overall the quality is excellent so this complaint might be minor, there's a few instances where the volume and softness are varied, one where the the reader pauses and clears his throat, and possibly (unless it was a glitch) once instance where audio is accidentally looped back on itself. These are very minor in the grand scheme of things and Bob Harvey's overall reading is crisp professional and precise and imbued with emotion when recounting personal opinions or anecdotes.

I only mention these because I am very sensitive to consistent audio quality when listening to an audio book and very little things can take me out of the audio.

Special note: While discussing translation Harvey opts to pronounce the tetragrammatron to remove any theological bias while discussing the mechanics of translation itself. This is not a judgement certainly the Harveys have more right to judge the appropriateness of doing that in an academic context than I do. This is just a heads up.

Review proper: As stated above I am a conversion student who comes from a Christian background. As such I have spent a lot of time examining and discussing the very issues this book is centered around: I learned a lot. For every thing that retread familiar ground there was five or six more new items for me. I was taught Christian scripture through a pro-Jewish lens while I'm grateful my earliest teachers did not try to impart hateful ideas and tropes not being taught the prevalent readings of the texts throughout most of Christian history left me ill prepared to to realize what some of the less obvious ones were.

I thought I knew pretty much every bombshell to avoid (some I've learned the hard way by setting them off) with members of my new community, not by a long shot. I also learned a lot of new things about both Christian and Jewish history. So I'm sure anyone would find a lot of value in this book.

The book is interesting engaging and well presented covering history, translation, holidays, and more. Very recommended.

Narrator

I kinda wish Rabbi Mike himself read the audio version. But it’s still a good book and I really enjoyed it.

Amazing book equally for Jews and Christians

This wonderful book is billed as an overture to Christian clergy and lay people to help them understand Judaism and avoid harmful interaction. It does that commendably, covering an incredible amount of ground concisely, clearly, and convincingly. Particularly useful, are the synthesized takeaways at the end of every chapter.

But Rabbi Harvey does so much more. He plots the friction lines between the two religions, in a way that is completely relevant to the social media era. He wastes no time on sterile and obscure points. Getting to the heart of the matter. By doing so, Harvey (inadvertently?) creates a fascinating guide for Jews as well. If you wanted an explanation from the bottom up, of how Christianity treats Judaism and what mistakes it makes (and why) this is the book for you.

I've never seen Christian-Jewish relations treated this well. A triumph.

A necessary and challenging read for Christians

Let's Talk is a great resource for Christians who want to understand Judaism and begin learning about how Christians have (and continue) offended and abused Jewish people. I have been largely ignorant (and almost certainly still am in many ways) about so much conflict historically and this book was very helpful for me to start understanding just how much harm has been done over the last two millennia. I still have a lot of learning to do!

This was a challenging book for me (in a good way!) and I was confused, sad, and horrified at many of the things people of my faith in the name of Jesus but these are words that need to be read and listened to. I would recommend it to any Christian who is open to learning. This does mean that many Christians will need to do some personal preparation when they come to this book so that they can receive its message with an open mind and heart.

Also the narration is fantastic!

Thank you Rabbi Mike for writing this for people like me!

Important book

The material covered in this book would always be important, but never more than now. Given the unfortunate rise in antisemitism, the world needs more material like this to help people understand one another. Good read all around!

Excellent book, excellent reference

Comprehensive and accessible responses and explanations, particularly important now to combat growing hatred against Jews

I want to love this book but can’t.

The information is awesome. The narrator isn’t very good which makes it very difficult for me to even finish this book. I want to learn the information but can’t.