Listening to this book transforms a story that I had simply heard over the years as I grew up into so much more for me. I heard stories growing up from my mother, but as she was not practicing in the faith, nor were her parents and siblings, all they were to me were stories of my great grandparents and their beliefs. Therefore, I didn't have the opportunity to learn about the Jewish heritage in my family. I had family who were Jewish but by the time I came along, those family members were either about to pass on or had already passed on. You're brought into a world that you may not know anything about to start with, as I was, having had little experience in my own personal life. The audible performance is simply incredible to listen to, and as you listen you are drawn in not just by the words that are narrated but by the over all Passion with which she tells her story. This was the 1st of her books that I have read, and it is her story 1st and foremost. This book was fantastic start to finish! I cannot say enough how incredible Tova mirvis is as an author, and in this case, as a narrator. Honest and courageous, Tova takes us through her first year outside her marriage and community as she learns to silence her fears and seek adventure on her own path to happiness. To free the part of yourself that has been suppressed, even if it means walking away from the only life you've ever known. This is a memoir about what it means to decide to heed your inner compass at long last. This will mean forging a new way of life not just for herself, but for her children, who are struggling with what the divorce and her new status as 'not Orthodox' means for them. After years of trying to silence the voice inside her that said she did not agree, did not fit in, did not believe, she strikes out on her own to discover what she does believe and who she really is.

Even though it would mean the loss of her friends, her community, and, possibly, even her family, Tova decides to leave her husband and her faith. She married a man from within the fold and quickly began a family.īut over the years, her doubts became noisier than her faith, and at age 40 she could no longer breathe in what had become a suffocating existence. After all, to observe was to be accepted and to be accepted was to be loved. The memoir of a woman who leaves her faith and her marriage and sets out to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a newly mapless world.īorn and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and rituals prescribed by this way of life.

The book of separation by tova mirvis