Reviews for Mitzvah Chic: How to Host a Meaningful, Fun, and Drop Dead Gorgeous Bar or Bat Mitzvah

The average rating for Mitzvah Chic: How to Host a Meaningful, Fun, and Drop Dead Gorgeous Bar or Bat Mitzvah based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-06-23 00:00:00 Thomas Debruyckere I really value the great effort that Robinson put in to researching and writing this book. The book is full of information and the content is intuitively organized. The first chapter's focus on prayer and the relationship with God really grabbed my attention and prodded me through the remainder of the text. I loved learning and soaked in as much as I could. I skimmed chapter 8 rather than read every detail since it's 50 pages of information on various Jewish philosophers. I found my respect rapidly growing and upon completion of the book found that most assuredly this has increased the depth of my own faith and perspective. I certainly found many tenets of shared belief and was particularly intrigued at Maimonides' 13 Principles of the Jewish Faith () as compared with The 13 Articles of Faith(). Robinson successfully illustrates the in-depth determination, commitment, and devotion of the Jewish people and their history. He covers _a lot_ of history and while there is so much information, it's not too overdone. In the end, I was distracted by a couple issues that prevent me from giving this more than three stars. First, there are terms that are used early on which slowed down my comprehension. They are described in more detail later in the book and also in the glossary, but it was distracting to a small degree. Second, because of the broadness of the title, Robinson appears to go to great lengths to include the major differences between the various Jewish sects and their perspectives on festivals, interpretations, and minhagim. While this is important information, sometimes it seemed like too much information. Finally, there are a lot of sidebars that sometimes proved to be distracting though their inclusion wasn't a major disruption to the contextual information. Overall, I have come away from reading this book with an increased desire to read other religious texts of this same caliber--my soul strengthened, perspective extended and appreciation deepened.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-09-12 00:00:00 Jack Vaughan This is the most comprehensive book that I have ever read on any subject that wasn't an encyclopedia. Writing it must have been a formidable task. That is why I gave it five stars, instead of four. It isn't really that I thought this book was so amazing, although I did like it a lot ... I just appreciated the amount of work put into it, and that George Robinson managed to accomplish a balance between keeping it simple enough for "beginners" without dumbing it down. It is organized so that it flows well when reading from beginning to end, but the chapters are not necessarily dependent on each other, so if you are already well acquainted with a certain aspect of Judaism, it won't mess up your reading to skip over that section. As such, this book is also a great reference tool. I would highly recommend it for anyone wanting to return to or understand their Jewish heritage, or for anyone interested in Judaism as a whole.