Brenda Barrie

The Rabbi's Husband Brenda Barrie

Rabbi Tovah Feldner and her husband, Dan Goldin, love each other. Even at the moment when Dan is planning to leave his wife and two small children, their love is still evident Dan has deep emotional hurts he has never shared. Now he feels he must set out on a search to solve the physical problem of their three-year-old daughter Leah, born prematurely, and with Cerebral Palsy symptoms. Leah?s birth had delayed Tovah?s beginning her first job after Seminary and Tovah, a perfectionist, has never been able to put aside the anxiety about her job, even after she has worked at Temple Isaiah for three years. Also, her job, the best-regarded position offered to her class, is the wrong for her, but Tovah has never been able to admit that. Her solution has been to work ceaselessly to make the job right. After three years, her energy and her ability to fool herself flagging, Tovah wakes up one cold December morning, to discover Dan is gone. How can she discover what is really happening in her life? And, if she accomplishes that, can she forgive her husband and work with him to heal the wounds inflicted on their marriage by Dan?s inability to communicate and her own lack of knowledge about her true motivations and her spiritual needs within the rabbinate?