Einstein's Rabbi

A Tale of Science and the Soul

Praise for Einstein's Rabbi . . .

• Compelling

• Fascinating

• Brought Light

• Imaginative, Lovely

• Extraordinary

• Profound

• Uplifting

• Fresh

Although I had no intention of doing so, I read Einstein's Rabbi in a single sitting. What made it so compelling was the believability of the three voices: narrator, rabbi, and Einstein. They sound like real human beings discussing profound subjects that really matter both to them and to all of us. It is a measure of their wisdom that what they say is as full of questions as it is of answers.

~ Rev. Frederick Buechner, Pulitzer Prize nominee

Einstein's Rabbi is fascinating, engaging and uniquely creative. It is more than the story of a young person's spiritual quest. It touches on many of the deep and fundamental issues that we face in our world today. Like a good teacher, Michael Cohen is able to convey the complicated clearly and simply, with his creative writing style. A series of Socratic conversations between young Joseph and Einstein's rabbi pull us into the story, while also inviting us to ask those very questions of our own lives.

~ Patrick J. Leahy, US Senator for Vermont

This book rescued me from myself.
On a dark day it brought light into my life.

~ Mandy Patinkin, Tony Award^® winning actor

The author, a rabbi himself, has created a fictional account of conversations with a character identified as Einstein's rabbi, and in the process has opened up a fresh exploration not just of Albert Einstein's astonishing mind but also many of the questions of religion and science that Einstein's work inevitably raises. It's an imaginative, lovely small book, and, although it's fiction, every quote from Einstein is something he really said or wrote.

~ Bill Tammeus, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Einstein's Rabbi is extraordinary in style and content. I was intrigued throughout my reading by the feeling, on the one hand, that the author was engaged in presenting Einstein's theoretical concerns about time and energy and, on the other hand, offering a skilled introduction to Einstein's views on a naturalistic theology. It was difficult for me to realize that I was reading a novella and not a realistic analysis of Einstein's mind and his endeavor to link science and religion as partners in the human effort to penetrate the mystery of the cosmos. Scientists and religionists will find much to challenge them in this work.

~ Rabbi Jack Cohen, Jerusalem, Israel

Einstein's Rabbi, a novella which, appropriately, came our way during the season of Selichot, is a pilgrimage of self discovery on the part of a young man from a secular family in suburban New Jersey who discovers his Jewish soul via a spontaneous friendship with a neighborhood rabbi who was, for many years, a close confidante of Albert Einstein. But the story is merely a vehicle for broad philosophical ruminations, historical explications, and spiritual insights into the kaleidoscope of Judaism as the young man becomes increasingly drawn to Jewish life under the informal tutelage of his elderly friend who frequently (and accurately) quotes the famed physicist and, at the same time, encourages his acolyte to ponder his own comments such as “Never confuse belief in God with an understanding of who or what God is.” The meeting of science and religion, the nature of God, and the continued relevance of Jewish observance are but some of the profound subjects which emerge in conversations that make up a good portion of this deceptively simple but actually deep and heuristic book.

~ Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer

An uplifting and inspiring tale that harmonizes science and faith. Cohen peels back layers of history and biography, exploring diving patterns beneath.Read this book and your life will be enriched.
~ Daniel C. Matt,
author of The Essential Kabbalah and God and the Big Bang

Einstein's Rabbi from Michael Cohen is a bildungsroman without bluster. A sweet, serious novel about the intersection of faith and science, told in a conversational style, the author takes a fresh approach to a personal spiritual flowering with warm but prickly characters you'll nevertheless love, including Einstein's fictionalized rabbi.
~ Joel Gardner, Editor for the LitSnap Team