Author: Gidon Rothstein. 

ISBN: 1-4196-0756-1

Penny:  Thank you for speaking with us, Gidon.  Please tell us a little bit about yourself; who you are, where you live, your family.

Gidon:  I am a former congregational Rabbi, and currently teach Jewish Studies at a high school in New York.  I live in the Bronx with my wife and three children. 

P:  What inspired you to write Murder in the Mikdash?  Where do you get your ideas and stories from?

G:  I first had the idea for Murderer when I was trying to give a sermon about the laws of impurity recorded in the Bible (in Leviticus) and wanted to see if I could make them come alive for my listeners.  An early form of the first chapter of Murderer was the result.  As an observant Jew, I believe that the truths of my tradition are applicable to every generation, and my stories are ways to take what seems removed and make it more real, more relevant.

P:  How long did it take you to write the book, and what is your writing process?  Do you have any other books in the works?

G:  Murderer took me about four years, but it was very off and on (I would leave it untouched for months at a time) because I was working at other things and saw it as more of a hobby.  My writing process, when I can, is to write in the morning, first thing, for as many hours as I can pay attention to it (usually 3-5) and then I have to either do other things or at least take a break.  I spend more of my time re-writing than writing-- the writing flows easily, but then I have to turn it into something that other people might want to read.  I am currently working on a book of novellas and short stories, tentatively titled Cassandra Misreads the Book of Samuel and Other Untold Tales of the Prophets, but am also planning on rewriting Murderer.  I self-published the version you read and while I've gotten a lot of positive feedback, I now recognize craft errors I made in writing it that would prevent a wider audience from allowing themselves to see whether they're interested in it.

P:  What advice would you give to an unpublished author in today’s market?

G:  I'm not sure that I have advice for an unpublished author, since I am currently unpublished by most standards (anyone can self-publish, and not for all that much money if you use a Print on Demand publisher, but I'm not recommending it, since the literary world is resistant to self-published works). 

I would say find a way to learn craft, by which I mean less how to write well than how to write in the ways that the literary world expects.  Take a workshop, read books (Pat Walsh's 78 Reasons Your Book Will Never Be Published is a fun read and makes many important points, Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages is very on point), find a freelance editor, read current fiction, the kind that is being celebrated and accepted (People will tell you to read classic fiction, but this seems to me to be bad advice, because much of that fiction breaks what passes for ironclad rules today. Different times, different styles of writing are accepted. 

I had a friend read Murderer and then complain that I didn't have longer monologues explaining how the Temple time would work a la Dostoyevsky's long rants; even I knew that there would be no way for Dostoyevsky to get away with that today, let alone me).  This will help your writing, but at least as important, will let you know what the world out there-- especially the gatekeepers, the agents and publishers-- want on the craft side, the technical side, before they even think about content.

P:  Why did you choose to make your main character a woman?  What was it like to write from a female perspective?

G:  The simplest answer to why I chose to make her a woman is that that was the kind of ritual impurity I felt I could make most clear to my listeners in that original sermon-- the Bible says that a woman has to stay away from the Temple for a certain time after giving birth. 

Beyond that, though, I wanted to see if I could step into a woman's shoes, get her reactions right, be convincing.  In an early draft of the book, I had Rachel (the main character) noticing another woman's clothing and body in very stark terms, and (male) friends of mine thought I was being a little lewd; I turned to women who were sitting there and said, "Wouldn't a woman notice those kinds of things" And they said, "Absolutely." That's what I was going for.

P:  What is the primary message you want to communicate through your writing?

G:  I believe, more strongly than I know how to express, that the truths expressed in the Bible, as interpreted by generations of rabbis, are eternal and therefore eternally applicable (which doesn't mean they'll take the exact same form in all generations-- the skill is to know how to apply truths phrased for one generation in the right way for another one), and that even religious people sometimes lose track of important pieces of the puzzle that is religion and worship of God. 

In my circles, many Jews (and others, of course) have lost sight of what a Messianic era was supposed to be about, and have ceased to long for it except in the Utopian way that is all too common.  That way is unreachable to us, and that absolves us of the need to strive for it.  If the Messiah can only come by God making it happen we don't have to worry about it too much.  But if we are supposed to make it more real and more possible, we've got work to do.  So my primary message is that we are wasting a lot of time and energy on endeavors that are in no way relevant to our real goal as humans, which is to serve God as God has told us to.

P:  Coming from a Christian background, I was intrigued by your perspective of what it will be like, at least for Israel, when Messiah comes.  What do you think it will be like for the rest of the world when He comes?  Specifically, how do you think it will affect Christians and Muslims?  Do you think He will be easily recognized and accepted by Jews?

The question of how Messianic times will affect other nations is a complex one, depending on one's view of the Messiah in broad terms.  I'll say this: For the kind of Messiah I tried to portray in Murderer, I think the effect on the rest of the world would be a trickle-down one, in which the truths the Messiah would bring to Israel itself would slowly seep out to the rest of the world.  But those truths would be bare-bones ones, such as: There is only one God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and it is the obligation of all humans to serve that God as that God demands. 

The source from which all humans can learn those demands is the Bible, as interpreted by the rabbis throughout the centuries (and they interpreted it in terms of the obligations of both Jews and non-Jews.  I have published an article about what Judaism wants/expects of non-Jews, entitled Conceiving the Other, and available online at www.torahcurrents.org.).  After accepting those fairly basic truths, the rest is about how fast we, all of humanity that is, can actualize those truths in our lives. 

I guess I don't think any of it will be easy: Christians and Moslems will insist that their monotheism is equally valid, non-monotheists will resist admitting there is only one God, and each branch (and sub-branch) of Jews will insist that their version is the sole correct one.  That's why so much is still not fixed in Murderer.  But one way or other, I hope we'll muddle through (if I get the opportunity, I hope to write a prequel to Murderer, a description of the Arrival.  But that's a few books off, if I ever break into the world of truly published authors).

 The above interview was conducted by: Penny Watkins:  CLICK HERE  to read more of Penny's Reviews. To read Penny's Review of Murderer In The Mikdash CLICK HERE