Maasei Avos Siman L'banim II

"Torah perspectives on personalities, episodes and periods in Jewish history" is how ArtScroll sums up Maasei Avos Siman L'banim, and the title carries the thesis: what happened to the Avos is a sign for their children. Rabbi David Cohen reads Jewish history through that lens rather than as a chain of dates.

This is the second volume in the series - 283 hardcover pages at a 6.00 x 9.00 inch trim. The structure is essay-driven, so it does not have to be read front to back; you can open to a personality or an era and get a self-contained treatment of it.

That makes it useful in two very different ways. For a person learning on his own, it is Shabbos-afternoon material - a piece at a sitting, with sources to chase afterward. For anyone who speaks in public, gives a shiur or prepares a devar Torah, it is the kind of sefer that turns a historical episode into something worth saying at a table.

The hardcover binding at this price is worth noting: it is meant to sit in a home library and be pulled down repeatedly, and it looks the part next to the rest of the series.

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