Pirkei Hallel by Rena Ariel and Tziporah Piltz with illustrations by Rivka Atara Tsinman; Gefen Publishing House; (c) 2025; ISBN 9789657-864241; 266 pages; $45.
By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
PIKESVILLE, Maryland — This book can change lives
Eleven-year-old girls and their parents will enjoy Pirkei Hallel during the year the girls prepare for their Bat Mitzvah, which occurs when they are twelve. The book will make their experience more meaningful than it would be without it and will create a lovely and pleasurable memory that will last a lifetime.
Two women, sisters, with interesting lives, Rena Ariel and Tziporah Piltz, created the book with the expert help of Orit Sisu, who wrote comics, as well as others who contributed stories, inserted fascinating, colorful illustrations and drawings, translated the book from Hebrew to English, and designed and edited it. The result is a book that the Bat Mitzvah girls will remember for the rest of their lives.
There is much in the book. The Bat Mitzvah girls and their parents will learn what prompted the two women to create the book and be inspired by their stories. They will enjoy the comics, illustrations, and games.
They will learn Jewish concepts in a fascinating, new, and enjoyable way that will affect their lives. The concepts include why mitzvot are essential, the importance of the four matriarchs, chesed, the roots of Judaism, speech, truth, gratitude, beauty, modesty, Shabbat, prayer, the Land of Israel, and the Bet Hamikdash.
The book contains study pages, activity pages, games, short stories, activities for the Bat Mitzvah girls, their mothers, their fathers, and spaces to write down the reader’s thoughts.
The book is divided into twelve sections so that the Bat Mitzvah girls can spend twelve months enjoying what the book contains and learning from it.
There is also a glossary of the many inspiring books that are mentioned and about their authors.
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Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the US Army Chaplain Corps and is the author of more than 50 books.