Preparing for Sabbath by Nessa Rapoport

Preparing for SabbathBy Nessa RapoportHardcover: 288 pagesPublisher: William Morrow & Company 1981ISBN: 0688002943Condition: This book is in good used condition.  The dust jacket shows shelf-wear, and multiple small tears at several corners.  There is no writing in the book.From the Dust Jacket: This novel by a gloriously gifted new writer is the story of a young woman's search to find both God and love.Judith Rafael is first seen as a young girl, already devoutly Jewish but filled with longing for a more intense life.  For a time, only her friendships sustain her.  She dreams of escape, of travel in foreign lands, of beauty.  And she dreams of love.In her seventeenth summer she meets Ori, impetuous and brilliant, who offers her both laughter and passion in an unpredictable combination.  And what she cannot find in him, she has in Jessie, his sister, who becomes her closest friend.  Judith and Jessie spend their days talking about love, about men and women, while Ori begins his own journey.Drawn by Ori's imagination, Judith crosses America with him and travels to England.  Still she is not content.  She follows Jessie to Jerusalem, always trying to appease the hunger of her heart.  There, in a city of seekers, she must face the conflict between her spiritual yearning and her need for love: "I want there to be nothing for me but God, alive in my life always.  But I am bound by appetite, fettered by desire."