If You Awaken Love Reader's Guide

1. The term "If You Awaken Love" is derived from the Biblical Song of Songs, where traditional interpreters explain it as a warning. The love of God to Israel, they say, should not, and cannot, be awakened before its right time and place. Why is this an appropriate title for this novel? How does this warning apply to the story of Shlomzion Dror, and what is its meaning in contemporary Israeli history?

2. For 21 years, Shlomzion believed that Yair had left her because of the Rosh Yeshiva's objection to their marriage. Was this true? Why did Yair leave her? Did the Rosh Yeshiva actually tell him to? In your opinion, should they have married?

3. Some of Emuna Elon's fellow settlers were quite unhappy with the way their community is presented in her book. Do you think If You Awaken Love shows settlers negatively? Does it do so to religious Israelis? To Yeshiva students? To rabbis? To secular Israelis?

4. In what ways are Ariel and Maya a better match than their parents could have been? Do you agree that their attitude to "the fixing of the world" is not only healthier, but also more constructive?

5. Most of the main characters in this book suffer from unfulfilled love. Is this because, like Eden's mother (pages 153-154), many of us insist on loving what we can't possess? Why do you think Shlomzion finds the solution to this problem in the house of the absent Arbiv family?

6. Emuna Elon says she would have preferred to write an "ordinary" love story, but the book took her, inevitably, to the political zones about which she had written weekly political columns for the past 15 years. Can the personal be separated from the political, in Israeli life? What about Jewish life in other countries?