Home > News > “Draw Near to Me”: A Novel Inspired by the Book of Genesis
August 27, 2026 in Library Corner, Scroll
Some 60 years ago, poet-playwright Archibald MacLeish won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for his play, JB, based on the Book of Job. Ever eloquent, MacLeish explained why he opted to construct a modern play within the “ancient majesty” of the Bible: “When you are dealing with questions too large for you which, nevertheless, will not leave you alone, you are obligated to house them somewhere – and an old wall helps.”
Congregant Michelle Brafman’s new novel, Draw Near to Me, likewise offers the unique appeal of a contemporary story that is in conversation with an ancient biblical story. Brafman’s suspenseful novel of a Jewish family living in the DC suburbs draws deeply from the Genesis account of Joseph.
Famously, in Genesis, Joseph’s jealous brothers sold him into slavery. They let their father Jacob believe that his adored son had been killed by a wild beast. The brothers’ evil deed condemned Jacob to a life of agonizing grief and ripped Joseph from his home, setting him on a path that led to his suffering and imprisonment in Egypt.
In time, Joseph deployed his talents to rise to the top of Pharaoh’s royal court. Yet even from that safe and successful perch, how could he possibly forgive his brothers for what they did? Nevertheless, as Genesis recounts, he did forgive them. Brafman’s novel sensitively explores whether and how family members can forgive each other for what would seem to be unpardonable acts.
Draw Near to Me is a stand-alone sequel to Michelle Brafman’s earlier novel, Swimming with Ghosts. In that novel, we met Kristy Weinstein, who seduces her best friend Gillian’s husband and deliberately sets out to sabotage Gillian’s life.
Kristy’s actions are rooted in childhood insecurities and jealousies. Kristy’s mother, Flo, was ashamed of her because she was an illegitimate child; she favored Kristy’s younger half-sister, born in wedlock to a different father. In Swimming, Kristy discovers that Gillian’s late father was her biological father too, due to a brief affair he had with Flo. This shocking revelation sends Kristy careening down a dangerous path of destructive behavior.
As Draw Near to Me opens, Kristy, age 48, the mother of two teenage children, is blissfully caring for her new baby girl, born after a surprise “geriatric” pregnancy. This joyful time turns agonizing when Kristy’s husband inadvertently comes across her journal and realizes that his beloved baby daughter may not be his.
This is only one of many serious challenges to the relationships among family members in Draw Near to Me. None of the troubled relationships have been addressed, let alone resolved, when Kristy is in a freak biking accident that sends her into a coma. Can the family rally to care for her? Will she recover? And if she does, will the family be able to repair the many shattered bonds of trust?
Draw Near to Me suggests that for family ruptures to heal, they must first be faced. The novel is decorated with images of Japanese kintsugi, an art form that repairs broken pottery, not by disguising cracks or fissures, but by highlighting them with gold, silver, or platinum lacquer. (Book club members may recall that artist Edmund de Waal (Letters to Camondo) used kintsugi in an exhibition to underscore the ruptures endured by a French Jewish family.)
Kintsugi is reminiscent of the Jewish tradition that maintains that the holy Ark contained the broken, shattered first set of Sinai tablets along with the replacement set of intact tablets. The shattered tablets represented the Israelites’ past betrayal (worshipping the Golden Calf), a betrayal they repented, but never forgot, as they journeyed onward. Draw Near to Me asks whether a family can confront and repair past wrongs to move forward.
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Michelle Brafman will discuss Draw Near to Me with Rabbi Harris during Beth El’s Yom Kippur Seminar. She will also delve into her novel in a Beth El-Adas Israel program in the Adas Israel Library on Sunday, November 15, at 10:30 am. Register here.
And don’t miss the October Book Chat at Beth El on Nicholas Lemann’s Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries on Sunday, October 18, at 11:00 am. Register here. You can read the Scroll review of “Returning” here.
