Cabin Retreat 2025 Book Recap

I'm back from my annual solo winter cabin sojourn. As has been my custom, here is an overview (NOT a review!) of the books I read during my retreat. Enjoy!

Dec 30, 2024

The Torah content through the end of Chanukah is sponsored by Feiga W., with the following dedication: "With deep gratitude to my parents, who taught me to seek out opportunities for growth—and to Rabbi Schneeweiss, whose shiurim are exactly that."

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Cabin Retreat 2025 Book Recap

Preface

I’M BACK, BABY! Yes, I do plan on writing at least one post about my takeaways from this year’s solo cabin retreat, but I’m letting those thoughts percolate a bit longer. Since several people asked which books I read, I figured I’d start by sharing that. First, a few notes:

Note #1: These are just the books I actually read (or read parts of), which is only a fraction of the ones I brought with me. Lately, I’ve been bringing a mini-library on my cabin trips so I can choose what suits my mood—since I never really know what that will be once I’m there.

Note #2: These are not book reviews! I plan to write full reviews later for some (maybe all) of them. For now, I’ll just share a few sentences about each book: why I brought it and how I engaged with it while at the cabin. (I’ll post my actual reviews in the usual places: WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Substack.)

Note #3: I’m including the number of pages I read to show how much time I spent on each book, and to help avoid any misunderstanding about whether I finished them or only read a portion.

Seforim

This may come as a shock, but out of all the weeks in a given year, I do the least amount of learning during my cabin sojourns—and that’s by design. As a full-time teacher-rebbi-Torah-content-creator, nearly all my learning year-round is tied to teaching: preparing lessons for classes, shiurim, articles, and podcasts. By the time I get to my cabin week, I’m so burnt out from that grind that I need to completely stop learning for a few days just to “reset” and recalibrate my relationship with learning.

I brought the Abudarham because I was in the mood for an offbeat way to review the halachos of Chanukah, and it served its purpose perfectly on Erev Chanukah.

I also brought Sforno on Chumash (plus printouts of the “director’s cut” commentary by his student, Rabbi Elia di Nola), R’ Avraham ben ha’Rambam on Bereishis, and Toras Chayim so I could learn the parashah. I wasn’t in the mood for any other learning until the last day, when I spent the entire morning leisurely going through every single pasuk with both Sforno commentaries—occasionally supplementing them with R’ Avraham and other meforshim as needed. It was wonderful to learn just for myself, not as prep for any content. That was exactly the “learning reset” I needed.

Non-Fiction

Essays: Second Series (1844), by Ralph Waldo Emerson
(read 23 pages)
For the past few years, my custom has been to read Emerson with my morning coffee. I like to take it slow, often pausing to reflect on a passage while watching the newly lit fire. This year, I finished “The Poet” and began “Experience.” At some points, I actually said, “Wow!” out loud.

Happiness in the Face of Adversity: Powerful Torah Ideas from a Mom’s Parting Words (2024), by Rabbi Dr. Elie Feder
(read 44/175 pages)
I ended up reading less Emerson this trip because I picked up this book during my coffee time as well. It’s a newly published work by a friend and fellow rebbi at yeshiva, exploring the wisdom and life lessons in the parting letter of his mother, Shani Feder a”h, a true eishes chayil I had the privilege to know. The short chapters and neat divisions made it perfect “lite Torah morning reading.”

The Horizontal Society: Understanding the Covenant and Alphabetic Judaism (2010), by José Faur
(read the 36-page preface, 35 pages of the intro, and 45/1401 pages of the main text)
People describe Hakham Faur in much the same way they describe Ayn Rand: a polarizing intellectual you either love or hate. I bought this book to see what the fuss was about and form my own opinion. Before this, I’d read only three pieces by Faur: one article I found horrifically insulting toward great Ashkenazic Rishonim; a short piece I saw as thought-provoking but one-sided; and about 70 pages of his book on the Moreh, which I couldn’t really get into. I still didn’t have a firm grasp of his approach to Torah and Judaism. Since so many people discuss The Horizontal Society as a central work, I decided to give it a go. So far, it’s definitely thought-provoking!

Ego is the Enemy (2016), by Ryan Holiday
(read 27/217 pages)
I like Ryan Holiday and subscribe to his daily newsletter. Although I find his books a great entry point to Stoicism, I don’t enjoy most of them—except “The Daily Stoic,” which showcases actual Stoic thinkers. Why do I still read them? One reason: the real-world examples. Last year, I brought “Stillness is the Key” (2019) as my bathroom book, and I did the same with this one.

Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout (2024), by Cal Newport
(read all 222 pages)
Every Cal Newport book I’ve read has been worthwhile—less for the content itself, and more for the type of thinking it promotes. I read one section a day (there are four in total) and jotted down ideas for practical changes as they came to mind. During last year’s cabin retreat, I read “A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload” (2022), which transformed my work habits for the better. I have a feeling “Slow Productivity” will do the same.

The Multi-Hyphen Life: Work Less, Create More, and Design a Life that Works for You (2024), by Emma Gannon
(read all 182 pages)
I’ve followed Emma’s Substack for a while, and her insights on building a content-creation career in today’s world have been helpful. “Multi-hyphen” is her term for the type of multifaceted career I slid into after Shalhevet closed: “high school teacher–yeshiva rebbe–Torah content creator–writer.” Like Newport’s book, this one was more helpful for the thinking it sparked than its actual content. Overall, it was just okay.

Consolations II: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words (2024), by David Whyte
(read 129/318 pages)
The week before I left for the cabin, I listened to Tim Ferriss’s interview with Whyte. I’d never heard of him before, but I was so captivated by the poetic-prose (or prosaic-poetry?) essays he read on the podcast that I bought his latest book. To quote the blurb on the back: this book “features fifty-two short, elegant meditations on single words, ranging from ‘Anxiety’ to ‘Body,’ ‘Freedom,’ ‘Shame,’ and ‘Moon.’” Because of their poetic quality, I decided to read them aloud, using them as palate cleansers between other books—and while soaking in the tub.

Articles of Faith: Traditional Jewish Belief in the Internet Era (2024), by Rabbi Gil Student
(read 103/297 pages)
I started following Rabbi Student in 2007, when I began my first blog in the “Jewish Blogosphere” days. The articles here feel just as enjoyable and relevant as ever. I read a few each day, and I plan to finish by next Shabbos.

Pursuing Peshat: Tanakh Parshanut & Talmud Torah (2024), by Moshe Sokolow
(read 252/330 pages)
I usually bring at least one book on Torah methodology to the cabin. This time, I chose this one after listening to Olivia Friedman’s interview on Orthodox Conundrum, which focused on pshat vs. drash. True to his style, Sokolow blends traditional and academic sources for an excellent survey. I picked up all sorts of new insights and discovered a host of valuable sources.

Kissinger: a Biography (1992, 2005), by Walter Isaacson
(read 252/767 pages)
I’ve read three of Isaacson’s biographies—Steve Jobs (2011), Leonardo da Vinci (2017), and Elon Musk (2023)—and loved each one. I didn’t buy this one; Jonny did, and he let me borrow it. I knew virtually nothing about Henry Kissinger, so I had no expectations. This became my nightly “pre-bedtime reading” (i.e. the book I read on the couch BEFORE reading in bed). Despite Kissinger being a remarkably unlikeable figure, I found myself wanting to read more. It’s not as compelling as Isaacson’s other biographies, and I might not finish it, but I’m glad I started. Lots of Mishlei dynamics at play!

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024), by Jonathan Haidt (not pictured here)
I read the first five chapters right after it was released, then lost interest. I decided to listen to the last seven chapters (pp. 143–293) on audiobook during my drive to and from the cabin. I’m glad I did, because it confirmed that the first five chapters were far more captivating to me than the later ones.

Fiction

Hearts in Atlantis (1999), by Stephen King
(read 363/673 pages)
I was in the mood for non-horror Stephen King. Before the trip, I asked ChatGPT for recommendations based on my King favorites—“11/22/63,” “Different Seasons,” and “It.” One of its first suggestions was Hearts in Atlantis. Wanting to avoid spoilers, I bought it without reading a synopsis. All I knew was that it became a movie starring Anthony Hopkins. I read it every night before bed, enjoying King’s storytelling—until I had a rude awakening. There I was, curled up by the fire on my last night in the cabin, ready to dig into the next part of the story. I got to page 323 … and the book ended! At first, I was totally confused. Then I flipped through and realized it’s not a single novel but “five interconnected, sequential tales.” The 323 pages I read were a novella called “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” and the next story is “Hearts in Atlantis,” which seems to refer to a card game. It didn’t help that the cover art and page headers all say “Hearts in Atlantis,” with no clear indication of where one story ends and the next begins. Worse yet, I recognized which character Anthony Hopkins must have played—even without seeing the movie—and that film is titled Hearts in Atlantis! That’s what I get for not checking the synopsis first.

Conclusion

Including the seforim I learned, I ended up reading around 2,000 pages over the course of this cabin trip—a nice amount, if I do say so myself!

Have you read any of these books? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

The Rabbi Schneeweiss Substack

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