In one of my millions of jobs, I write book descriptions for Feldheim Publishers' website, www.feldheim.com, which is neat because I get to review all new books that come through their doors. Well, this week I got my hands on a book that I think will create quite a revolution in the Jewish world, a book published by Targum Press (distributed by Feldheim) called 6 diaries. This is the brutally honest, unfiltered compilation of the weekly diaries of six teenagers recording their shifting thoughts on tznius, modesty. They come from different backgrounds, have different personalities, and the only thing they have in common is a willingness to explore this oft-confounding and complex topic.

What struck me about this book is that it holds the potential to be more powerful than others that essentially deal with the same topic, even though it is written by young adults with no "rebbetzin" experience or deep wellsprings of knowledge and life's work to back them up. Instead, the pull lies in the glimpsing of the power of example. It's about girls telling their honest stories of personal struggle and growth, which the reader can then muse over, extrapolate from, and perhaps use as a jumping-off point to change as well. It's different than an authoritative book on the subject, where a renowned educator or lecturer offers spell-binding insight, quoting from myriad Torah sources, and presents a compelling picture of why we should move toward greater modesty. Of course, this second kind of book is eminently valuable and very uplifting. But there's something so visceral, so poignant, about seeing a work in progress like 6 diaries embodies, that unashamedly attests to--just that. There's no preaching, no guilt, or impossible pedestals to gaze up at helplessly.

The concept of teaching by example is one that I think about often. It's a "walk the walk and talk the talk", bone-deep construct that inspires others to do what they never could have been moved to do in any other way.

I wonder: what power of example do I set? What power of example do you set?

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