Title: Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion
Author: Danya Ruttenberg
Genre: Judaism, Memoir

It’s been almost a month since I finished a book. To those who know me in real life that’s what is known as a “red flag.” I’m better now. Mostly. Not reading a book for a month has also put me way, way behind on my reading schedule for the year. Lots of catch up reading in front of me.

When I first started my conversion path a friend of a friend put me in touch with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. I wanted a woman I could speak with about feminist issues in Judaism, conservative Judaism and finding the personally right level of observance. She was very kind to chat with me and answer my questions. I owe her a great debt. I’m ashamed to admit that I have only now read her spiritual memoir but better late than never yes?

I enjoyed the book very much, particularly her trials and errors finding the right level of observance for herself after she embraced God & Judaism. Trying on kippot, stepping up observance of kashrut, total observance of shabbat, etc. I am still trying to find the exact right level of observance for myself and I very much enjoyed reading about how she tried on things until she found the right fit for herself. While I don’t see donning tefillin in my future I’m not shutting any doors and it was really nice seeing how far she came in her spiritual journey.

Title: The Essential Talmud
Author: Adin Steinsaltz
Genre: Judaism, Religious reference

Wikipedia’s definition for the Talmud is pretty good so I’m going to share it just in case Talmud is a brand new word for you:

“The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד talmūd “instruction, learning”, from a root lmd “teach, study”) is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism.”

While that’s a pretty good really basic overview it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface on how in-depth, detailed, large, complex and important the Talmud is. This book, The Essential Talmud, is an actual introduction to the Talmud. Yep, this entire book is about the Talmud. What it is, how it’s arranged, how it was written, etc. It’s in-depth, so in-depth in fact that I was in over my head several times. To recap: I was in over my head reading a book that explains the Talmud. Guess there goes my dreams of being a Talmudic scholar.

One of the things I love best about Judaism though is that you don’t have to be a Talmudic scholar. You can be as intellectually curious or not and study as much as you want to. If Talmud is over your head there are still plenty of options for Torah study and other routes of observance. But you’re always encouraged to study more, to increase your own personal knowledge and understand. And you’re encouraged to question and argue. It’s all very intellectually stimulating to me.

Once in a class my rabbi was talking about changes in traditional prayers (in Conservative Judaism anyway, I’m sure the Orthodox still say it the old way) and he was going to gloss over a change from a seemingly anti-woman prayer. In a very “gotcha!” kind of voice I was all “wait a minute Rabbi, did they make that change at the same time they changed the verse about being a woman?” He got a kind of sheepish grin on his face and was just like “yep, same time” and said something about me being clever. In this particular class no one else had any idea what I was talking about and that was fine. Everyone gets to choose their level of study, everyone gets to satisfy their own levels of intellectual curiosity. That’s so perfect for me. Though I think in Talmud study my reach may exceed my grasp. I want to study and learn more but I’m not sure I’m clever enough in this area.

Title: With Roots in Heaven: One Woman’s Passionate Journey into the Heart of Her Faith
Author: Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
Genre: Memoir

One of the things I most looked forward to in my recent trip to Chicago was visiting a Jewish bookstore. Yes, yes I can find just about any book in the world on the internet but browsing for books and knowing what you’re looking for are two very different things. I headed way, way out of downtown to Rosenblum’s World of Judaica (and after wandering around in the rain for an hour, they didn’t open until 11AM!) up on Devon. Apparently the neighborhood used to be primarily Orthodox Jewish but that’s the not the case anymore. It was a mix of a few kosher shops and the bookstore, synagogues, halal butchers, Indian-Pakistani groceries, Indian restaurants and shalwar kameez shops and shops with signs in various Cyrillic languages.

Rosenblum’s was small but filled to the brim with ritual objects, books, jewelry, CDs, toys and just about everything else you could imagine. I spent a lot of time looking at mezuzahs, kiddush cups and other ritual objects but didn’t want to carry them back on the plane. So I left with only two books and a chai necklace.  I loved browsing for books in this shop. So many titles and subjects I’d either never heard of or know only a very little about. Strangely enough though I came away with two feminist slanted books. One called Women and Jewish Law and With Roots in Heaven.

It says something about this book that I bought it on Thursday morning and finished it before we left Chicago Saturday afternoon. That is not to say I loved the book but that I found it very interesting and a compelling read. The reasons I didn’t love the book are primarliy my own biases and judgemental questions. Namely how does an intelligent woman end up in a cult in the frozen tundra of Minnesota cut off from the entire rest of the world with a “guru” and two of his wives? Yes, that’s one of the paths Rabbi Firestone took in her journey from her childhood of Orthodox Judaism to her eventual place as a rabbi in the Jewish Renewal Movement.

I recognized some elements of my own spiritual journey in Rabbi Firestone’s story like the longing for community and study as well as abject lonliness brought about by seeking and not finding at first but by and large hers was so far removed from what is known and comfortable for me I found myself going “huh, how’d she end up there?” several times. It was really interesting though to read the story of someone so dedicated to traveling a spiritual path even though for most of the book she really had no idea where she’d end up. It had huge twists and turns and was unexpected in so many ways and yet she kept committed to seeking and finding her spiritual path and spiritual place in the world. I respect that a lot.

The one negative of the book is what I perceive as the one great negative of Rabbi Firestone’s story: her Orthodox family’s rejection of her for marrying a non-Jew. Her family completely cut her and another of her siblings off because they strayed from the Orthodox path. There is no denying that such families exist and such things happen in the Jewish world but oh how sad it makes me. So throughout the book I had this feeling of great sadness at seeing something I love so much, namely Judaism, being used almost as a weapon against this woman who really was doing nothing more than following her heart and looking for (and finding) love and holiness.

Title: Living A Jewish Life: Jewish Traditions, Customs and Values for Today’s Families
Author: Anita Diamant
Genre: Non-Fiction

I have not been including the Jewish or religious books I’ve been reading on this list this year. I realize now that the omission makes it look like I’m way behind on my reading for the year so that stops now. Jewish books get added to the list from this point forward. I’m not going to go back and add books from earlier in the year but definitely all going forward.

I read DIamant’s book Choosing a Jewish Life and found it to be ok. Not great but ok. I liked this one much better. Perhaps because Choosing a Jewish Life focused so much on people who are converting because of marriage or because I had already done a lot of studying and soul searching by the time I picked it up. Not sure. Just as a side note though one element of my conversion that I didn’t anticipate was how odd I am for converting not for the love of a partner or a forthcoming marriage. The vast majority of the other converts I’ve encountered converted primarily because of a Jewish partner. Let me restate that, I’m sure by the time their actual conversion came around they were doing it because it was the right choice for them but they started the process because of their Jewish partner. See the difference? It doesn’t bother me that I’m in the minority on this one (hell, I’m in the minority on just about everything else) because I’m completely solid, happy and content with my spiritual path but I will admit that I didn’t realize just how much in the minority I would be.

While this book didn’t have a ton of new information for me there was enough that it was definitely worth my while. There are some new rituals traditions that I’ve not encountered that seem worthwhile and meaningful so I may incorporate them into my life. I like find new ways to find meaning in my life. Good stuff.

Title: Lovesong: Becoming a Jew
Author: Julius Lester
Genre: Memoir, Judaism

I wish I had read this book at the beginning of my conversion journey instead of starting it the day before my mikvah and finishing it the day of my conversion ceremony. Oh well, you can’t have everything you want. If I had read it at the beginning it would have been much easier to verbalize a lot of the things I felt cause I could have just shared passages from this book. Lester speaks so much more eloquently than I was able to about the yearnings of the soul that are particular to converts and a lot of the intangibles that make us find and know our paths. It is a powerful book.

Seriously, I’d love to just paste about two pages worth of quotes in here and then go: “yes, that’s the way I’ve felt and feel now.” But there are copyright issues so go buy your own copy. Or ask to borrow mine and I’ll highlight some passages for you.

Title: Conversion to Judaism: A Guidebook
Author: Lawrence J. Epstein
Genre: Judaism

Title: Embracing the Convert
Editors: Allan L. Berkowitz, Patti Moskovitz
Genre: Judaism

I read these two conversion books last month. A wee bit late in the process since my mikvah visit is April 2 but whatever. I learned a couple things from each one so reading them was definitely worth the time. 

Title: I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology
Author: Abraham Joshua Heschel
Genre: Non-Fiction

While I enjoyed this book and found some really inspirational passages and many thought provoking books I now wish I hadn’t tried to read it from front to back like a normal book. I wish I had read it much more slowly, say over the course of many months or even a year. This collection of Heschel’s work on several different spiritual topics is full of deep meaning and context that I need to process and work through. It would have been better to read one section and at times even one paragraph a day or week and really thought about it and figured out if it had meaning or not to me. And if it had meaning what was it? Only after working all that out should I have moved on. When I re-read this that’s the way I’ll do it.