Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion

I absolutely devoured this book. I'm someone who is converting to Judaism after a long religious search myself, so this book really spoke to me. Additionally, however, it's incredibly well-written, thought-provoking, and deep. Ruttenberg manages to seamlessly integrate philosophic and religious critique with mystical texts alongside teenage angst and adult reflections and experiences. It's a wonderful read, not only for Jewish people, but for anyone who has been on a religious journey. Mazel Tov Rabbi Ruttenberg!

I could relate to a lot of what Danya went through, so it was really great to read her story and to hear from someone who is passionate about religion, Judaism and God without being preachy, judgmental or shallow, and who genuinely confronts religion on its own terms and wrestles with how to define her life. A great read.

Ruttenberg, Danya. "Surprised by God" How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion", Beacon Press, 2008. Lost and Found Amos Lassen When Danya Ruttenberg was 13, she decided she was an atheist and that Karl Marx was right in what he said about religion--so she left it and lost herself in the hedonism of San Francisco of the 1990's. She soon felt something was missing from her life and that something eventually became known to her as God. She began a journey to fill the void--visiting here and stopping by there, listening to Catholics, Buddhists, Jews, mystics and everything and everyone else. Here is her story and it is wonderful. Danya was a young woman who was lost and found several times until she found the path to the rabbinate. She has managed to take the best of two worlds--Jewish tradition and the modern world and she brought them together. This is the story of embracing her faith and learning to love it and it a story of honesty and wit, depth and beauty, Ruttenberg finds challenges in Judaism and she wrestles with them all the while holding onto her commitment to the modern values of feminism and humanism and she is both an observant Jew and an enlightened woman. She searched for meaning and she found it even while remaining true to herself. This book is a memoir of spiritual development, eloquently and beautifully written, Ruttenberg is a wonderful writer with a powerful story to tell.

Danya Ruttenberg's latest book is a very moving memoir of a young woman's spiritual development. This is more than a biography, it's a guide to developing one's own spiritual path. Rabbi Ruttenberg brings stories and sources from various faith traditions which add to her gripping narrative. I truly couldn't put this book down. I highly recommend it.

As a fan from her Yentl's Revenge, I found Surprised by God to be the fulfillment of the promise Ruttenberg showed in that book. This book showcases the writer's ability to blend the personal and political and to make it all so compulsively readable that you just can't put it down.