The ladies at BUST Magazine have offered a few kind words on the book:

Chronicling her journey from riot grrrl to rabbinate student on the verge of ordination, Danya Ruttenberg takes readers through many of the painful yet necessary steps of her spiritual journey in this thoughtful and articulate memoir. Her account begins when, as a teenager disgruntled by the empty ritualism of Judaism, she declared herself an atheist. Her early experiences in the alternative music scene of the ‘90s filled that need for mystic communion that she couldn’t find in synagogue. Ultimately, however, Ruttenberg began a spiritual journey fueled by her curiosity about the human need for the sacred and her experiences as a young adult.

While many of the experiences are similar to others’ in her generation—love, loss, and identity struggle—her style of combining personal experience with a wide range of philosophic responses gives her narrative greater texture. Ruttenberg is as likely to quote Sufi mystics and Catholic saints as she is to refer to Jewish writers; she is seeking a truth that transcends doctrine….

Thanks, ladies!

The problem with living in a country that does not offer some sort of basic healthcare option to all of its citizens is that “life” (as in, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”) becomes a privilege for the rich, not one of the inalienable rights on which America was founded.

Case in point: A friend of mine, an amazing poet/performance artist/activist (and, incidentally, contributor to the excellent book, Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class–you can see the first two pages of her moving piece here.) is, at this point, fighting for her life. It seems pretty likely that she has late-stage lyme disease, which has a pretty scary prognosis if left untreated.

I’m pretty sure I’m not at liberty to tell the whole gory story of how she’s been treated at county hospitals and what options–the ones that would be obvious to most of us, like seeing top specialists–are closed to her because of finances. I think I can probably disclose that she’s been kicked off her insurance, and now has to cover things (including, probably, some things she underwent on the assumption that she had insurance) out of pocket.

She’s pretty disabled at this point, in pain, and things are getting worse.

What she needs is, it seems, an aggressive treatment of specific antibiotics, ideally paired with some “alternative” therapies with a good track record. The problem is, she can’t necessarily afford even the basic antibiotic treatment. And if she isn’t treated–well, none of us want to think about what that might mean.

So we’re raising money. If the government won’t help make sure that this person has adequate medical care, perhaps her community can. She’s finally consented to putting a PayPal button on her LiveJournal–it’s here. If you have any ability to help this woman get well, please avail yourself of the opportunity. Pikuach nefesh–saving lives–is the mitzvah for which we are permitted to violate most other mitzvot, after all.

Thank you.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Reviews are starting to dribble in, which is fun. I got a little mini-review in Jewcy, and something a bit longer from Lilith. Here’s a taste:

Ruttenberg no doubt began her book with a moment of teenage rebellion in order to make her gradual commitment to a life of Jewish practice seem all the more striking. But the true beauty of her story is found not in this large transformation (teenage atheists are a dime a dozen) but in the moments of small transformations. This is where Ruttenberg’s prose is at its powerful best….
Ruttenberg sprinkles her text with brief quotes from mystics and other religious teachers…. Throughout, though, it is her voice that emerges most strongly as we accompany her on her religious journey, “the strange and brambly path we didn’t know that we’d been trying to find all along.”

Things have been rolling along as I’m reacquainting myself with a city I’ve only really talked to at parties, or in passing. I think we’ve already started to get to know each other better than ever before, and I’m looking forward to deepening the relationship as time goes by.

It’s not like I’ve had so much time to really explore the city, though. Last week, at long last, I handed in the manuscript for Sex and Judaism (that’s the working title, anyway), an anthology on–well, guess–that I’ve been editing for the last forever and a half. (It’ll be out at some point, presumably in ‘09, with NYU Press–now, finally, we get to figure out pub dates and stuff.) It’s got 18 essays by smarty-pants rabbis, scholars, and other assorted thinkers on everything from rethinking the laws of menstruation to the erotics of sexual segregation, thinking about the literature of the accused adulteress as pornography, queer theology, modesty remixed, and how the ancient rabbis thought about intersex lovin’. I think it’s pretty good. (It’s hard for me to tell, since I don’t really have any perspective whatsoever on the project right now–ask me in a couple of months.) The thing, at mss delivery, runs 96500 words, 358 pages, and has rather the colorful glossary of Hebrew/Aramaic/Yiddish terms.

This week I need to write a short piece for Bitch, have a bunch of meetings with folks about stuff, need to see about finding an apartment (we’re subletting at present) and get my gears in gear on a new writing project for which I am on deadline. More on that when I start figuring out what I’m doing with it.

Evidently Borders thinks that Surprised By God is supposed to be filed in the “Latter-Day Saints” section.

Now, I’m a relatively nice person, but I think that may be a bit of an exaggeration.

It’ll get fixed, hopefully before books go on shelves.

(And no, the book isn’t officially out yet, though copies seem to be shipping from the printer–I got my author’s copies last week, and it was very exciting. Yay.)

The spirit of mutiny is alive and well in Cambridge, MA.

Surprised by God
Danya Ruttenberg
Beacon Press, 2008

Subtitled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion,” Danya Ruttenberg’s very personal account includes: rejecting the sterile religion of her childhood, dancing her way through punk culture, the cancer-induced death of her mother, and her path through a meditation-oriented Judaism that eventually opened the doors for a deep encounter with God, found through her own religion. At every point, Ms. Ruttenberg is sharp in her insights about the world and about herself. Soon to become an ordained rabbi, Ruttenberg gives us reason to be hopeful about the future of American Judaism.

The reviewer got a couple of details wrong (God starts getting discussed in Ch. 3 and the Jewish meditation business doesn’t turn up until Ch. 7, and obvs I’m already ordained now) but overall, it’s a nice review, so thanks, Tikkun!

We have gotten to our new (temporary) digs in the Boston area, and so far so good. The rest of the trip was lovely, featuring more visits with people of whom I get to see woefully little and less of the random tourism. All in all, a fair trade.

I am having a little bit of Other Coast culture shock; the weather here is muggy, there are thunderstorms, the buildings are all sturdy brick and Victorians, and–well, the whole place has a whole Boston-ness to it that I’m having trouble quantifying. Something sharp and clean, like the taste of peppermint. It’s altogether likable, just a different flavor than the 11 years of slow(er) California living that I’ve had since I last dwelled in New England. The whole thing is kind of a trip; I’m hearing music that I haven’t heard in about that long in coffee shops (Melissa Etheridge, Phish), and maybe it’s just about being back in the kind of environment populated by undergrads, but I can’t remember the last time I saw so many backpacks covered in earnest, message-bearing buttons. It’s a good thing! It’s just different than what I’ve had, lately.

We’re slowly getting oriented, trying to figure out where the good food is, making contact with people we know who live in these parts (respectively or together), and starting to get back in the gear of getting to work. I have an anthology manuscript due to its publisher in, oh, two weeks. There are a lot of loose ends to be tying up on that front.

Graceland was fun, of course, but ultimately a bit disappointing. I was just expecting something, well, bigger in terms of both the size and scope of the tacky and the glitz. Great Late Elvis jumpsuit display, though.

Nashville: yay. The Country and Western Museum and Hall of Fame was really spectacularly done, and the Grand Ole Opry was pretty swell, as well.

One of the stinky things about my professional training is that you meet all these wonderful, amazing people, and then they finish their schooling and scatter off to the four winds to rabbi. One of the great things about my professional training is that if you happen to be wandering out in one of the four winds, there’s almost always someone to visit. We spent a wonderful, totally lovely, exceedingly swell Shabbat with two dear friends living in Chattanooga (thanks again, R and M!!) and their most excellent dog Shefa. We’re in Asheville, NC now (having driven through the super-pretty Smokey Mountains), and I am stuffed to the gills with vegan burrito and kale (Asheville is some pretty seriously hippie turf–I’m writing this from the vegetarian restaurant of my dreams) and are about to hopefully hook up with a friend who’s rabbiing here.

It’s North Carolina, it’s a lovely Sunday in late June. I have no complaints.