Customer Reviews

The Search for God at Harvard

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The first time I read _The Search for God at Harvard_, I could not put it down until the end. I was enthralled. I have turned many people, including ministers, onto this book and have yet to receive less than favorable comments.

Ari Goldman tells a story of Orthodox Judaism, journalism, academia, and personal exploration. On sabatical from his job as religion writer for the New York Times, Goldman spends a year studying other religions at Harvard Divinity School. The people he introduces us to in this book are real and rivetting, but none moreso than Ari Goldman himself. His book is genial but very honest. I believe it took real courage for him to share this story with the public.

This book provides an interesting taste of comparitive religion. As a Protestant Christian, I was grateful for the chance to glimpse other religions (and my own) through Orthodox Jewish eyes.

This is a gentle yet powerful tale of one man's intellectual and spiritual adventure which holds lessons for all of us. I can't do this book justice in a review...it' too deep and beautiful. Please have the pleasure of reading it for yourself.

I expected this story to be merely a recitation of "what grad school was like for me". Boy, was I happily surprised! I was raised in an Orthodox environment myself, and the author does a great job of relating what that is like, the good and the bad, and even showing that there are differences among the Orthodox. (However, I was shocked at his revelation that the Orthodox engage in pre-marital sex - this has not been my experence!) At any rate, he does a fantastic job showing how he not only learned about other religions at Harvard, but was moved by them. In particular, I loved his explanation of how he actively searched for (and ultimately found) a class on Christianity that explained the passion of Christians for their religion, rather than just some intellectual lectures on the New Testament. Another thing that floored me was his openness about his personal life: how his parents' divorce devastated him, and how he wrestled with pondering how he could pursue journalism while keeping all the tenets of Orthodox Judaism (it was his mother who was his biggest support!). I also loved how Orthodox Judaism was a way of life for him, and that he was so secure in it, that he really could go to Harvard and throw himself into the study of other religions. If you are curious about religions, this is an absolute must-read.

Ari Goldman, a New York Times Religion reporter, proposes a sabbatical leave to his editors. He wants to study at Harvard Divinity School for one year to improve his perspective on world religions, and add depth and knowledge to his articles concerning religion for the newspaper. When he arrives at Harvard, in the mid-1980s, he is surprised to find an eclectic mix of students, from all the major religions, debating about major issues of the day. His view of Harvard's Divinity school as uppity, straight-laced ministers is challenged with every new student he meets.

Goldman discusses his own religious life and spiritual memoirs. A yeshiva-educated Orthodox Jew, Goldman struggled in college with his career interests and his religious training. How could one keep kosher in a foreign country? How could one keep Sabbath when a huge news story breaks?

There are chapters in the book describing the major religions and the courses that Goldman took at the Divinity School to help him understand each. There are also chapters discussing Women in Religion, Orthodoxy, and other issues that modern religions encounter.

Goldman's writing style is very readable (no doubt because of his journalism background) and he writes with spirit. He does not hesitate to discuss trials and struggles that the people at the Divinity School have, or things that he struggles with himself.

I found Ari Goldman's book to be highly enjoyable and hard to put down. As a Christian, it helped me better understand Judaism, and it was refreshing to see someone like Goldman who stood by his religious convictions (e.g. Sabbath observances, dietary practices) while still actively interacting in society. It was also nice to see that the religion reporter from the New York Times would be willing to take a year's sabbatical in order to better understand the other religions he is asked to cover for his job. In a way, this work is like a book of comparative religions, only reported from a personalized viewpoint (which makes it eminently more readable than the dry, "objective" and depersonalized accounts so often offered to us in our book world.) Highly recommended.

This book mixes autobiography and a discussion of Goldman's classes and classmates at Harvard Divinity School. The autobiography part was well done: I definitely got a real sense of the author's background. (And I have to admit that I identify with Goldman's religious leanings, which made it easier).

However, I sensed that his discussion of Harvard and of other religions got crowded out by his autobiography; I came away hungry for a little more of the former than Goldman actually wrote.

Nevertheless, even his relatively shallow religious discussion contained a few provocative points here and there. I liked his comparison of Judaism (or by implication any religion) to a tree: just as a tree provides value even though it emerged from a tiny acorn, a religion is of value even if its origins are not what its adherents traditionally claim.

And I liked his examples of how, perhaps because Christianity is so familiar to most Harvard Divinity students, Harvard devalues traditional Christianity while being as generous as possible to other religions. (On the other hand I wonder if Goldman doesn't do the same. Because he was exposed to right-wing Orthodoxy in high school, when he sees it again as a suburban congregant he doesn't treat it quite as charitably as he treats other religions. He seems to dismiss every ideological quirk of his congregation as an example of pointless zealotry, rather than considering the possibility that their views may reflect either (a) a return to rules of Jewish law that his parents' generation ignored or (b) legitimate disagreements over "close calls" in Jewish law).

Mr. Goldman brings us with his young family to experience a year at Harvard Divinity School. I read this book for the first time more than ten years ago and have read it several times since then. He tells us stories about school and the people he meets and inter-twines them for us with stories of his growing up. For example, he remembers for us the story of his discovering as a young man, the importance of the Sabbath and says, "I had to decide the kind of life I wanted to live and live it." It's warm and loving and joyful.

I stumbled on this book by chance and found it very, very interesting. Anyone who is interested in Harvard, religion and/or journalism will love this book. Ari Goldman has a real flair for storytelling. He paints a wonderful picture of his childhood, growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family, and explains the struggles he faced in keeping his faith while pursuing a career in journalism. Read this book!

Someone gave this book to my wife for our old booksale at church and suggested that she might be interested in it. (She's an Episcopal priest.) She passed on the book but I was intrigued. Ari Goldman, a New York Times reporter, writes with immense skill and in a very appealing way about the difficulties and rewards of being a reporter and an observant Orthodox Jew, the burdens of growing up in a disfunctional family, and of his fascinating search for a deeper understanding of religion during a year long sabbitcal at the Harvard Divinity School. His portraits of his fellow students are wonderful. I strongly recommend this work. As he ends the book, he finds himself reading catalogues from rabbinical schools. I wonder if anything ever came of that. I would love to know.

My expectations for this book were very high; but as it turns out, there isn't much substance in what could have been an insightful book into the world's major religions.

The author repeatedly delves into Orthodox Judaism and tales of his parent's divorce. Very little meaningful insight into any other religion exists. Even when the author does attempt to give explanations of a particular religion, they are often far too overgeneralized to provide any real connection with its practitioners.

In the absence of informative content, the reader is presented with an endless series of stories that are more reminiscent of an adolescent's journal than the expert writings of a serious scholar of world religion.

As a semi-religious Jew engaged to a Catholic, we read this book together over the course of a few weeks. I had obtained it on the bargain rack of a Barnes & Noble in Vermont---where I'm sure most religious books end up there---just to skim, but found myself, and later my fiancee, enthralled by Mr. Goldman's journey.

This bi-partisan book---not often seen currently among NY Times writers---touches upon so many intriguing issues that it's surely worth your time. I wish more folks would take religion and marriage seriously, as divorces come from people who enter marriage/life cavalierly or try to "have both religions" which leads to total confusion and secularism.

Ari Goldman did a marvelous job with "The Search for G-d at Harvard" considering this was, after all, Hahvahd where the "intellectuals" today surely look down upon religion. I wonder what Ari's up to now? As a Jew, I wish there were more honest folks out there like him: pious, yet open-minded and objective.