Pretend You Believe: An Evening with Rabbi Noa Kushner
for the release of her new non-fiction book, PRETEND YOU BELIEVE: HOW
TO ENTER RELIGION
About this Event
From one of the country’s most visionary rabbis, a rediscovery of the potential for religious experience to transform contemporary life “Pretend You Believe offers an invitation into faith and ritual practice that both skeptics and seekers didn’t know they needed. . . . I loved this book and found wisdom on every page.” —Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, New York Times bestselling author of Heart of a Stranger
Many of us long for spiritual belonging and connection, only to run up against our
confusion and discomfort with organized religion. Noa Kushner understands this
well. As the founding rabbi of The Kitchen, a groundbreaking Jewish congregation in
San Francisco, she has helped thousands of people into a relationship with religion
they never thought they would or could experience.
In this concise, soul-stirring book, Kushner offers a picture of religion not as
something we design or consume, but as something we enter, just as we are.
What if we temporarily set aside statements of belief and instead approach religion as
something we do? Kushner proposes we can then pursue the profound questions
this perspective reveals. How is prayer supposed to work? Which comes first,
religion or ethics? Why should we be religious? Through imaginative storytelling and
a plainspoken, accessible teaching of Jewish sources, as well as hard-won lessons
from her own rabbinate, Kushner creates an elegant, thoughtful guide for anyone
who has wondered about the limits of today’s secular worldview and is curious about
what religion might have to offer.
Written in a Jewish idiom but open to readers of all backgrounds, Pretend You Believe is a powerful meditation on God and humanity, responsibility and forgiveness, love and doubt, progress and justice. With this book, Kushner has captured the wonder of religious feeling and inscribed an invitation to readers everywhere.
NOA KUSHNER is the founding rabbi of The Kitchen, a synagogue and institute in San Francisco whose approach to religion has become a model for communities worldwide. Devoted to religious access for all and committed to the beauty and depth of the tradition, The Kitchen is widely regarded as a way forward for Jewish and religious life today. Called a “measure of hope” in Haaretz and a “rabbi to watch” in Newsweek, Kushner has translated religious experiences and ideas for tens of thousands across the United States, Israel, and Paris. She is married to Rabbi Michael Lezak, and together they have three grown daughters, Zella, Bluma, and Minna.
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Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 5.15 to USD 42.84
