The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism - Softcover

Danya Ruttenberg is a rabbi and author of Surprised By God and editor of the anthology Yentl’s Revenge. She serves as contributing editor to both Lilith and Women in Judaism. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

"The Passionate Torah is not a guidebook to & kosher sex, as Chabad emissary turned high-profile media figure Shmuley Boteach called one of his best-selling books, but rather an assemblage of eighteen essays that apply cutting-edge scholarship to the way the Jewish sources deal with subjects like birth control, homosexuality, premarital sex, niddah (the laws that separate a woman from her husband while she is menstruating), masturbation, and more." (Haaretz)

"Both thought-provoking and fun. The wide variety of approaches to a terrific list of topics ensures that every reader will come away with some fresh perspective on the Torah and sex." (Judith Plaskow,author of Standing Again at Sinai)

"These essays were chosen to expand the reader’s sense of what Judaism has to say on the subject of sex. Our understanding of Jewish sexuality needs to become as complex as the realities are." (Foward.com)

"The Passionate Torah carries out its goal of starting a new type of conversation about Jews and sexuality in the contemporary age." (Midwest Jewish Studies Assocation)

"It is not often that an academic title about religion stimulates other parts of the body as well as the mind. Yet that is what Ruttenberg, a rabbi, and the seventeen contributors to this collection of essays have accomplished. Ruttenberg, a wunderkind of Jewish feminism, leads the reader through an often racy reconsideration of what the sacred Jewish texts say about our most intimate relationships." (Publishers Weekly)

"A compendium of essays from leading Jewish and non-Jewish academics on topics ranging from masturbation to modesty . . . Yet despite the academic credentials of the authors who penned most of the books essays, Ruttenberg said that she designed The Passionate Torah with & the intelligent lay reader in mind" (The Harvard Crimson)

"The Passionate Torahbrings together brilliant thinkers in an attempt to bridge the gap between the sacred and the sexual." (JewishMediaReview)

"The Passionate Torah contains an interesting and curious mix of articles." (The Reporter)

"Danya Ruttenberg, a Conservative rabbi in her early thirties, is a leader of the effort to introduce the concerns of hipster Jews into the tradition." (Commentary Magazine)

"Jewish thinkers explore the intersection of Torah and sexuality in modern Jewish culture." (The Jewish Advocate)