God at the Edge: Searching for the Divine in Uncomfortable and Unexpected Places - Softcover

Goldstein, Niles; Goldstein, Niles Elliot

Softcover

ISBN 10: 060980488X ISBN 13: 9780609804889

Publisher: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2001

Synopsis

Here is a book about adventure, raw experience, and facing inner demons. Niles Elliot Goldstein is a young rabbi who sets out to find God in tough and often scary situations: dogsledding above the Arctic Circle, taking the Silk Road into Central Asia without a visa, being chased by a grizzly bear, cruising with DEA agents through the South Bronx, and spending a night in jail in New York City's Tombs. He explores the connections between struggle and growth, fear and transcendence, and uncertainty and faith, seeking the boundary where the finite meets the Infinite.

Goldstein is not alone in making this kind of pilgrimage. There has always been a strong tradition of seekers who looked for revelation outside conventional religious settings and encountered God in moments of anguish, terror, and pain. Goldstein juxtaposes his own experiences with those of some of the great historical figures of Judaism and Christianity -- Jonah and St. John of the Cross, Moses Maimonides and Julian of Norwich, Nachman of Bratslav and Martin Luther -- as well as lesser known mystics and preachers, and he discovers, as they did, that it can sometimes take a journey to the edge to recognize God's presence in our lives.

About this title

Review

"Not everyone can find spiritual fulfillment in a place that feels inviting and safe, like a self-help book or a house of worship," writes Niles Elliot Goldstein, in the introduction to God at the Edge. Goldstein, the founding rabbi of The New Shul in New York City's Greenwich Village, begins his book by invoking "a long history of people discovering God in unexpected, unusual, sometimes even uncomfortable contexts." It's an appropriate setup for Goldstein's stories of his exotic pilgrimages, which have included dogsledding above the Arctic Circle, traveling the Silk Road in Central Asia, and cruising with federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents through the South Bronx. Revelation on the margins of human experience is, Goldstein explains, a central aspect of Jewish and Christian traditions: "Judaism was born in the wilderness of the desert, at the foot of a mountain, as a people cringed in terror. Christianity traces its origins to a man dying on a cross, crying out in doubt and despair." The stories in God at the Edge bristle with intelligence and wit. Goldstein's adventures are grander than those most of his readers will experience. But even the homebound will find inspiration in the example of his fearless exploration. --Michael Joseph Gross

From the Back Cover

"Wonderfully lively, engaging, and instructive -- a powerfully wrought spiritual evolution of a soul's journey toward faith narrated personally and tellingly."
-- Robert Coles, Pulitzer Prize-winner

"With engaging and absolute honesty, Goldstein tells the story of his arduous search for faith and writes with clarity, empathy, and insight about the Christian and Jewish mystics whose quest for enlightenment he himself so movingly emulates. He is a clear-eyed and intelligent seeker who knows that men and women find God in the shadow as often as in the light, in pain as much as in ecstasy."
-- Derek Lundy, author of Godforsaken Sea: Around the Globe        Alone Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters

"This is a book for a new generation of seekers, a book that is not afraid to venture into the darker dimensions of the spiritual life. Few today dare to tread where Goldstein has."
-- Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president, Jewish Life Network

"Real life is messy. Most books on spirituality try to clean it up or cover it up. This one is different. Goldstein takes us into the heart of the raw and savage moments of life and provides a much needed balance to the all too often pollyannaish pretensions of contemporary American spirituality."
-- Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro,        author of Minyan: Ten Principles for Living a Life of Integrity

"In this spiritual journey, real travels, vividly reported, are paired with lives and thoughts of religious figures, classical and marginal, to provoke the reader to think about what might constitute a vibrant religious life today."
-- Wayne Proudfoot, professor of religion, Columbia University

Edition details

• Publisher: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 060980488X
• ISBN 13: 9780609804889
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192