Rating: 
Summary: A painful, yet beneficial read...
Review: Girl Meets G-d is one woman's fascinating and moving spiritual autobiography. Lauren F. Winner's journey is one of conversion to Orthodox Judaism to a later conversion to Christianity not long thereafter. While I have enormous respect for Christianity and in fact consider it to be a leading force for goodness and a precious last hope for morality and decency in America today, it saddens me a great deal whenever I learn of a fellow Jew abandoning our beautiful faith and heritage for any religion, be it Christianity or otherwise.
As such, her story is painful for me to read, but somehow I can't stop turning the pages. Many of Lauren's spiritual observations and struggles transcend any particular faith. I even found that I related with the author in many ways.
Like my own, Lauren's teen years were characterized by a passionate immersion in Orthodox Judaism. She notes, "Either these laws were true or they were not true. Either G-d revealed all this stuff to Moses on Mount Sinai or He didn't. If He did, then we're bound by it, all of it, every last word, every syllable, every letter...Either there was no Judaism or there was Orthodox Judaism." I would tend to agree with that assessment, opting for the latter part of the previous sentence, that is.
I personally connected with Lauren in that many chapters deal with directly or allude to her deep affinity with reading. The role of books in Lauren's spiritual development is momentous. Indeed, one of the questions in the reader's guide states: "Lauren readily admits to being a bookworm. What role do books and reading play in her spiritual development? How have books been important in your own life?" That is not a difficult question to answer and it was practically eery reading of Lauren's love affair with books and authors only because I relate with her so much.
Describing her teen years, Lauren writes, "I read and read and read. The Christmas wish-lists I presented to my mother each year were nothing but titles of books to be ordered from a well-stocked Jewish book store in Maryland...I read about Jewish history, Jewish ritual, Jewish law...But mostly I read about Orthodox Judaism...I read every novel Chaim Potok had written." I am 19 and Lauren's words pretty much sum up a chunk of my last six years- a serious engagement in reading Jewish books of many themes. Also, when Chaim Potok passed away two years ago, I can imagine that Lauren took the loss somewhat personally. I know I did.
Later on, in the chapter On Rebuilding a Jewish Library, Lauren discusses her move to Charlottesville as a girl. Her room contained twenty bookcases, taking up a whole wall, and one of her "favorite activities, all through middle school and high school, was arranging and rearranging [her] books." Lauren, the bookcases in my room also take up an entire wall and rearranging my books also constitutes one of my favorite activities! However, I also carry an obsession with sniffing my books, one that developed in middle school. In this chapter, Lauren describes an unusual dilemma for an eighth grader. Her mother gives her five dollars to walk to the mall and buy pizza for dinner. There is one slight problem- there is a bookstore nearby. "Buy the pizza, or go hungry and buy a book?" Quite a weighty dilemma indeed. (For the record, Lauren buys a $4.50 copy of Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, by Gershom Scholem, the book that made the last crack of Lauren's first shelf of books devoted entirely to Judaica content. Go Lauren! You made the right choice!)
I got a great kick out the chapter Albemarle Pilgrimage, wherein Lauren discovers that Jan Mitford, a woman whose novels played a pivotal role in Lauren's faith, moves to Lauren's hometown of Charlottesville. Lauren and her mother depart on a mission, a pilgrimage to hunt Karon down. "Embarrassment and all, I have something of a schoolgirl crush on Jan Karon." No need to be embarrassed Lauren. Sometimes I worry if I also have crushes on those exceptionally influential authors in my life. Indeed, I was in ecstasy when two such authors and rabbis came to my city last year to lecture. Anyway, this chapter was absolutely hilarious.
One of the many Christian rituals about which I learned through reading Girl Meets G-d is that of Lent, a period of self-restraint commenced on Ash Wednesday. Take a wild guess what Lauren, at the prodding of her spiritual leader Miland, reluctantly decides to give up for lent.... reading! That's right. Lauren engages in a "reading fast." You get the idea.
I can't possibly imagine any Christian for whom this book wouldn't serve an important dual purpose- encouragement in the process of spiritual growth and struggle, and secondly, a unique glimpse into Christianity's parent religion, Judaism, as lived through one of its adherents prior to her conversion to Christianity. The reader will find more than just insight into Judaism, but an attempt of reconciliation by the author. Lauren unabashedly admits she misses Judaism. I was shaken and confused by this enigmatic passage in the chapter Holocaust Fantasies, "I declare that I am a Jew and go, calmly, wherever it is they are sending the Jews, to whatever tortures and death camps they have dreamed up this time. This fantasy is also a test, a test of the church, but more a test of me, of who I am, and where, finally, my loyalties lie, and where, finally, I live."
There is much Jews can learn from this book too, namely, to follow the Torah's command to love the convert. Two chapters in the book possess the same title, Conversion Stories. In the first, Lauren discusses what drew her to Orthodox Judaism and then later to Christianity. It is the story of these two conversions. The second chapter Conversion Stories is difficult for a Jew to read, for Lauren painfully discusses the process of her alienation from Judaism, in no small measure attributable to the deplorable behavior of fellow Jews. At Columbia, Lauren found herself snubbed by many Orthodox Jews from birth who felt it necessary to constantly remind Lauren of her convert status. The act of belittling or even merely reminding a convert or baal teshuva (Jewish born returnee to Judaism) of his/her previous background is a most grievous sin, but that was irrelevant to the "lots of Sarahs, lots of pretty Orthodox girls who snubbed me, the convert." And then there was Hank Hirschfeld who told Lauren he could never marry her because she was a convert, and then there was her "college boyfriend's mother," from whom Lauren also experienced similar vibes. As I read all this, I cringe, wondering where Lauren would be today if her fellow Jews actually observed the Torah's strict command to love the convert and welcome him/her without compromise. Lauren was involved in a New York materialistic version of modern-Orthodoxy and as she is forced to note, "Maybe life would have been different in New Haven or Harvard Square or Mea Shearim or a Williamsburg corner of Brooklyn." One can only wonder. As I read, I become angry at Lauren's Jewish schoolmates who snubbed her. If not for them, if not for their shallowness and pain caused through speech, perhaps Lauren would still be an Orthodox Jew. I wonder where Lauren would be today if the world she immersed herself following her conversion to Judaism was not one of a university materialistic modern-Orthodox lifestyle, but one of the Yeshiva/Chassidic world. It makes me very sad as I reflect upon this monumental loss to the Jewish community.
Lauren often compares her early dabbling in Christianity and separation from Judaism in terms of having an affair and filing for divorce. When Lauren stopped going to synagogue as frequently and ceased to be strictly observant of Orthodoxy's strict modest dress code known as tznius, her friends never once said anything along the lines of, "'Hey, just checking up on you. Is something up? Is something the matter? Or harsher, 'Lauren you know, shul. You really need to be there.' I was part of their religious body. Saying those things was there job." There was Lauren's college roommate Beth, never approaching Lauren about her slide from Judaism, instead displaying a nonjudgmental pluralistic attitude. But sometimes we have to be "judgmental". Not judgmental in the sense of rendering judgment on one's fellow man in his standing with G-d, but only judgmental in the sense of showing concern for the spiritual welfare of one's fellow man. This is another lesson I draw from the book. These are questions that should have been asked to Lauren by her community.
As I read this section, I want so badly that Lauren make the marriage with Judaism work. Marriage is a life time commitment, and while divorce is sometimes a last necessary but always tragic recourse, it comes not without much, much effort, perhaps even many years of attempting to save the marriage, putting one's entire being into that effort.
Regarding Lauren's conversion to Christianity and her baptism, I can only recall the words of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "The Jews do not recognize the act of conversion to another faith. Once a Jew, always a Jew. All the baptism water in the world will not wash away a Jew's indestructible and millenia-old identity." Just as Lauren now surely prays that all of humanity becomes her "brothers and sisters in Christ," I pray that Lauren comes home to Torah true Judaism. Lauren remains my sister as a fellow Jew. That cannot change and I fervently pray that she return home to our precious Jewish heritage.
To conclude this review, one of my favorites anecdotes in the book is that of Lauren as a kindergartner stealing a quarter from her teacher Mrs. Smith's desk. Lauren came back to the school, returned the quarter, and apologized to Mrs. Smith, who remarked, "It was probably not a very easy thing to do, to come back to school in the middle of your afternoon and give me this quarter. I am very grateful that you did. I forgive you for taking my quarter." Lauren beautifully writes about the incident, "I think G-d is a little like Mrs. Smith. I think He forgives us the way Mrs. Smith did: only a fool, G-d, or a saintly kindergarten teacher would allow a known, convicted, desk-drawer thief to tidy her desk not seven days after the first crime. Mrs. Smith did, though, because she believed repentance had been done. I was truly sorry, she had truly forgiven me, and that was all there was to it."
A most true transcendent spiritual observation -one of many to be found in Lauren F. Winner's book- indeed.
Rating:
Summary: "girl meets God": An Inspiring Book for the Soul
Review: "girl meets God", a Memoir, is first the story of an extraordinary woman, Lauren Winner, who has explored two faiths with devotion and courage. Lauren Winner is the daughter of a Southern Baptist mother and a Jewish father, and was raised as a Reform Jew. During college, she converted to Orthodox Judaism and then, to Christianity. Her story is filled with the challenges that such changes imply, from dealing with family and old friends, to presenting herself anew to the world. The book is a collection of stories, and follows a religious chronology articulated around the Christian and Jewish calendars of one year. However, even if the book appears to be the story of one year, it is in fact a lifetime story condensed in one "religious" year. One should keep this in mind in order not to be confused with the real (temporal) chronology of events. "girl meets God" is also a book about tolerance. One will learn a lot of things about Judaism, and what Judaism and Christianity have in common. Lauren is an excellent teacher and conveys an original way of thinking in this regard. Moreover, although Lauren has finally chosen to be a Christian, her book is not about converting the reader to Christianity or proving the Christian faith's victory over her. Her story shows that Christianity is not the only right spiritual path in one's life. Her story is above all, a story about God. And that is how, finally, "girl meets God" is a book for EVERYONE. It does not matter that one has nothing in common with Lauren, one surprisingly relates to her story, and recognizes oneself in her interrogations and aspirations. Lauren just found the words for you. This book is a great companion for everyone who wishes to undertake (or re-undertake) a spiritual journey in order to make more sense of their lives. "girl meets God": An Inspiring Book for the Soul.
Rating: 
Summary: For a Christian Reading List
Review: As I wade through the positive reviews here it's obvious that Christians tend to embrace anything Christian. And by Christian I mean in this case evangelical Christians or former-Orthodox-Jew-turned-Anglican kind of Christians. For me, it was a story by a very smart girl trying to find acceptance and some meaure of fame in a religion and clearly by her position in the Christian community she has now has found it. But the longings for Orthodox Judaism were something I found incredibly revealing about her journey.
Rating: 
Summary: Girl meets God?
Review: Compared to other confessions on my reading list of late, including those by Augustine, Tolstoy, and Lewis, what I find to be among the strengths of Winner's work are that it was recently written (i.e. the book is "modern" and easily accessible to readers of pop culture works on best seller lists), and she does not seem to be afraid about revealing her thoughts and life experiences. Winner does a decent job of attempting to communicate to those unfamiliar with some of the more basic scriptural texts. In addition, Winner does a good job of informing readers about quite a number of Jewish holidays and traditions. I myself found some of her digressions rather fascinating. Although not a purely secular text, because it is obvious that Lauren Winner attempts to discuss her spiritual journey here, upon reading this book it is very difficult to determine what the spiritual life of this writer is like. At many select points throughout the book, Winner does seem to understand the Gospel, and it is within these portions of the book, apart from many of the disconnected thoughts contained throughout the rest of the book, that one might find God. For example, within the chapter entitled "Eastertide", Winner says that "confession isn't just about absolution. It's not some kind of antinomian free-for-all, where, since we know Christ has already forgiven us, we can just keep sinning. The change, I think, that conversion gradually effects on your heart is this: you come, over some stretched-out time, to want to do the things that God wants you to do, because you want to be close to Him. So the point is not just to be forgiven, it is to be transformed". Note that, throughout the text, Winner is very humble in her explanations of Christian beliefs; as she notes in the chapter entitled "Pentecost", she is "just barely grammar-school age in Christian years".
Rating:
Summary: Challenging
Review: Excellent book! Ms. Winner is a complex, highly intellegent woman whose writing kept me engrossed in her journey to Christianity via Judaism. Spiritually, she challenged me to examine my beliefs about god and Christianity, and though I didn't always agree with her rather black and white view of how to be a good Christian or Episcopalian, I always admired her for her belief and for striving to achieve that unatainable ideal.
Rating:
Summary: Reading this book feels like chatting with a good friend
Review: First of all, let me say that you should read this book if you like good writing. Lauren Winner is a young woman, but she sure can wield a pen! Her writing is poetic. In Girl Meets God, we follow her through her Jewish upbringing to her eventual conversion to Christianity. She is never preachy. But as she tells her story, you'll learn a lot about both Judaism and Christianity. But the best part of this book is that you'll feel like you made a new friend. Lauren is so engaging that as I didn't feel like I was reading a book--I felt like I was sitting in a coffeeshop with a girlfriend from colllege! I can't wait to read it again.
Rating:
Summary: Many things, but not a teen book
Review: Girl Meets God is difficult to categorize because it is several books in one. It is a personal memoir, a devotional book, a study of the sad tension between Judaism and Christianity, a commentary on Scripture, a reflection on sacrament and liturgy, a look at the often slow process of conversion, and a celebration of reading (the author being a confirmed bookaholic). An unlikely book to pick up-you're likely to find it wrongly placed in the Teen section of your bookstore-yet hard to put down. Winner's first effort (a second, Mudhouse Sabbath, is about Jewish traditions) offers brilliant spiritual insight throughout. A sign of a good book is when you keep thinking about it after you put it down. If the adage that readers make good writers is true, it applies here. Winner is a gifted wordsmith and wise beyond her youth. The pace is happily fragmented, not always chronological, spiritual, and down-to-earth at the same time. Winner is a free-thinker, so her writing departs from the typical style of devotional books. Her story reinforces the truism that believers are works-in-progress, and God's steady inward grace is on display as she shares her faults, struggles, and lessons learned on her journey. "My life is like a disciple's nap in Gethsemene." She lives with a distinctly Hebraic-tinged grace: "I hadn't given up the shape in which I saw the world, or the words I knew for God, and those shapes and words were mostly Jewish." The daughter of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and raised Jewish, Winner learned that she had to formally convert to Judaism, which she did...but gradually she is drawn to Jesus and another conversion. Winner wasn't entirely embraced by the Jewish community (yet I wonder if those who rejected her knew as much about Judaism), which perhaps was a factor that led her to Jesus, although she makes it clear that her faith came not by one influence or event but rather by many factors. Another amazon.com reviewer calls Lauren Winner the perfect dinner guest. She is without question someone who would provide a substantive discussion of life, books, faith, and struggle. Trained at Columbia and Cambridge universities, and a contributing editor for Christianity Today, she is now pursuing her Doctorate. The title and cover may be mistaken for a teen devotional, but this is a book for serious Christian disciples and devout Jews who may want to consider Winner's love affair with both Orthodox Judaism and Christianity.
Rating:
Summary: Many things, but not a teen book
Review: Girl Meets God is difficult to categorize because it is several books in one. It is a personal memoir, a devotional book, a study of the sad tension between Judaism and Christianity, a commentary on Scripture, a reflection on sacrament and liturgy, a look at the often slow process of conversion, and a celebration of reading (the author being a confirmed bookaholic). An unlikely book to pick up-you're likely to find it wrongly placed in the Teen section of your bookstore-yet hard to put down. Winner's first effort (a second, Mudhouse Sabbath, is about Jewish traditions) offers brilliant spiritual insight throughout. A sign of a good book is when you keep thinking about it after you put it down. If the adage that readers make good writers is true, it applies here. Winner is a gifted wordsmith and wise beyond her youth. The pace is happily fragmented, not always chronological, spiritual, and down-to-earth at the same time. Winner is a free-thinker, so her writing departs from the typical style of devotional books. Her story reinforces the truism that believers are works-in-progress, and God's steady inward grace is on display as she shares her faults, struggles, and lessons learned on her journey. "My life is like a disciple's nap in Gethsemene." She lives with a distinctly Hebraic-tinged grace: "I hadn't given up the shape in which I saw the world, or the words I knew for God, and those shapes and words were mostly Jewish." The daughter of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and raised Jewish, Winner learned that she had to formally convert to Judaism, which she did...but gradually she is drawn to Jesus and another conversion. Winner wasn't entirely embraced by the Jewish community (yet I wonder if those who rejected her knew as much about Judaism), which perhaps was a factor that led her to Jesus, although she makes it clear that her faith came not by one influence or event but rather by many factors. Another amazon.com reviewer calls Lauren Winner the perfect dinner guest. She is without question someone who would provide a substantive discussion of life, books, faith, and struggle. Trained at Columbia and Cambridge universities, and a contributing editor for Christianity Today, she is now pursuing her Doctorate. The title and cover may be mistaken for a teen devotional, but this is a book for serious Christian disciples and devout Jews who may want to consider Winner's love affair with both Orthodox Judaism and Christianity.
Rating:
Summary: If you want to make a new friend, read this book
Review: Girl Meets God tells the story of one woman's journey into the church. Having grown up Jewish, Lauren converts to Christianity after college. She then embarks on a process both to understand the ongoing place of Judaism in her life, but also, simply, to understand what it means to be a Christian and to find her palce in the church. She is full of wonder about Christianity, enthusiastic and enraptured. But she also has doubts and questions, and sometimes she slips up. Her honest, personal voice makes this book so much more than an ordinary memoir or an ordinary book about religion. I really felt like I got to know Lauren, that when I opened this book a friend was sitting down to have coffee in my kitchen and we were talking about intimate things. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Winner's Thoughtful Book is a Captivating Read
Review: How does a woman passionate about the Jewish faith suddenly find Jesus? "I have spent my whole life...seeking God," writes Lauren Winner, and here, a 20-something, self-confessed "boy crazy, pointy-headed academic" shares the quirky path of her spiritual journey from Judaism to Christianity in this compelling book. As she unfolds her spiritual pilgrimage, she acknowledges "A literature scholar would say there are too many 'ruptures' in the 'narrative.' But she might also say that ruptures are the most interesting part of any text, that in the ruptures we learn something new." Her story, with all its "ruptures," makes for absorbing reading. As the child of a Reform Jewish father and a lapsed Southern Baptist mother, Winner grew up with both a Christmas tree and a menorah. Her parents raised her in the Jewish faith, and she details how she embraced Orthodox Judaism in college. "But, gradually my Judaism broke," she writes. Although Winner is a scholar, with degrees from Columbia and Cambridge universities, she found the spark for her conversion to Christianity in a surprising book: After reading AT HOME IN MITFORD by Jan Karon, "I thought, 'I want what they have,' " she admits somewhat abashedly. She found herself "courted by a very determined carpenter from Nazareth," one who haunted her dreams. This conversion, just several years after her former wholehearted conversion to Orthodox Judaism, caused some acquaintances to be skeptical that Christianity would stick: they wondered aloud if she would convert again to something else. And indeed Winner, like most honest Christians, finds that as much as she is at home now in her new faith, she is still plagued by doubt: "Sometimes, lately, I feel a sort of sinking staleness...this isn't working, I don't believe this Christian thing anymore, this is just some crazy fix I've been on...." But she also realizes about her Christianity that "How to fall in love is not, now, what I need to learn. What I need to learn, maybe what God wants me to learn, is the long grind after you've landed." It is in the "long grind" that Winner finds she cannot divorce Judaism, hard as she tries: giving away and selling her Jewish library, eating forbidden foods, trading in her Hebrew prayer book for the Episcopal BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. When you convert, Winner writes, you lose all sorts of things: your vocabulary, your prayers, and many special relationships. As Winner tries to adapt to the Christian liturgical calendar, she finds her life still flowing in the rhythms of the Jewish holidays. Even as she gives away the trappings of her Jewish life, she finds she has not given up the way she sees the world, or the Jewish words she knew for God. With resolve, it seems, to master every aspect of her new faith, Winner grapples with all of its accoutrements: confession, giving up reading for Lent, finding a church, taking the Eucharist, trying to be chaste. She puzzles over the idea of "speaking in tongues"; struggles with prayer ("I have a hard time praying. It feels, usually, like a waste of time"). Most compelling are her clear-eyed observations of her own shortcomings as she grows in her Christianity and her willingness to be vulnerable with the reader. She refuses to sugarcoat her experiences; rather, she offers frank and perceptive commentary on how real faith --- Jewish or Christian --- looks, with all its bumps and bruises. As she plumbs the rituals and disciplines of both faiths, there is the unspoken invitation to Christians to examine the Jewish roots of their beliefs. Her rebuilding of her Jewish library metaphorically shows her burgeoning realization that she can welcome her Jewishness as it shapes how she sees Christianity, how she reads the Bible, how she thinks about Jesus --- and that this is the way forward. Winner's thoughtful book, full of the longing, doubt, humor and poignancy that can accompany a search for God, is a captivating read and builds bridges for dialogue for all readers, no matter what their faith. --- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby
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