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

Niles Elliot Goldstein is the founding rabbi of The New Shul in New York City's Greenwich Village. He lectures widely on Jewish mysticism and spirituality and has served on the faculty of New York University and the Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion. Goldstein was the voice behind "Ask the Rabbi" on the Microsoft Network and can now be reached at "Ask Rabbi Goldstein" at www.ifaith.com. He is also the National Jewish Chaplain for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. His essays and poetry have appeared in Newsweek and many other publications, and he is the author or editor of four previous books.

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.

Publishers Weekly

Part travelogue, part autobiography, part religious history and part biblical commentary, this confused and confusing memoir describes a young rabbi's quest for authenticity. Now the rabbi of the New Shul, an unconventional, experimental congregation in Greenwich Village that appeals to intellectuals who have felt alienated by organized religion, Goldstein is also a police chaplain and the spiritual leader of a "cybersynagogue." In his latter capacity, he maintains a Web site where he responds to "Ask the Rabbi" questions. His work with the Drug Enforcement Administration has led to his appointment as the national Jewish chaplain for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. With endless digressions, Goldstein tries to explain how he reached his present positions by the tender age of 33. He begins with the dramatic story of his arrest for drunken behavior in a nightclub and proceeds to describe his journeys to faraway places, starting with a trip to Nepal that he made with his father before entering rabbinical studies in Israel. Other trips have taken him to Boston, Alaska, New Hampshire, Michigan, Africa and Central Asia. Each visit stimulates an excursion into religious history, both Jewish and Christian. Goldstein demonstrates great erudition, but his readers will be inevitably befuddled by his rapid shifts in place and time. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|