Nurture the Wow

Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting by Danya Ruttenberg

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Just when I'd given up on books about spirituality and parenting, I found Danya Ruttenberg's NURTURE THE WOW--a book with an unfortunately kitchy title and excellent content. Ruttenberg is a rabbi steeped in the mystical branches of Judaism. When two boys arrive, interrupting her prayer practice with their bodily needs and rosy-cheeked smiles, she suddenly sees her religious tradition as formed and developed by those not caring for dependents--in other words, by men.

"The idea that caring for children could be a core, crucial, even cornerstone aspect of one’s spiritual and religious life, that loving and caring for them should be integrated, somehow, into one’s spiritual and religious expression—well, it’s totally absent from [traditional Jewish law]. And this absence isn’t specific to Judaism. Rather, it’s the norm in a lot of corners of the religious world.
"I wonder how various religions traditions might have formulated their approaches to prayer (and everything else) if they had been thinking about the realities of parenting small children from the beginning. And I wonder what these traditions could look like if the questions, challenges, and types of thinking that parenting opens up were taken seriously and brought into the conversation, even at this late date."

Exactly what I wonder, daily. Ruttenberg leans on her rich, Kabbalistic tradition and draws from the wisdom of daily experience to begin this conversation. A few of her angles in? The practice of listening to and responding to a baby's needs as preparation for heeding God. The covanental relationship we have with our children, in which we have dominion over their world and we agree to be radically changed by their presence. Acts of love for our children NOT as practice for God but AS the experience of loving God. The desperate longing we feel for our children as an expression of our longing for the divine. This isn't dimestore spirituality; Ruttenberg is grappling with the heavyweight questions of embodiment, the formation and loss of self, and on-the-ground spiritual practice.

My only criticism of this book is that it's based entirely on the early years of parenting. I want Ruttenberg to write part two in 15 years, when her boys are on their own (perhaps) and her spirit has endured the trials and formations of the teen years. We need both books; we need many more books like these, that bring the messy, demanding, embodied experiences of loving young humans to bear on our religious and spiritual wisdom traditions. Look for mine in another decade.




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Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting