When author Kelsey Osgood listens to the Book of Ruth on Shavuot, the biblical narrative has a special resonance for her.

Osgood, like Ruth, is a convert to Judaism — and like her ancient predecessor, Osgood’s decision to adopt the Jewish faith makes for a great story, which she recounts along with six other narratives in her new book, “Godstruck: Seven Women’s Unexpected Journeys to Religious Conversion.”

“Especially in my late 20s, in the lead-up to my conversion, I maintained a very romantic view of Ruth’s choice to pledge fealty to Naomi and to journey to Israel; this seemed to me to embody faith in its purest form,” Osgood told The Times of Israel, referring to the famous lines from Ruth 1:16, “Wherever you go, I will follow; wherever you dwell, I will reside. Your people will be my people and your God, my God.”

“But,” she added, “at the same time, I am now and have always been able to read this text with critical/historical perspectives, too, and to imagine the challenges Ruth must have faced as a woman in the ancient world and as a non-Israelite trying to assimilate into her new culture.”

The millennial women profiled in the book have defied common characterizations of their generation as increasingly secular, adopting a diverse array of faiths, including Catholicism and Islam, Quakerism, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the final chapter, Osgood discusses her own conversion to Orthodox Judaism a decade ago.

The women’s motivations were complex, even to them. As the author sought to find a parallel to their experiences, she found it in the biblical phrase “Na’aseh v’nishma,” which she translates as “We will do and we will listen,” a leap-of-faith statement uttered by the Israelites receiving the Ten Commandments at the foot of Mount Sinai.

“I’m pretty sure all of them had heard echoes of this in their own religious vision,” Osgood said. “They were drawn to something, felt meaning in something, and they couldn’t always explain why.”

She cited a consequence of this: “They care so much about a broader project, their relationship to God, that they do things that are even difficult or look weird to other people.” Yet, she continued, it was “important for them to connect in this way, to move forward in this. It’s a fair statement that they all have had that experience.”

As Osgood explains in the book’s introduction, she chose to highlight women’s experiences in part because “most religious converts are women.” Osgood devotes each chapter to one of the seven women while bringing in reflections from her own narrative. Throughout, she incorporates insights from historical thinkers such as Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and William James.

Osgood grew up in........

© The Times of Israel