Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg to Discuss Repentance and Repair at the 2023 Judith Plaskow Lecture on Women and Religion and The Aquinas Lecture
On March 29, Ruttenberg will be the series keynote speaker addressing issues of philosophy, morality, feminism and religion.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, an award-winning author and writer, will deliver the Judith Plaskow Lecture on Women in Religion and The Aquinas Lecture on March 29 at 4:00 p.m. The event will be held in Hayden Hall, Room 100. 
The subject of the lecture will be "On Repentance and Repair: What Maimonides Can (and Can't) Teach Us About The Structural Change We So Desperately Need." Rabbi Ruttenberg is the author of On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World and serves as a Scholar-in-Residence at the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW). Her book was a National Jewish Book award winner and hailed by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley as “a must read for anyone navigating the work of justice and healing.”
Natalia Imperatori-Lee, Ph.D., chair of Religious Studies wrote that this year by combining the Plaskow and Aquinas lectures, the College community can anticipate a discussion that presents “Aquinas’ interreligious engagement in a feminist key.” Rabbi Ruttenberg’s talk will examine how the medieval philosopher Maimonides’ model of repentance and repair, focuses less on forgiveness, and more on the repair work the person who caused harm is obligated to do.
Rabbi Ruttenberg has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, and many other publications. Her other books include Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration and Boredom and Tears and Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting, which was a National Jewish Book Award finalist. She is also the author of Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion which was nominated for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature and The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism.
Newsweek named her as a “rabbi to watch” and the Center for American Progress chose Rabbi Ruttenberg as a “faith leader to watch.”
The lecture is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Religious Studies department, the Provost’s office and Catholic Studies. For more information, contact Natalia Imperatori-Lee, Ph.D., chair of religious studies at natalia.lee@manhattan.edu.