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Who reads Life is a Sacred Text, besides you

From the 2025 reader survey, what readers say about Life is a Sacred Text: "“[Life is a Sacred Text] touches parts of me that are like damaged nerves - sometimes numb, sometimes tender, sometimes hurting but always needing to be touched to draw the blood closer, bringing nutrients for healing.” “Your social justice advice is no joke. Those steps you laid out a while back have really sustained and grounded me through this mess of a year.”
Part of what's really staggering about this community of over 34,000 people and growing is that there really are folks from so many perspectives here.

All the quotes and data from our 2025 Readers' Survey.


tl;dr there's plenty of room for you at this party.

  • "LiST is such a warm, inclusive, no-pressure way to learn and grow at my own pace."
  • "I find LiST to be a great source of wisdom and comfort week to week, especially in contrast to my habits of doomscrolling on news sites and social media."
  • "I like things that nudge me out of knee-jerk and routinized thinking. You do that superbly."
  • "It really helps affirm that there is a place for me in Judaism."
Pie Chart: Forced Choices: Who's Reading, from the 2025 LiST Readers' Survey. Roughly half Jewish and not Jewish, with carve-outs in the Jewish space for "in the process of conversion," "considering conversion," and "from an interfaith family and still trying to figure out what Jewishness means to you (fwiw I, RDR, think you're valid and that you can just click "Jewish" if you want.) Yes, this is how I worded these questions on the survey.
From the 2025 reader survey: “As a Catholic converted from Baptist,I find so many things in LiST that speak to and nourish me. A good friend who is a retired nun feels the same.” “From this nonbinary agnostic American immigrating to Europe in the next few months, your faith and sharing has given me hope when I felt hopeless and unmoored. Thank you.” “You challenge me as a Jew and as a human and it feels good to be stretched in that way.”
  • "I come here for is your consistent, powerful use of Torah to remind us to step up and resist the oppression of the most vulnerable in our society."
  • "The idea that I (non-Jew) can wrestle with texts as a PART of my religiosity rather than as a step towards religiosity (i.e I must overcome feeling disturbed by the 10th plague to be religious) has been revolutionary."
  • "With the current political situation, I'm rethinking my plans for the future and generally how to act ethically, and appreciate the essays both about current affairs, and about historical people wrestling with the same problems. Generally, I've found LiST a valuable part of my media diet in These Times."
  • "[LiST] has been one of the most instrumental tools in helping me navigate my relationship with my faith. Truly, this has been my pathway to God."
Pie Chart, If You're Jewish, Are You: Roughly a third each of respondents say they're part of what they'd call alternative or fringe Jewish culture, part of mainstream Jewish culture, and not connected to community, and wishes they could find something that felt like home. A small percentage of respondents are Jewish clergy, and the remaining 20% answered, , (yes, this was how it was phrased on the survey), LiST is the Jewiest thing you’ve got going on now; that’s PLENTY ok)
From the 2025 reader survey: “You remind me that I can do something more than just survive all of this.” “LiST is such a warm, inclusive, no-pressure way to learn and grow at my own pace - it really helps affirm that there is a place for me in Judaism.” “You have utterly altered how I engage with Scripture."

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  • "You have a way - and it's of great value - of not dissing the past and traditions while offering new information and perspective and stating the imperative that we acknowledge what's true and take responsibility."
  • "Reading your blog/newsletter made me fall in love with Judaism again!"
  • "The deeper exploration of the Bible – especially in the feminist and queer context – has opened my eyes in a world where the Bible is used a lot to exclude people and narrow the world. This is really heartening to me."
  • "Having pretty much stopped doing anything "religious"/spiritual for years, I have this small space in my life for the spiritual again."
  • "I’ve often struggled back and forth with belief in God, and also have a long-time interest in the Bible and the Abrahamic faiths despite being secular in recent years. (For context, I’m a South Asian-American queer woman who was raised in a Muslim family in the US.) Reading this site has played a role in my feeling that the Bible is a text that I can engage with and there is a pathway to belief and religious tradition that can be feminist."
One last pie chart! A little over a third of readers are Christian layfolk;
From the 2025 reader survey: “With relentless love and a deeply informed perspective, Rabbi Ruttenberg’s trusted voice regularly illuminates the world we co-create—especially corners we wouldn’t, couldn’t, or perhaps prefer to not see—and gives spiritual weight to our responsibilities in it.” “This newsletter helps me feel connected to the community as Black queer woman... [it] helps me feel less isolated and invisible in the Jewish community.”
  • "I appreciate how much you are willing to share about your traditions, and how open you are to the beliefs of others. I also appreciate your consistent focus on accountability and taking real action against injustice. It is a balm to my soul to hear someone demanding us all to practice what we preach every day."
  • "You had me at Big Bigness vs. Angry Sky Daddy...I learned a lot from observing how you led LiST discussions, and provided guidelines for the group, regarding respect for others, appropriate boundaries, and owning mistakes. Your writing and social justice action are practical role models for learning, doing, and growing by embodying the pursuit of peace and justice in my own life."
  • "LiST has helped me to feel more confident about the space within Judaism for me as someone from a secular, very assimilated Jewish family coming to religious Judaism as an adult. You have opened up possibilities for how religion can be a source of strength in my life."

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