Ear­li­er this week, Theodore Ross wrote about the Man­hat­tan eruv and a revi­sion for his paper­back. He has been blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing.

One of the strange, but nice, things that come from pub­lish­ing a book is that peo­ple start to take you seri­ous­ly — with cer­tain excep­tions. Large­ly as a result of my hav­ing writ­ten Am I a Jew? I was invit­ed to teach a class on reli­gious jour­nal­ism at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Jour­nal­ism Insti­tute. This has been a fun and chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence for me as some­one with a full time job as an edi­tor of Men’s Jour­nal mag­a­zine, a book cur­rent­ly on the shelves, and a third child, who is just a month old.

The stu­dents in my class are all bright, ambi­tious, and sophis­ti­cat­ed. They are at the grad­u­ate lev­el, which means they can write, under­stand report­ing, and want to engage with the world in a seri­ous way. I find myself hum­bled to think that they show up once a week to hear me talk about telling sto­ries that involve reli­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. I also find myself pret­ty impressed with me. NYU! Grad­u­ate stu­dents! I must be doing some­thing right, no?

Well, there is one group of peo­ple in my life not quite as impressed — my fam­i­ly. Each and every one of them — my wife first and fore­most — have had the same reac­tion to learn­ing I would be teach­ing this class. Reli­gious jour­nal­ism? Try to hear the tone of increduli­ty reach across gen­ders and gen­er­a­tions from my wife to my moth­er to my father to my broth­er and beyond. A big shot! Mr. Expert on God, here.

This is how we keep a head from grow­ing inflated.

Theodore Ross is the author of Am I a Jew?: Lost Tribes Lapsed Jews, and One Man’s Search for Him­self. His writ­ing has appeared in the pages (print and elec­tron­ic) of the New York Times, Harper’s Mag­a­zine, theAtlantic, Tablet, Saveur, Tin House, and a vari­ety of oth­er jour­nals and news­pa­pers. He is also the arti­cles edi­tor ofMen’s Jour­nal mag­a­zine.

Theodore Ross is the author of Am I a Jew?: Lost Tribes Lapsed Jews, and One Man’s Search for Him­self. His writ­ing­has appeared in the pages (print and elec­tron­ic) of the New York Times, Harper’s Mag­a­zine, the Atlantic, Tablet, Saveur, Tin House, and a vari­ety of oth­er jour­nals and news­pa­pers. He is also the arti­cles edi­tor of Men’s Jour­nal mag­a­zine, and per the typ­i­cal require­ments, lives in Brook­lyn with his wife and children.

Look­ing Up in New York

Revi­sions for the Paperback

Mr. Expert on God