Rabbi Brian's Highly Unorthodox Gospel : A guide to compassion, kindness, and love. For others.

by Brian Zachary Mayer

Weaving humor and scholarship, Rabbi Brian's Highly Unorthodox Gospel is a modern guide to compassion, kindness, and love. For others. (And self). Rabbi Brian—a genuine, actual ordained Jewish rabbi—left organized religion to teach high school math for seven years, which taught him about love and how to teach, He started a blog and his message got popular. He wrote about it in this unique book.

Scholarship + Fun + Theology = rB's HUG.

Genres: Audiobook

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 3, 2026

About the author

Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer (rB) is the executive director of Religion-Outside-The-Box, which he founded in 2006.

He left organized religion to teach Algebra 2 to inner-city kids at a Catholic school.

He loves writing mini biographies.

Reviews

[Louise Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can a book be both delightful and deeply meaningful? Yes! This Highly Unorthodox Gospel takes us on a journey of exploration with Rabbi Brian. Sometimes silly and fun, sometimes esoteric and very touching, I learned that being ‘religious’ doesn’t have to be painful or punishing or judgemental. With delightful stories and honest experiences Rabbi Brian takes us along, learning about kindness, compassion and love in our ordinary everyday lives. In these very challenging days this book was like a salve for my soul.

[John Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally getting around to giving you my full review of Rabbi Brian's Highly Unorthodox Gospel.

Great Book. Highly Recommend. Probably not for you if you are convinced that your particular flavor of religion is the only right one. But if you believe that the law of God is written on all our hearts (like it says in Deuteronomy, Psalms, Jeremiah, Romans and Hebrews) than you might like Rabbi Brian's take on things. And who can read our heart better than ourselves?

Rabbi Brian opens the book with several letters (this chapter is called "The Epistles") that he wrote to different people that needed spiritual encouragement. One in particular resonated with me. He was talking about the point in your faith journey when what had worked so well for so long starts to malfunction.

"At first, that knowledge was like an internal gear on an otherwise functional machine slipping, if only for a moment. You didn't know yet what was wrong, but you knew that something was off. Over time, you could not ignore the fact that your internal moral compass's magnetic north kept showing a different reading than what the church was telling you."

BOOM! That last sentence was me, 100%. Go read it again.

If you're reading this and you didn't read that last sentence again, stop now, and go back and read it. Thank you. If you got this far and you're still ignoring my request. It's ok. You do you. I'm not upset. I had to stick this in here because this is the kind of thing Rabbi Brian does in his book.

Rabbi Brian never tells you what the answers are to your spiritual questions. What he does do (and he does it well) is teach you to have grace for yourself on the journey, to trust yourself on the journey, and to take the journey. When it comes to your spiritual life, no other person - no pastor, no mentor, no internationally reknown guru - has more authority over your spiritual life than you. No one else knows your story or your heart better than you. You are the world's foremost authority on your spiritual life.

Basically, the goal of the book is to help the reader unlearn some of what we thought had to be true about religion, and to empower the reader toward more lovingkindness, as in loving with reckless abandon, for ourselves and for others.

It's a beautiful mixture of stories and teaching and encouragement.

I think you'll like it. Unless you already have spirituality and religion all figured out.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read 50-100 books a year, and this was fabulous. Seriously, one of the most enjoyable reads in a while. Rabbi Brian has a similar vibe as Leo Buscaglia who I also love, but with a little more edge and humor.

My family is Jewish, I was raised Jewish, I have been atheist for most of my life, and - after a wild series of events - I am on the verge of possibly returning to school for a DMin. This book didn't influence my decision, but it came at the right time.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a better person for having read this book and you can be too! A joyous romp through an irreverent reflection on God/ not God. I laughed. I cried. it was better than Cats. Rabbi Brian, you are a gem. thank you so much for taking the time to share your hard-earned and heartfelt insights on our journey to be in relationship with the Divine.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote this book. So, I'm kinda biased. I gave it 5 stars.

I hope you like it.

At least four stars.
If you buy the book (rabbibrian.com) and don't think it's four star worthy, I'll gladly refund your money and apologize for taking your time.

💙rB

[Cheryl Crotty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rate it 3.5. But it did get me thinking and I’ll probably think more about it in the days ahead.

[Brian Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I struggled to write this review because I wasn’t sure I could do this book justice. It is so moving, insightful, funny, thoughtful, sad, heartbreaking, and deeply loving. Any review I write risks sounding like a light, fluffy dessert—all sweetness and no substance. This book is not that.

[Brian Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rabbi Brian’s Highly Unorthodox Gospel reads as if Spinoza was written by George Carlin, or Maimonides by Jerry Seinfeld.

[Brian Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love so many things about this book, and that's an appropriate thought, because fundamentally this book is all about love. How to love, how to love more freely, and how to love more often.

[Brian Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me four years to write... who am I kidding, it took me 50+years.

It's really good to help people in the process of deconstruction of their childhood religion.

I've read it a few times.

It's delightful.

💙rB