Deborah Green is a woman of passionate contradictions--a rabbi who craves goodness and surety while wrestling with her own desires and with the sorrow and pain she sees around her. Her life changes when she visits the hospital room of Henry Friedman, an older man who has attempted suicide. His parents were murdered in the Holocaust when he was a child, and all his life he's struggled with difficult questions. Deborah's encounter with Henry and his family draws her into a world of tragedy, frailty, love, and, finally, hope

“What a pleasure it is to see such a serious and yet playful novel in this hot-button time for religion….
Not since E.L. Doctorow's "City of God" have we seen such a literary effort to plumb the nature of belief -- in Jewish-American culture, in Talmudic study, in prayer, in sexual relations, in the very soundness of one's own mind….
“Irreverent even in the midst of a reverent scene, like a Heller or a Roth complete with sardonic social commentary. Such moments suffuse "Joy Comes in the Morning.”

— The New York Times