Healing from Despair: Choosing Wholeness in a Broken World
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Author: Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz
Publisher: Jewish Lights
Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1580234364
ISBN 13: 978-1580234368
The suffering that brings you to despair and even desperation can―with healing―become a source of hope, purpose and blessing.
Are you:
Feeling anxious?
Feeling depressed because of the loss of health, a relationship or a job?
Grieving the loss of a loved one?
Grieving loss by a suicide?
Feeling hopeless?
Concerned about a friend who has suicidal thoughts?
This wise and helpful guide explores the nature of personal suffering and brokenness and the potential for personal crisis as a source of strength and renewal instead of despair and death. Examining the personal journeys of biblical and historical figures such as Moses, Maimonides, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Buber―as well as the author's own personal experience with despair―it looks at brokenness as an inescapable element of the human condition. It traces the path of suffering from despair to depression to desperation to the turning point―healing―when first-hand knowledge of suffering can be transformed into blessing.
Review
"A deft blend of the personal and the theological, a book to lift souls and even to save lives."
―Rabbi Harold Kushner, author, When Bad Things Happen to Good People
"Wisdom of the heart and of the head…. A book for those who struggle with depression, and for those who live with those who struggle with depression. In short, for many, many of us."
―Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author, A Code of Jewish Ethics and Jewish Literacy
"Rich with honesty and wisdom…. Gets to the heart of the human experience of prolonged despair and the possibilities for healing. Gentle, learned and insightful … provides kind and solid company for anyone seeking guidance, perspective and hope when the world comes crashing in."
―Rabbi Nancy Flam, cofounder, National Center for Jewish Healing; codirector, Programs, Institute for Jewish Spirituality
About the Author
Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz is the author of Healing from Despair: Choosing Wholeness in a Broken World and Does the Soul Survive? A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives & Living with Purpose (both Jewish Lights). A spiritual leader and scholar specializing in topics of spirituality and Judaism, he teaches, writes and speaks to a wide range of audiences. He has served as the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Tustin, California, for more than a decade and is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly Committee of Law and Standards.