Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness
Product Description: In Sacred Therapy Estelle Frankel travels to the heart of Jewish mysticism to reveal how people of any faith can draw upon this rich body of teachings to gain wisdom, clarity, and a deeper sense of meaning in the midst of modern life. In an engaging and accessible style, Frankel brings together tales and teachings from the Bible, the Talmud, Kabbalah, and the Hasidic traditions as well as evocative case studies and stories from her own life to create an original, inspirational guide to emotional healing and spiritual growth.
Subjects: Judaism, Non-Christian religions, Religion & Beliefs, Religion, Religion - Judaism, Judaism - Rituals & Practice, Religion / Judaism / Beliefs, Practices, Rituals,
Insightful and more
This book is kindling for an epiphany! I had to put this book down more than 5 times and wrap my mind around what I'd just read and how profound it was for me. I found this book fresh and very insightful ( your mileage may vary ).
awesome book!
Everytime I read this book, it helps me deal with stress and setbacks that I am going through. I am buying several copies as gifts, it is helpful to most people to help them learn how to deal with everyday life disappointments and to learn to grow, to heal and evolve into the best we can be.
A Life-Changing Experience
This book shifted my view of my life. My Jewish background is very rich in knowledge, learning and practice. Yet this book changed me in very meaningful ways. Estelle Frankel discusses her own life, her struggles and insights in such a generous and giving manner that it's as though she's giving the reader a gift, the gift of inviting you to gently examine your own life, your own belief system, your own relationships. By relationships, I mean with other people, with yourself and with God. Yes, the operative word is "gently". There is no hard challenge, no daring, just a gentle invitation to look inside, make discoveries and consider new ways. I love this book and I highly recommend it, no matter where you are on your personal or spiritual path.
Striking a Deep Chord of Wisdom
Do you believe in coincidences? Recently, at Harbin Hot Springs, a fabulous retreat center in Northern California, I was handed a book by an author who said, "I was planning to give this away to someone else, but it looks like you are the right person to hand it to." The attractive dark-haired woman who gave me the book was named Estelle Frankel, and is it turns out, I *was* the right person, at least in the sense that the book has made a deep impression on me.
A practicing psychotherapist and a "seasoned teacher of Jewish mysticism, Frankel studied and practiced Jewish mysticism in Israel for 8 years, and has been personally tutored by both Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. For someone like myself, who has been in and out of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah as a dilettante, I have found parts of this book absolutely fascinating, especially Biblical-era stories and musings of what it was, exactly, that happened with Moses and the People of Israel out there in the desert... (When was the last time you were part of a group illumination, what my Pennsylvanian friends would call an "egregrore"?)
The book consists of modern-stay healing stories, Midrashic-level musings, Hasidic wisdom and tales, and practical rituals and strategies for self-transformation and spiritual upliftment. The Kabbalah is, of course, returned to time and time again, and many themes that I would call (perhaps anachronistically) gnostic permeate the text. Here is one of my favorite passages:
"At every transition point in the life cycle, when one stage of life ends and another begins, we inevitably pass through this death-rebirth cycle of creation, dissolutoin, and re-creation. The shattering of the vessels is, in a sense, the Kabbalah's unique idiom for talking about what the Buddhists refer to as life's essential impermanence. As soona s something is created, its dissolution is already at hand. The vessels of creation, the finite forms created to house the infinite, are always imperfect and impermanent. They must inevitably shatter to make room for the next manifestation of divine unfolding. The light of the infinite simply cannot be contained and limited by any finite form, and so by shattering, the vessels of creation continually allow more light to be revealed. And just when things seem most broken and shattered, that is when healing or tikkun begins."
I have found this to be a rich and evocative book, one that ties together modern psychotherapy with Jewish mysticism, from the perspective of someone who uses both these tools to help individuals in their day-to-day lives. Especially for those interested in the Western esoteric traditions generally or Jewish mysticism specifically, or anyone with a Jewish background, I highly recommend this book.
sacred therapy
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the union between Jewish philosophy and psychology. The author bases her psychological discussion on kabalistic thought and beautifully weaved in stories from the Torah through which our personal stories and experience emerge and become meaningful. She also includes meditations and exercises that help to integrate the material. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the relationship between spirituality and the psyche.
