Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 352 pages
• Published by: Shambhala March 8, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1590302044
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1590302040
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
"There is nothing more whole than a broken heart," taught Hasidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk. Frankel cites that paradoxical wisdom as well as other biblical, Hasidic, Talmudic and kabbalistic traditions to shape her thesis: healing begins with brokenness and leads to transformation, wholeheartedness and renewal. As a psychotherapist and teacher of Jewish mysticism, Frankel integrates the psyche and spirit so they "flow as two currents in a single stream, creating a synergistic healing power." She uses the kabbalistic myth of the shattered vessels to mirror the inevitability of brokenness in our lives, the broken tablets at Sinai as a metaphor for imperfection, the Exodus from Egypt as a reflection of change and self-liberation and the process of teshuvah (repentance) and the High Holiday cycle as paradigms for healing. "Locating ourselves in Jewish myth and metaphor," she says, can lessen the sense of isolation in suffering, as well as enlarge our identities through spiritual awareness. The book is divided into three parts: kabbalistic cosmology and healing; healing and birthing the self; and wholeness and integration. Client case studies and reflections on her own life focus on common psychological complaints: a broken heart, transition, loss, depression and illness. Suggestions for guided meditations and spiritual rituals give readers practical ways to be "healed by, or in spite of, whatever illnesses and difficulties we face in our lives." Those familiar with the concept of tikkun olam-repairing the world-will discover here its more personal and interconnected form-tikkun nefesh: healing our own souls.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Review
"stunning breadth of knowledge profound depth of understanding breathtaking glimpse of the transformative potential of this ancient tradition…" -- Presence Magazine, Oct., 2004

a practical exploration of how humans can heal and be wholecredibly researched, thoughtfully writtenapplicable to all. -- Science and Theology News

Her use of Kabalistic cosmology to reflect on emotional pain, broken-heartedness, and separation is especially strong and moving substantive -- Library Journal --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness (Hardcover) 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.