Chapters of the Heart: Jewish Women Sharing the Torah of Our Lives

Chapters of the Heart: Jewish Women Sharing the Torah of Our Lives invites readers into the lives of twenty women for whom Jewish language and texts provide a lens for understanding their experiences. The authors dont just use religious words (texts theologies or liturgies) like a cookbook. Instead they serve readers something closer to a real meal prepared with love and intention. Each essay shares one piece of its writers heart one chapter of experience as refracted through the authors particular Jewish optic. The authors write about being daughters mothers sisters partners lovers and friends. They share their experiences of parenting infertility and abortion. One describes accompanying her young husband through his life-threatening illness. Another tells of her daughters struggle with an eating disorder. Still another reflects on long decline of a parent with Alzheimers. All these writers wrestle with Jewish texts while growing as rabbis as feminists and as interfaith leaders. They open their hearts and minds telling when Jewish tradition has helped make meaning and on occasion when it has come up empty. The results are sometimes inspiring sometimes provocative. Readers will find new insights into God into Judaism and into themselves. A stunning gathering of women a quilt of rich wise voices. --Anne Lamott In these unforgettable chapters leading American Jewish feminists tell the truth about their lives. This is the Torah of your Mothers. Recommended for men and women alike. --Jonathan D. Sarna Brandeis University Here are twenty marvelously articulate candid brilliant thought-provoking responses to the question how does your spiritual understanding and practice support you in times of challenge? They are the voices of contemporary Jewish women but the issues they address are universal. . . . This book will be a solace to everyone who reads it. --Sylvia Boorstein author of Its Easier than You Think With tact and wisdom the authors of this collection of essays more than half of them rabbis chronicle their personal experiences of choices and challenges facing women everywhere addressing each through the spiritual and cultural resources of the Jewish tradition not prescriptively but in individual voices each suggesting discovery or creativity and a path of growth. This is a book for all seasons. --Mary Catherine Bateson author of Composing a Life These essays beautifully express the power of Jewish tradition to inspire and sustain a life rich in meaning. Yet their profundity transcends the bounds of Judaism speaking wisdom to readers of diverse traditions and cultures. --Mary C. Boys Union Theological Seminary Reaching deep into their wise hearts these women harvest words of healing joy sorrow rage and delight--nothing less than the fullness of life--which they then gift to us their readers. Torah lives anew in each of these powerful echoes and the insights you find here may well change your life. --Rabbi Brad Artson American Jewish University INSIDE: This book is a beautiful profound and deeply touching addition to the body of spiritual writing that heals and reveals ourselves to us in our full humanity. Nothing moves me more than women telling the truth about their real lives--their families relationships choices inspirations losses transformation survival their histories and their immersion in the now. And these writers are a stunning gathering of women a quilt of rich wise voices. --Anne Lamott author of Traveling Mercies When I put this wonderful and wise book down (having read it straight through) I felt an unusual feeling: stirred up but contemplatively so. Chapters of the Heart is for anyone who wants to find the holy in the ordinary for anyone who wants to read the sacred texts of her own life with more attentiveness more generosity and more curiosity. --Lauren F. Winner author of Girl Meets God I