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

Chapters of the Heart 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 strugglewith 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.--Publishers web site.