Wounds into Wisdom

**2020 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD: GOLD IN PSYCHOLOGY
FOREWORD REVIEWS 2019 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS FINALIST IN BOTH THE RELIGION AND SELF-HELP CATEGORIES

Our past does not simply disappear. The painful history of our ancestors and their rich cultural wisdom intertwine within us to create the patterns of our future. Even when past trauma remains unspoken or has long been forgotten, it becomes part of us and our children-a legacy of both strength and woundedness that shapes our lives.

In this book, Tirzah Firestone brings to life the profound impact of protracted historical trauma through the compelling narratives of Israeli terror victims, Holocaust survivors, and those whose lives were marred by racial persecution and displacement. The tragic story of Firestone's own family lays the groundwork for these revealing testimonies of recovery, forgiveness, and moral leadership. Throughout, Firestone interweaves their voices with neuroscientific and psychological findings, as well as relevant and inspiring Jewish teachings.

Seven principles emerge from these wise narratives-powerful prescriptive tools that speak to anyone dealing with the effects of past injury. At the broadest level, these principles are directives for staying morally awake in a world rife with terror.

Autorentext

Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD, is an author, Jungian psychotherapist, and founding rabbi of Congregation Nevei Kodesh in Boulder, Colorado. She was ordained by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi in 1992 and is a leader in the international Jewish Renewal Movement. She served as Co-Chair of Rabbis for Human Rights, North America (now known as T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.) Widely known for her work on Jewish feminism and the modern applications of Jewish mystical wisdom, Firestone teaches nationally on Jewish ancestral healing and the common boundary between ancient Jewish heritage and modern psychology. Rabbi Firestone lives in Colorado with her husband David. Together they have three grown children, Brianna, Emily, and Dakota.

Raised in an Orthodox home in St. Louis, Missouri, Rabbi Firestone's upbringing and rigorous Jewish education ran counter to her natural spiritual curiosity. Determined to find freedom, she rejected her Jewish upbringing to embark upon a spiritual odyssey that took her around the world and into the very heart of counterculture spirituality. The story of Rabbi Firestone's spiritual quest leading to her return to a renewed Judaism is chronicled in her dramatic memoir, With Roots In Heaven: One Woman's Passionate Journey into the Heart of Her Faith (Plume:1998).

Firestone moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1977 to study natural healing and psychotherapy. Her training in and love for the teachings of Wilhelm Reich and Carl Jung helped to define for her the common boundaries between the body's deep wisdom and that which arises from the psyche in the form of dreams, somatic intelligence, and intuitive guidance.

Her career as teacher/lecturer began at the Rocky Mountain Healing Arts Institute and Naropa University where she taught Reichian studies, Body-Mind Psychology, and Therapeutic Touch. She earned her Masters Degree in Holistic Counseling from Beacon College in 1982.

But Firestone's spiritual quest was far from complete. In the mid-1980's, Rabbi Firestone responded to a deep call to return to her Jewish roots to become a rabbi. She began studies with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, and in November, 1992, received rabbinic ordination from him and a committee of esteemed American rabbis.. The Jewish Renewal Community of Boulder, later named Congregation Nevei Kodesh, emerged soon thereafter.

Rabbi Firestone's best-selling audiotape program, The Woman's Kabbalah: Ecstatic Jewish Practices for Women, is a two-tape audio course filled with meditations and stories rich in Jewish mystical tradition. Presented in non-technical, practical terms, the tapes appeal to listeners of all spiritual backgrounds. Rabbi Firestone's book about Kabbalah and women is The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women's Wisdom (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003) has been hailed as the "non-fiction companion to Anita Diamant's The Red Tent." The Receiving is an historical rendering of seven unchronicled Jewish women mystics and sages whose lives span the 2nd through 20th centuries. In The Receiving, Rabbi Firestone presents Kabbalistic teachings such as the journey of the soul, the Tree of Life, and the sephirotic map through the lens of women's psychology and spirituality.

Firestone earned her doctorate in depth psychology in 2015 from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Her research, about the transformation of collective trauma, draws on three disparate fields: neuroscience, depth psychology, and Jewish literature and mythopoesis. Through interviews, case studies, and autobiographical stories Firestone demonstrates how trauma residue passes from generation to generation and how it can be transformed.

Rabbi Dr. Firestone is now Rabbi Emerita of her congregation. She maintains a private practice in depth psychology and teaches and lectures nationally on ancient Jewish wisdom, ancestral legacies, and the healing of transgenerational trauma.