Synopses & Reviews
The lasting effects of individual trauma are now widely recognized. But what of the consequences of extreme trauma on an entire ethnic group? New research in neuroscience and clinical psychology demonstrates that even when they are hidden, trauma histories — from persecution and deportation to the horrors of the Holocaust — leave imprints on the minds and bodies of future generations.
Wounds Into Wisdom makes a compelling case that trauma legacies can be transformed and healed. Fusing contemporary neuroscience, psychology, and ancient Jewish wisdom and values, this work provides a roadmap for Jews, and all individuals and groups with trauma history, who wish to seize the power to change their lives. Gripping case studies and interviews with trauma survivors and their descendants — from Berlin to Shanghai, Cairo to Colorado — demonstrate what Viktor Frankl called, "the uniquely human potential to transform personal tragedy into triumph."
As a rabbi and psychotherapist who has studied and counseled hundreds of Jewish families and individuals for over 30 years, Tirzah Firestone brings to life these real people who have surmounted their tragedies. From them we learn the many ways that past trauma shapes the present — from the timid young woman who discovers she has been repeating her lost grandmother's exact words, to the Israeli war hero who has endured decades of terrifying nightmares.
From these moving testimonies Firestone distills seven principles, rich in Jewish wisdom, that mark the way to new freedom. Building on the work of acclaimed traumatologists such as Drs. Rachel Yehuda, Bessel van der Kolk, and Yael Danieli, Firestone shows how people can transform the residual effects of their families' painful pasts and change their long-term futures. The brave characters in Wounds Into Wisdom remind us of our own human capacity to rise up after devastation and reclaim our innate wisdom and inner freedom.
Wounds Into Wisdom also awakens us to the impact of collective trauma in the world today, as entire populations are being dislocated by war, poverty, and climatic changes. The book provides a template for people everywhere to emerge from the wreckage of their tragedies and reshape their destinies. Relevant not only to the tragic past, but to the world of turmoil and displacement we live in today, Wounds into Wisdom is an essential book for our times.
Review
"Brilliant, beautiful, and compels one to positive action. The people interviewed are so real and lovable...[Firestone's] writing opens ones heart to healing and hope. This is a book I will read again for inspiration and specific principles to live a joyful, liberated life." Dr. Anita Sanchez, author of The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times
Review
"We all fear trauma and take pains to avoid or bury it. As a result, trauma can lodge in the body or the unconscious, and, as Tirzah Firestone writes in this compelling book, can be passed unknowingly from generation to generation, 'like a train depositing its load, car after car, into our newborn skin.' The power of this book is in the stories she relates of people who’ve suffered extreme pain, faced it head-on, and found a path to healing. The stories soften our hearts, inspire gratitude and compassion for our fellow humans, and give us the tools to make sure the train of trauma goes no further." Sara Davidson, N.Y. Times best-selling author of The December Project, Loose Change, and Joan: 40 years of life, loss, and friendship with Joan Didion
Review
"An explosion of suffering, death and trauma has overtaken humanity during the past century and shows no signs of abating. Rabbi Tirzah Firestone speaks on every page of this deeply moving book with her heart and mind and from the deepest wellsprings of Jewish tradition to find sources of solace to transform wounds into wisdom. Her book spills over with empathy and compassion, forging a uniquely spiritual voice that heals and lifts our souls." Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College
Review
"Tirzah Firestone is a compelling and genuinely fresh voice, revealing over and over again 'resonant truths that hold meaning for today.' I am moved by this book. And even when I disagree with her, Firestone makes me think in a broader way, as she will you." Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Author of Jewish Literacy and Jewish Wisdom
Review
"Wounds into Wisdom is for anyone who has suffered trauma, either directly or in a family whose generational trauma is buried. It helps readers uncover suffering and use it to help others — the final stage of healing..." Gloria Steinem
About the Author
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.