Crafting the Soul: Creating Your Life as a Work of Art [Paperback]

Byron L. Sherwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1998

A profound exploration of what a meaningful life truly is and what we can each do to make our own unique and beautiful

• Offers the ingredients and strategies necessary to turn your life into a work of art

• Takes contemporary culture head-on, demonstrating the challenges of living a spiritual, meaningful life in modern times

• An ideal companion for anyone seeking meaning in their lives and eager to set out to find it

Within each human soul, meaning flickers as a spark waiting to be ignited. Just as a sculptor starts with raw clay and crafts it into a singular work of beauty, so we are each responsible for taking the material of our own life and shaping it into something unique, beautiful, and meaningful. This process, which Sherwin calls soulcrafting, can make the difference between an empty life and one that has all the energy, completeness, and profundity of a work of art.

Crafting the Soul examines what many of the greatest thinkers of the past have had to say about the meaning of life, then takes contemporary culture head-on, demonstrating how many facets of modern life prevent one from ever creating a spiritual, meaningful existence. It then presents all the ingredients necessary to turn your life into a work of art and offers strategies for achieving this. Infused with the deep spirituality of the author's thirty years of philosophical exploration, Crafting the Soul is the ideal companion for anyone curious about the meaning of life and eager to set out on an intellectual and spiritual adventure to find it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Crafting the Soul represents the very best of a new genre of book that seamlessly integrates the intellectual disciplines of history, philosophy, and religion with the language of modern psychology. A self-help book for the thinking person."
(Kalmen J. Kaplan, Ph.D., Director, Suicide Research Center, Columbia-Michael Reese Hospital )

"Byron Sherwin is a modern-day philosopher-sage whose teachings are a powerful prescription for soulful and purposeful living. I highly recommend Crafting the Soul."
(Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Ph.D., author of Golden Rules and Dancing with God )

"His writing is designed to stimulate and challenge readers . . . by bringing things like personal history, cultural assumptions, and presuppositions into their awareness."
(Sandra I. Smith, The Midwest Book Review )

About the Author

Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin, Ph.D., is Vice-President for Academic Affairs at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago. An ordained rabbi and a recipient of the Presidential Medal from the Republic of Poland in 1995, he is the author of many books, including No Religion Is an Island and Sparks Amidst the Ruins: The Spiritual Legacy of Polish Jewry. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Park Street Press (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892817046
• ISBN-13: 978-0892817047
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,392,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Can the soul be crafted- an approach, June 24, 2000

By 

Jeffrey Cohen (St Louis, Missouri) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crafting the Soul: Creating Your Life as a Work of Art (Paperback)

Issues spiritual, as opposed to religious, seem to have made a major comeback in the last decade or so. There has been an emerging fascination with Kabbalah both within the Jewish community and beyond. Centres for the study of Kabbalah have emerged around the world and lectures given by masters including Leibl Wolf and Roger Kamenetz are usually filled to capacity.

In the Jewish mystical tradition, there is a concept that each of us has a divine spark within our soul and it is just waiting to be ignited. Byron Sherwin takes this concept and through the image of a sculptor who takes raw materials and moulds them into something of beauty and meaning, presents a process which he calls Soulcrafting.

While it would be hard to argue that this book is unique, it does bring an intellectual rigour to a filed which many see as "alternate" at best. Sherwin is Professor of Jewish Thought and Mysticism at Spertus College in Chicago. This book brings together some of the greatest thinkers of the past and what they had to say about the meaning of life. Sherwin looks at many facets of contemporary life and discusses many of the issues which block the development of a healthy spiritual life. Other scholars have recently gone so far as to create an additional scale of wellness called the Spiritual Quotient.

This book reminds me of the story about a group of rabbis who were planning a retreat about meditation. As part of the process they had found a guide and mentor from another faith to help them begin. In the planning stage, one rabbi asked for a bibliography on meditation. Another thought it a good idea to have some lectures on meditation. After some time they turned to the mentor and asked what he thought. Without flinching, the response came back, "why not just try it?" This book reflects this story. There are too many words about the process and it is only in the latter part of the book that it moves beyond the `talking about' to the `doing.'

Sherwin recounts a story about the Rabbi of Lublin (p 189) where he says: "Souls also accumulate rust. Like the wheelbarrow, if they acquire too much rust, they cannot do what they are made for. While I have been watching you, I have been trying to figure out how I can repair rusty souls."

Sherwin's book helps us to identify the sources of rust, perhaps even identify the oils which could lubricate the rusted wheelbarrow. I do not feel that he has helped us to repair the rust in our souls.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crafting The Soul, June 10, 2002

By 

Cassandra Barnes "Cassandra" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crafting the Soul: Creating Your Life as a Work of Art (Paperback)

Crafting The Soul: Creating Your Life As A Work of Art is the latest book by prolific author Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin, Ph.D.

Dr. Sherwin is a Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Mysticism and an internationally acclaimed ethicist. He says that "both medical science and psychotherapy are beginning to realize that a spiritual crises often lies at the root of a psychological or physical malady," adding that "people with little meaning in their lives or in their work are primary candidates for 'premature death' from a variety of diseases."

He starts with a description of how we got to where we are now, explaining how traditional wisdom was superseded by scientific thought. We've been turned into a "therapeutic society," assuming that we're flawed beings in need of fixing. Dr. Sherwin maintains that "know-why" is more important than know-how, saying that "while technological skill can aid immeasurably in helping to get things done, it never was meant either to address or to replace the deeper problems of human existence."

The questions that need to be answered are ones such as "Who are we?" and "Where are we?" His writing is designed to stimulate and challenge readers to answer these questions for themselves, by bringing things like personal history, cultural assumptions, and presuppositions into their awareness.

Dr. Sherwin describes crafting the soul as making "explicit the implicit intrinsic meaning of human existence." He says there are nine components to this: hard and constant work; studying the work of past masters; cultivating wisdom (knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing); exercising the imagination; practicing humility; deciding to do one thing rather than another (and thereby taking a risk of being wrong): focusing on what is truly meaningful; striving to meet reasonable goals; and cultivating moral values.

Dr. Sherwin says that "the ideal reader of this book is someone who is curious about the meaning of life, who is suspect of simplistic and doctrinaire claims to have found it, who is prepared to set out on an intellectual and spiritual adventure to locate it, and who is willing to enact an action plan to express it." Readers who fit that definition will find Crafting The Soul to be an ideal book for guiding them in creating the meaningful lives they desire.