Customer Reviews

Jewish Pastoral Care: A Practical Handbook from Traditional and Contemporary Sources

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This book is a treasure for anyone who would like to enhance their knowledge of Jewish healing resources with respect to all of the situations that life presents.

Rabbi Friedman has enlisted compassionate, experienced pastoral caregivers who are experts in their particular areas of counseling and who effectively convey the intimate details of what they provide, teach, learn and encounter in dealing with people in need and transition. The contributors share their own wisdom, insecurities, sorrows, and joys as they accompany those whom they counsel. The reader comes to know alot about each of the writers-getting an inside look at how it actually feels to be confronted by unexpected awkward situations(i.e., an engaged couple who shows up for all of their premarital counseling sessions with the mother of the groom in tow!).

Rabbi Friedman's own compassion and dedication to healing shine throughout the book, giving much of the material the feeling of a prayer, a blessing. Regardless of the pain inherent in so many of the situations addressed, (terminal illness, aging, domestic violence, abuse, addiction, family rejection of same sex partners), the humanity of the pastoral counselor and richness of the Jewish tradition provide hope and comfort.

You don't have to be Jewish or a pastoral counselor to benefit from the book's wisdom. It is essentially a primer on confronting suffering, identifying and using Judaism's resources and tools, and being comforted and strengthened.

Our congregation has no rabbi but decided to establish a "Pastoral Care Committee" some years ago. We recruited volunteers and used the first edition of this handbook. More recently we assisted another congregation in starting a similar program and recruited more volunteers for our own program. In gearing up to do so, we learned that a second edition of Rabbi Friedman's hanbook was available in paperback and ordered additional copies. Leaders of both congregations feel that this handbook is the #1 choice for such efforts. Marilyn Stern R.N. (retired), Ph. D.

Rabbi Friedman has given us a very good look into the Pastoral Care that Jews so often overlook. This handbook, though academic, provides a guide to resources and techniques that can make recipients of pastoral care feel at ease and accept the help offered. I have been using this in conjunction with a class in general Pastoral Care at a local hospital, and have found it to be very informative and helpful.

This is an academic text which allows those in the fields of pastoral or spiritual care to look at these practices from a Jewish perspective. I particularly like the chapter on "Spiritual Accompanying", which has been most helpful to me in formulating my own theory of spiritual care in an interfaith setting.

I was very impressed by both the depth and breadth of this compilation of essays on spiritual care by rabbis. The updated 2010 version has some excellent additions to the original book, and I would encourage readers to get the newest version. The added articles on giving spiritual support to dementia patients, congregants with mental health issues are a big plus, as well as the emergency response section.

I would like to see more articles on the theory aspect of Jewish Pastoral Care because the introduction and essays that are here just wet my appetite for more.

It was nice to see a glossary of Hebrew terms near the back of the book, as that was helpful to this non-Jewish reader.

This book would be a valuable edition to the shelves of rabbis, cantors, as well as hospital chaplains and clergy of all faiths. I highly recommend it.