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The Sacred Struggle

Cover of 'The Sacred Struggle' by Rabbi Lindsey Danziger and Rabbi Benjamin David

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The Sacred Struggle

Name: The Sacred Struggle
Author: Rabbi Lindsey Danziger
ISBN: 9780881236620

Jewish Responses to Trauma

Edited by Rabbi Lindsey Danziger and Rabbi Benjamin David

344 Pages6.00 × 9.00 × 1.00 in

Paperback

ISBN: 9780881236620
Published: 4th Jun 2025

$24.95

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Foreword: Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Rabbi Benjamin David
Defining Trauma:
What It Is, What It Does, and How It Changes Us
Betsy Stone, PhD
Part One: Jewish Textual Foundationsfor Understanding Trauma
1. Job’s Traumatic Breach
Adriane Leveen, PhD
2. Talmudic Responses to Trauma
Rabbi Dvora E. Weisberg, PhD
3. Can Religion Bring Comfort? The Case for Liturgy
Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD
4. Again the Song Goes Out: October 7 Through the Lens of Classic Israeli Song
Rabbi Wendy Zierler, PhD
5. Speaking About the Unspeakable: Prayers from the Gaza War
Rabbi Dalia Marx, PhD; translated by Rabbi Ari Vernon
Part Two: Trauma of Acute and Chronic Illness
6. Every Challenge Is a Journey: What I Learned from Chronic Cancer
Rabbi Lindsey Danziger
7. Spoons and Scripture: How Chronic Illness Became My Torah
Rabbi Annie Villarreal-Belford, PsyD
8. Finding Light Amid the Fractures: Spiritual Lessons from a Bike Accident
Rabbi Daniel B. Gropper
9. Hawks and Snakes and Not Giving Up
Rabbi Robert A. Nosanchuk
10. The Next Chapter: Moving Forward with Chronic Illness
Rabbi David N. Jaffe
11. Discovering Holiness: A Jewish Love Story in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s
Rabbi Debra R. Hachen
Part Three: Trauma of Marginalization
12. Calling Out to God: Trauma and Transition
Rabbi Ariel Tovlev
13. Alcoholics, Addicts, and Finding Ourselves in Judaism
Rabbi Susan B. Stone
14. Learning to See in the Dark: A Jewish Approach to Depression
Rabbi Debra Kassoff
15. T’mol Shilshom, Reflecting on Times Past: The Trauma of Disability
Rabbah Rona Matlow, DMin
16. Radical Resistance: Overcoming Racial Trauma to Build Olam Chadash, A New World
Yolanda Savage-Narva
Part Four: Trauma from Personal and Communal Violence
17. Esther, Sexual Assault, and the Winding Road of Healing
Rabbi Iah Pillsbury
18. From the Narrow Places: The Trauma of Gun Violence
Rabbi Joel Mosbacher
19. Running into the Flames: A Jewish, Army National Guard and Army Reserve Response to Trauma
Rabbi Aaron A. Stucker-Rozovsky
20. The Holocaust and October 7: The Personal Impact of Generational Trauma
Rabbi David Spinrad
21. Witnessing History: A Memphis Rabbi’s Journey Through the Assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Rabbi Harry K. Danziger
22. September 11, 2001: Crossing the Narrow Bridge
Rabbi Serge A. Lippe
23. Two Bombs: How the Boston Marathon Bombing Changed My Life
Rabbi Benjamin David
24. A Personal and Communal Journey Toward Healing: The Story of Parkland
Rabbi Melissa Zalkin Stollman
25. From Brokenness to Blessing: Serving as a Chaplain in Pittsburgh After the Tree of Life Massacre
Rabbi Shira Stern, DMin, BCC
Part Five: Trauma from Natural Disasters and Pandemics
26. Floods, Winds, and Wheels: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina
Rabbi Robert H. Loewy
27. The Rising Floodwaters: Surviving Hurricane Harvey
Rabbi Adrienne P. Scott
28. The Still, Small Voice: How Faith Helped Navigate California’s Wildfires
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
29. Choosing Life and Finding Resilience in the Face of AIDS
Rabbi Denise L. Eger
30. Nachamu Ami, Comfort My People: Serving as a Hospital Chaplain During COVID
Rabbi Leah Cohen Tenenbaum, DMin, BCC-PCHAC
Part Six: Trauma and Community
31. The Legacy of Trauma: Reckoning with the Reform Movement’s Ethical Misconduct
Rabbi Marina Yergin
32. Leaving a Toxic Community: Ritual Moments
Rabbi Robyn Ashworth-Steen
33. The Unexpected Trauma of Retirement
Rabbi Daniel A. Roberts
Part Seven: Trauma and Family
34. Broken Glass, Mended Heart: Healing from the Trauma of Divorce
Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar, MAHL
35. Conceiving Hope: Navigating Infertility in the Jewish Community
Rabbi Jen Gubitz
36. Im Yirtzeh HaShem: Rebuilding a Shattered Theology After Stillbirth
Rabbi Karen Glazer Perolman
37. Seeking Solace: Faith After My Father’s Suicide
Deborah L. Greene
38. The Crawl Space Between Grief and Gratitude: The Devastating Death of a Daughter
Rabbi Susan Talve
39. A Path to Healing Through Tradition: Jewish Mourning Rituals and Beliefs After the Death of My Child
Rabbi Rex D. Perlmeter, LSW
Nechemta: Finding Comfort
Rabbi Lindsey Danziger
Contributors

Rabbi Lindsey Danziger is the director of campaigns at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, guiding synagogues and clergy across the country in their work to organize and mobilize for justice. She is also an adjunct professor at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, where she teaches community organizing. Rabbi Danziger resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Rabbi Michael Danziger, and their three children, Ben, Aviva, and Noa.

Benjamin David is the rabbi at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. He is a respected teacher, writer, and leader within the Reform Movement. The son of Rabbi Jerome and Peggy David, Rabbi David was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Muhlenberg College in 1999 before enrolling in the Hebrew Union-College Jewish Institute of Religion. As a rabbinic student, he taught widely, and worked with students of all ages at Shaaray Tefila of Manhattan, the 92nd Street Y, the Jewish Guild for the Blind, and Temple Beth Am of Monessen. As a student he won multiple awards in the fields of midrash and Talmud and co-founded a literary review, Davar Aher. He was ordained from the New York campus of HUC-JIR in 2004. Following ordination he served for seven years as the associate rabbi at Temple Sinai of Roslyn in New York, where he worked closely with synagogue youth and on such causes as Israel, social action, and community organizing. Rabbi David is deeply committed to URJ Camp Harlam, where he spent time as a camper, counselor, and supervisor. He now serves each summer on the rabbinic faculty. A competitive runner, he has run 18 marathons, including the Boston Marathon twice and the New York City Marathon four times. He is also a co-founder of the Running Rabbis, which brings clergy together to run and walk in the name of shared causes. As a cancer survivor, he works with cancer patients and their families and is active both locally and nationally in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. His wife, Lisa, a fellow Camp Harlam alum, is the director of Camp Harlam. They are the proud parents of Noa, Elijah, and Samuel.

In this book you will find the genuine voices of life as it is lived—in pain, with struggle, and offering the wisdom to endure and prevail. A work of great range, it is a bracing book, an important book, and a gift to all of us.
–Rabbi David Wolpe, author of Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times

Who among us has not been touched by trauma? Violence? Natural disaster? Illness? Marginalization? Family dysfunction? In this challenging and thought-provoking book, rabbis reflect on the Torah of their lives, as well as the Torah of tradition, to give us insight into the ways we are all affected by trauma and the many different paths to healing.
–Rabbi Laura Geller, coauthor of Moments That Matter: Marking Transitions in Midlife and Beyond

Trauma may shatter us. It doesn’t have to end us. … There is a way forward. I pray that this volume can be a source of strength for you.
– From the foreword by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, Temple Emanuel, Winston-Salem, NC

A thoughtful set of reflections from religious leaders and others on how Jewish history, teachings, and traditions engage with crisis, tragedy, and their fallout. ... Though aimed at Jewish readers, the collection's emotional honesty will resonate with anyone interested in how tradition can help one face what can't necessarily be fixed. A searching, intimate guide to how Jewish tradition holds suffering with meaning and presence.
--Kirkus Reviews

Timely, informative, compelling, inspired, and inspiring
—Midwest Book Review

The writers featured show the struggles they went through in order to reconcile Judaism and the trauma they experienced, while outlining the different paths that often took. ... The essays are uniformly well done, although different ones will obviously resonate with readers depending on their life experiences or the skill of the author.
-- Rabbi Rachel Esserman, The Reporter Group

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The Sacred Struggle

Jewish Responses to Trauma

The Sacred Struggle

Jewish Responses to Trauma

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