Rabbi Tirzah Firestone is a fellow student of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, an author and psychotherapist focusing on intergenerational trauma, and one of the senior rabbis of the Jewish Renewal movement. Tirzah is the author of Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma, The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women’s Wisdom, and the newly republished With Roots in Heaven: One Woman’s Passionate Journey into the Heart of Her Faith.

In this episode, we talk about the evolution of Tirzah's work on intergenerational trauma, pros and cons of the popularization of the concept of 'trauma,' Tirzah's recent teaching trip to Berlin amidst the rise of Neo-Fascist politics, Jewish & Israeli reactions to the events of Oct. 7th as an unhealthy trauma response, the conflation of Jewish identity with Jewish nationalism, the search for authority in the opinions of Reb Zalman (Tirzah and Netanel's teacher), Reb Zalman's desire to pray across dividing lines and include God in worldly decisions and problems, the 'seeds' we inherit from our ancestors and which we choose to water, the potentially transformative impact of psychologically based ancestral healing, and the image of the two cherubs atop the Holy of Holies as a metaphor for masculine/feminine balance.

You can learn more about Tirzah and her work on her website.

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