Life Review: A Tool for Spiritual Healing

LHI's Education Committee is pleased to present Rabbi Dayle Friedman's remote Summer Education Series. Over the course of three sessions, Rabbi Dayle will lead a discussion on the topic Life Story Midrash: Our Life as a Map For Transformation.

Life review is a natural and generative part of growing older. Sociologist Sara Lightfoot-Lawrence says “our stories are our only map” for the journey beyond midlife. Through our stories we can come to recognize tender places, unfinished business, and yearnings that can transform our lives going forward. Re-framing our stories can guide us and heal us, as Fred Luskin says, “we can always rewrite the stories we carry around.”

In this series, we will investigate the interpretive process of Midrash, the rabbis’ approach to finding meaning in the stories from our sacred text. We’ll sample some key questions Midrash uses in expounding a text, and then we’ll each apply these questions to a story from our lives. We’ll write and re-write our story in order to glean lessons from our past and directions for our future.

Please note: the stories from our lives that we work on will be kept private. We will share reflections only about the process and the lessons we learn.

Session I – Life Review: A Tool for Spiritual Healing

Suggested Reading: Selections from Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal