Healing and the Jewish Imagination () von William Cutter

Acknowledgments vii Introduction: The Intersection of Judaism and Health 1 Healing and Curing William Cutter 3 A Physician's Reflection on the Jewish Healing Movement Howard Silverman 11 1. The Importance of the Individual in Jewish Thought and Writing 13 Choose Life: American Jews and the Quest for Healing Arnold Eisen 15 Literature and the Tragic Vision William Cutter 42 2. Health and Healing among the Mystics 49 Mystical Sources of the Healing Movement Arthur Green 51 Wisdom, Balance, Healing: Reflections on Mind and Body in an Early Hasidic Text Eitan P. Fishbane 63 3. Hope and the Hebrew Bible 75 Reading the Bible as a Healing Text Tamara Eskenazi 77 "Call Me Bitterness": Individual Responses to Despair Adriane Leveen 95 v 4. From Disability to Enablement 105 Judaism and the Disabled: The Need for a Copernican Revolution Elliot Dorff 107 Misheberach and the ADA: A Response to Elliot Dorff Tamara M. Green 121 5. Overcoming Stigma 131 Spoiled Identity and the Search for Holiness: Stigma, Death, and the Jewish Community David I. Shulman 133 Those Who Turn Away Their Faces: Tzaraat and Stigma Rachel Adler 142 The New Man, Illness, and Healing Albert J. Winn 160 6. Jewish Bioethics in Story and Law 169 An Expanded Approach to Jewish Bioethics: A Liberal/Aggadic Approach Peter Knobel 171 The Narrative and the Normative: The Value of Stories for Jewish Ethics Louis E. Newman 183 Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward 193 The History of Invention: Doctors, Medicine, and Jewish Culture David B. Ruderman 195 Notes 207

Where Judaism and health intersect, healing may begin.

Essential reading for people interested in the Jewish healing, spirituality and spiritual direction movements, this groundbreaking volume explores the Jewish tradition for comfort in times of illness and Judaism’s perspectives on the inevitable suffering with which we live.

Pushing the boundaries of Jewish knowledge, scholars, teachers, artists and activists examine the aspects of our mortality and the important distinctions between curing and healing. Topics discussed include:

• The Importance of the Individual
• Health and Healing among the Mystics
• Hope and the Hebrew Bible
• From Disability to Enablement
• Overcoming Stigma
• Jewish Bioethics

Drawing from literature, personal experience, and the foundational texts of Judaism, these celebrated thinkers show us that healing is an idea that can both soften us so that we are open to inspiration as well as toughen us—like good scar tissue—in order to live with the consequences of being human.