Healing Intergenerational Trauma Workshop with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD

Intergenerational Trauma Workshop with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD

On Friday eve, November 1 and Saturday, November 2, the Havurah Synagogue hosts Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD, author, Jungian psychotherapist and renowned Jewish scholar and teacher.  Rabbi David Zaslow writes, “This is a workshop not to be missed if you are Jewish or from any minority community whose ancestors suffered the trauma of prejudice, anti-Semitism, or racism.” Friday eve, 7:30 PM, short teaching by Firestone. Saturday morning at 10:00 AM teaching followed by lunch and then afternoon workshops. Saturday evening at 7:30 PM Integration session. Fee for the weekend, including Friday eve dessert and light lunch on Saturday is $55 or Pay What You Can. No one turned away. For more info or to register https://havurahshirhadash.org/rabbi-tirzah-firestone-phd/. No walk-ins. The Havurah Synagogue is located at 185 N Mountain Ave., Ashland. 541-488-7716.

Raised in an Orthodox home in St. Louis, Missouri, Tirzah’s spiritual curiosity called her to search beyond the confines of her family’s strict Jewish upbringing. The younger sister of the groundbreaking radical feminist, Shulamith Firestone (The Dialectic of Sex, William Morrow & Co: 1970), Tirzah left home to embark upon a life-changing spiritual odyssey, chronicled in With Roots In Heaven: One Woman’s Passionate Journey into the Heart of Her Faith (Dutton, 1998).

After immersing herself in a wide variety of spiritual practices and world-views, Tirzah returned with fresh vigor to Jewish studies and became a rabbi in a pluralistic and egalitarian Judaism. Her studies in the feminine wisdom tradition and Jewish mysticism yielded The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women’s Wisdom (Harper San Francisco, 2003). Her passion to share an inclusive and joyous Judaism led her to serve as a leader in the international movement for Jewish Renewal and on the board of Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. Tirzah’s passion for human rights and for the prophetic vision of Judaism led her to Rabbis for Human Rights, North America, now known as T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.

Tirzah earned a masters degree in counseling at Beacon College in Boston, Massachusetts in 1982, and a doctorate in psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California in 2015. Her cutting edge research on the impact and healing of collective trauma draws on the fields of neuroscience, psychology, Jewish literature and mythopoesis. Her groundbreaking work called Wounds Into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Trauma (Monkfish, 2019) employs interviews, case studies, and her own autobiographical narratives to demonstrate how trauma residue passes from generation to generation and how it can be transformed.

Now Rabbi Emerita of her congregation, Tirzah maintains a private practice in depth psychology, and teaches nationally about modern applications of ancient wisdom and ancestral healing: how to transform patterns of suffering from our past and bring forth clarity, wisdom, and blessings for ourselves and those who come after us.

The blessings of our ancestors, as well as their painful patterns, lie dormant within each of us. We can honor yet transform our ancestral legacies and change the narratives of our lives. Join Rabbi Tirzah Firestone PhD to learn more about your family’s legacy, heal ancestral wounds, and reshape your destiny.

Wounds Into Wisdom, her newest book, makes a compelling case that trauma legacies can be transformed and healed. Fusing contemporary neuroscience, psychology, and ancient Jewish wisdom and values, this work provides a roadmap for Jews, and all individuals and groups with trauma history, who wish to seize the power to change their lives.

“Wounds into Wisdom is for anyone who has suffered trauma, either directly or in a family whose generational trauma is buried. It helps readers uncover suffering and use it to help others―the final stage of healing…” ―Gloria Steinem