Blessing from Broken
Blessing from Broken: A Spiritual Journey Through Torah explores Torah through the lenses of psychology, midrash, poetry, and dream. Author Judith Sarah Schmidt, at 90, harvests a lifetime of therapeutic practice and deep archetypal work. As we journey with her through a year’s cycle of Torah, she invites us into every soul’s task: seeking authentic wholeness that doesn’t pretend away what’s broken, but rather lifts up life’s shards to reveal the holiness within.
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About the Author
Judith Sarah Schmidt PhD is a clinical psychologist and former co-director of the Center for Intentional Living. Judith studied Waking Dream Therapy with Mme. Colette Aboulker-Muscat in Jerusalem. Judith’s poems and articles appear in a variety of journals. She is author of In the Garden of Love and Loss: A Year-Long Spiritual Guide Through Grief (Full Court Press, 2020) and Longing for the Blessing: Midrashic Lessons from Toldot: (Time Being Books, 2013 / reprinted by Bayit, 2023.)
Advance Praise
Reading the Torah portion week by week as she approached her ninetieth year, Judith Sarah Schmidt brings a depth of wisdom that comes from one who has suffered and one who as a therapist patiently witnesses the suffering of others. The result is a Torah of heart and mind that tells the story of her life, so I might learn to find my life in the Torah as well. A precious gift of midrash, wisdom, autobiography, and poetry in a time of global trauma.
—Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus and The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022
Through her wise, reflective, and autobiographical responses to each Torah portion, clinical psychologist Judith Schmidt guides her readers on a journey toward their own souls—without ever losing sight of the larger world and our responsibilities to it. Whether she grounds her Torah reflection in classical or mystical Jewish commentaries or with her rich psychological insights, the reader will be captivated by Schmidt’s ability to marry Torah text to spiritual life on all planes: the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, and the numinous. Prayers, poems, and thought-provoking epigraphs often grace her reflections, along with contemplative questions and guided practices to deepen the reader’s experience.
—Rabbi Pam Wax, author of Walking the Labyrinth
For Judith the beloved stories of scripture are not only tales of what was but vibrant paths of light through our own lives. She is as at home with the human mind and its stormy emotions as she is with ancient texts, wisdom teachers, and the enchantment of dreams. In the pages of Blessing from Broken time is not linear and the wisdom of Torah leaps like an arrow from her heart to the reader’s own. A book to be read slowly, with your journal close to hand. Perhaps even a book to help you find your place in the completing of creation.
Reader Praise for Her Previous Book
As Judith Schmidt allows the characters in this story to speak through her, I, too, feel swept into the story and I feel the presence of my own ancestors. This is a remarkable book written by one who obviously knows how to deeply listen. — Phyllis Luberg
I have now read Judith Schmidt’s Longing for the Blessing four times. Why? Because like reading a Torah portion, each visit reveals a deeper layer of meaning and insight en route to extracting the essence of the text… Each piece in this collection is a fragment – a story, a poem, a midrash, a reverie. And yet they cohere into an evocative whole, connected by spiritual longing, poetic insight, and additional themes that thread through the layers…’If you come to meet me in all of my complexity, you will be sure to meet your own self.’ That is the invitation of Torah; and that is the invitation of this poetic, profound offering from a master psychotherapist, spiritual teacher and writer who has done the work and offers what she has learned as a gift. Wrestle with this book. It’s worth the effort. — Linda