Whence My Help Come: Caregiving In The Jewish Tradition

By: Yisrael Kestenbaum

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Whence My Help Come: Caregiving In The Jewish Tradition gives those who provide spiritual care, both rabbis and others motivated to serve as instruments of healing, the conceptual models and practical tools to do the holy work of hesed, loving-kindness. It is one thing to have a good heart. It is another to have the sophistication to exercise one’s goodness of heart in constructive interventions to promote healing for others in their times of suffering. ...The Rev. Paul D. Steinke, Supervisor Clinical Pastoral Education, Bellevue Hospital Center, Chair of the Eastern Region Association for Clinical Pastoral Education writes: The idea that pastoral care of the suffering could be Jewish or embrace Jewish ideas was far from the minds of the Protestant founders of the pastoral education movement eighty years ago. A blip on the screen of Jewish interest in the pastoral care of the suffering as a professional discipline appeared at Bellevue, the oldest hospital in America, in the early forties. Rabbi Hollander, the Jewish staff chaplain at Bellevue, received clinical pastoral training from the Episcopal pastoral educators at Bellevue. He eventually led his own all Jewish training groups in pastoral care of the sick at Bellevue. After World War II Rabbi Hollander emigrated to Israel. It was not until 1985 that another Jewish supervisor of clinical pastoral education arrived on the scene in the person of Conservative Rabbi Jeffery Silberman. Interest in pastoral care as a specialty for Rabbis grew rapidly. Rabbis began to receive training as teachers of pastoral care using the experiential education method of the clinical pastoral education movement. Rabbi Yisrael Kestenbaum was among the first Rabbis in the modern era to receive such training. He founded the Jewish Institute of Pastoral Care in NYC. There he and his Rabbinic colleagues, not only trained Rabbis in pastoral caregiving, they explored the unique contributions Jews could bring to pastoral care of the suffering. Rabbi Kestenbaum learned how to integrate the suffering in his own life with his pastoral caregiving. He used his considerable creativity to shape a specific Jewish view of pastoral care of the suffering. In this book, Whence My Help Come, Rabbi Kestenbaum makes a passionate argument for the Jewish view on pastoral care that is derived from Jewish Scriptures, experience and custom. Rabbi Kestenbaum has much to teach Rabbis, but also practitioners of other religious groups. Rabbi Kestenbaum reveals and updates the ancient Jewish rituals and practices for a stunning explication of pastoral care. The winners here are the people in hospitals suffering everywhere.