Mourning & Mitzvah (2nd Edition): A Guided Journal for Walking the Mourner’s Path Through Grief to Healing

"It is hard to work through one's grief when there are so many cover-ups and so many different kinds of denial at work within the culture. And that is why this book is of so much importance. Anne Brener has crafted a walkway through the valley of the shadow of death. The walkway has thorns and bramble bushes on it but it leads to the other side, beyond grief, for those who are willing to stay the course.

Keep this book for time of need and do the grief-work in which it instructs us and you will see that this long and wise heritage of ours still has the power to speak, to heal and to comfort―even in our time."
―from the Foreword by Rabbi Jack Riemer

For those who mourn a death, for those who would help them and for those who face a loss of any kind, Mourning & Mitzvah teaches you the power and strength available to you in the fully experienced mourning process.

When the temple stood in the ancient city of Jerusalem, mourners walked through the gates and into the courtyard along a specifically designated mourner’s path.

As they walked, they came face to face with all the other members of the community, who greeted them with the ancestor of the blessing, “May God comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” In this way, the community embraced those suffering bereavement, yet allowed for unique experiences of grief.

In this new and expanded edition of a modern classic, Anne Brener brings us an innovative integration of Jewish tradition and modern professional resources. It gives spiritual insight and healing wisdom to those in our own time who mourn a death, to those who would help them and to those who face a loss of any kind.

Rabbi Anne Brener, MAJCS, MA, LCSW, is a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist and spiritual director who has assisted institutions worldwide in creating caring communities. A prolific writer, she is the author of the acclaimed Mourning & Mitzvah: A Guided Journal for Walking the Mourner's Path Through Grief to Healing (Jewish Lights). She is a faculty member at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, and the Morei Derekh program of the Yedidya Center for Jewish Spiritual Direction.

Rabbi William Cutter, PhD, is author of Midrash and Medicine: Healing Body and Soul in the Jewish Interpretive Tradition, and is editor of Healing and the Jewish Imagination: Spiritual Perspectives on Judaism and Health. He has published widely on health and healing. He is former director of the Kalsman Institute on Judaism and professor of modern Hebrew literature and the Steinberg Professor of Human Relations at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion.

Rabbi Jack Riemer has helped many people record their values and spiritual legacies through ethical wills, conducting workshops and seminars to offer guidance in this inspiring tradition. A well-known author and speaker, he is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Tikvah (now Shaarei Kodesh) in Boca Raton, Florida, and founded the National Rabbinic Network, a support system for rabbis across all denominational lines. He is editor of The World of the High Holy Days and Wrestling with the Angel and coauthor of Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Them.