Blossoming Beyond the Desert: A Feminine Reimagining of the Passover Seder's Healing Legacy by Shelle Goldstein

The journey of the Exodus is one that each of us on the planet is destined to travel-all of us who struggle to heal from trauma, loss, and deep disappointments, and who long to live and love again. We are blessed to have, in the Passover Seder, a ritual and a tradition that serves as a roadmap to guide our steps. Blossoming Beyond the Desert illuminates the healing messages of this ancient ritual, and helps heals the inequities of patriarchy by honoring the Feminine-Biblical and contemporary women's crucial contributions to our history, and Sh'khinah, the feminine face of God Who dwells within-offering a unique way to interpret the Seder in light of this inheritance. The author, a dedicated psychotherapist, holds the Exodus as a deeply personal journey as well as a global one, the Tikkun Olam of mending the world. Who is this book for? It's for younger women who may be less "religious" and are seeking a more spiritual, feminine approach to the Seder-and also for those who are not-so-young and have grown up in the shadows of a ritual where men played the leading roles and women played supportive ones. In short, this book is for women who want, and have, equal billing! Listening to women in her psychotherapy practice and to Women's Seder participants, the author has learned that women want: - To reclaim their tradition in more meaningful, spiritual, and relevant ways. - To feel connected to the sacred aspects of the Seders in ways that touch the heart, mind, and spirit. - To hear their concerns expressed in female voices that are soft and strong, clear, confident, and compassionate. - To feel connected to the energy of Sh'khinah, the feminine face of God, our Divine Mother with her Goddess-like attributes of wisdom, courage, compassion, and strength. The book's rich weave of personal reflections, history, clients' healing stories, poetry, prayer, and "food for thought" evokes a felt understanding that even when our lives feel small and confined in Mitzraim (the narrow place, a kind of desert), a path toward living more fully and freely can be found; that even when we feel engulfed in darkness, there is a path that can lead us toward the light. That even when we feel consigned to the desert, we can blossom and grow into the fullness of our potential. Blossoming Beyond the Desert will give its readers an opening, a voice, and a valued place at the Seder table, in their lives, and in the world.