The spiritual tools you can use to infuse Jewish life cycle ceremonies with meaning, integrity and joy. Discover the spiritual meaning in Judaism’s major life cycle moments. Understand, create and enter wholeheartedly into Jewish life cycle ceremonies, preparatory practice, and celebrations. More than just how-to, Rabbi Goldie Milgram guides you in making your Jewish rites come alive with meaning, beauty and with lasting impact on you, your friends and family. She takes you beyond rote rites—beyond just surviving—and directly into accessing Jewish rites of passage as a force for thriving. With careful attention to both traditional and emerging practices across the full spectrum of Jewish life, Rabbi Milgram examines: Jewish Weddings, Traditional and Inclusive Rites - Welcoming a New Baby and Raising a Healthy Jewish Child - Meaningful, Memorable Adolescent and Adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah - Ritual Support for Many Stages of Adulthood - Jewish Rituals for When Relationships End - Jewish Approaches to Dying, Death, Burial, Mourning and Remembering "What you will find here are not cookie-cutter rites that you can paste into your own life, but rather guides to understanding that will allow the symbols, stories, sacred sequences, and metaphors within Judaism to link with the story of your own life so that your rites of passage will become holy and healing, and will promote the healthy growth of your relationships." --from the Introduction Whether you are new to Judaism, deeply engaged, or returning with curiosity and hope after a long absence, Living Jewish Life Cycle will inspire and challenge you to recapture the spiritual meaning in Judaism's major life cycle moments. Rich with step-by-step exercises and practices for all ages, you will be reacquainted with existing rituals and empowered to create new ones customized to your own unique experiences and perspectives. You will reconnect with the significance in the Jewish calendar as you explore new ways to honor weddings, welcome babies, and cope with mid-life matters, death, divorce, miscarriage and mourning. You will also learn earth-friendly approaches to commemorating your special celebrations. Living Jewish Life Cycle will ground you in both traditions and new pathways to healthy spiritual innovation, no matter what your passion. "Goldie Milgram is a wise woman: She knows her history and tradition; she understands diversity and in-group politics. Add her innate kindness, respect, pragmatism and ritual creativity, and you have a design for contemporary sacred living." --Blu Greenberg, author, How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household Rabbi Goldie Milgram is founder and executive director of ReclaimingJudaism.org, offering seminars and Web-based resources on the application of Jewish spiritual practice for spiritual seekers and teachers. Passionate about bringing spirituality back into Jewish life, she is well known for over thirty years of innovations in Jewish life―in contexts as diverse as Esalen, Elat Chayyim, Princeton University and Bard College, the United Jewish Communities, Hadassah Foundation, and in the training of rabbis and cantors for almost seven years as dean at the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York City. She is also author of Living Jewish Life Cycle: How to Create Meaningful Jewish Rites of Passage at Every Stage of Life; Reclaiming Judaism as a Spiritual Practice: Holy Days and Shabbat; Meaning and Mitzvah: Daily Practices for Reclaiming Judaism through Prayer, God, Torah, Hebrew, Mitzvot and Peoplehood (both Jewish Lights); and Make Your Own Bar/Bat Mitzvah: A Personal Approach to Creating a Meaningful Rite of Passage. Used Book in Good Condition