Rating: 
Summary: Everyone should have this book.
Review: My partner and I received Grandfather's Blessings as a gift a few weeks ago and read one short story in the morning before work and one in the evening before bed. What an inspiration these stories are. They really make you think about what's important in your life and, to steal a phrase, count your blessings.Believe all of these 5 star reviews and buy this book. You won't regret it, and more importantly, you will help inspire Rachel Remen to continue sharing her work with us!
Rating:
Summary: How can we give and discover kindness in today's world?
Review: Of the hundreds of books I have read, I consider this one of the very best. By way of background, I am a Board-certified clinical dentist with 17 years experience and three years of post-doctoral training. This collection of essays explores the value of our contributions to life, and the value of life's contributions to us. Although Dr Remen is an experienced oncologist, she has found most of her lessons by observing "the mysterious simple things," including her beloved grandfather's gentle and loving suggestions. These stories almost seem mystical in their value and goodness. They are wise and profound, despite (rather than because of) her clinical skills (medicine and medical business have usually emphasized competence and quickness rather than anything akin to compassion). I read one chapter of her book each day, along with my religious readings, and rarely finish the chapter without a tear in my eye and a glimmer of insight. She is a superb teaacher and I'd recommend her book to anyone who wonders how they are ever going to show caring or kindness in the kind of world they live in.
Rating:
Summary: SPIRITUALLY UPLIFTING!
Review: Rachel and her grandfather walk through life on a different path. Rachel is the academic achiever, who devotes her life to helping others in her profession as a medical doctor. Her grandfather, a rabbi and man of great wisdom, sees the world through a more devine and holy light. While their paths may be different, their ultimate purpose in life is the same. I never had the opportunity to bond with any of my grandparents, the geographical miles between us were far too great; however, it would be one of life's greatest blessings to have had a grandfather as wise, gentle and understanding as Rachel's. The stories contained here will bring a smile and evoke a tear, as science, medicine, religion and spirituality exquisitely merge together throughout the pages of the book. Rachel embraces the world and the reader with her compassion and love for humanity. As you read through the pages, you will be left with a better understanding of life's true meaning and purpose; it is a well-written and thought-provoking book.
Rating:
Summary: Philosophy honed by living
Review: Rachel Remen is a physician who started out as a pediatrician and then became interested in how the mind and body interrelate and influence one another. Currently she is a counselor for people with terminal and chronic illnesses. As a victim of Crone's Disease she knows wherof she speaks. Rachel is also the granddaughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, and two socialist parents who warned her grandfather about teaching their daughter anything about his religion. Coming from this background, she has evolved from a scientifically-driven person to one of tremendous compassion and insight into the human soul. She tells stories of her grandfather, her parents, and her patients to illustrate what her grandfather tried to teach her about how we must bless and care for one another in order to thrive in this world.
Rating:
Summary: Renewal for Compassion
Review: The story behind how I found this book is an example of the small miracles that Rachel relates in her book: I was going through a hard time, my father had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness and my mother and I were fighting over my decision to go to Seminary. I was wandering in the book store and happened accross it. I bought it and preceeded to read it in one sitting (excluding the time that I had to stop reading because the tears were blurring my eyesight.) Rachel's stories will rekindle the humanity in you; she reveals the mystery in everyday life not to show you the answer but to proclaim that the mystery itself is the answer. If you are going through a hard time and you are looking for a bit or guidance and renewal then I hardily recommend this book and her other "Kitchen Table Wisdom." Bless you.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary Stories
Review: This book is a collection of extraordinary stories that have altered my concept of compassion. All of the stories are fascinating; many are deeply moving. This book will appeal to everyone who at some time or another has the role of a caregiver--from parents and teachers to nurses and physicians. I urge them to read it. Any discriminating person looking for an inspiring and intriguing book will also enjoy My Grandfather's Blessings.
Rating:
Summary: A FANTASTIC book!
Review: This book just keeps getting better and better! The stories are great - it's a good book to keep next to your bed and read one or two stories before going to sleep.
ANYONE who needs some rejuvenation - especially people in the medical or helping professions, NEEDS a copy of this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Sugary Waste of Time
Review: This book was abominable. It is a saccharine, sickly-sweet heartwarmer utterly devoid of content. She makes the same repetitive, cliched points over and over again with the same tired analogies. She condenses each patient's lifelong struggle into a cutesy anecdote of a few pages, which minimalizes and denigrates all that they went through. Remen is taking advantage of other's suffering to endorse her own moralistic points. She is self-righteous, giving the reader the impression that if they do not agree totally with her concept of "blessing" they are cold-hearted and uncaring. The book is also startlingly anti-feminist and consumerist, as many of the characters find happiness only in being "possessed" by a man or buying material things. If I was one of her patients, I would be insulted that my struggle of endurance with disease was so manipulated to make a Hallmark-card pithy statement. I was told that this book would be "uplifting". It is now doing a great job of uplifting the leg of my wobbly table.
Rating: 
Summary: My Grandfather's Blessing
Review: This is an incredible book. Dr. Remen's memories of her grandfather and his teachings, as well as her experiences as a healer-physician and counselor are breathtaking. This is a must read for those of you who wish to be connected to the inner source...one's soul.
Rating:
Summary: Imagine growing -up with a Grandfather Rabbi!
Review: When perusing through several books on Kabbalah, I am greatly regretful that I had no influence from a Rabbi. My earliest encounter with Reformed Judiasm was far from the mystical perspective of Kabalah! When our Baptist Suburban Church toured into Atlanta to worship with Rabbi Sugarman's Temple, we had a double privilege of hearing one of the erudite Rabbis and one of the best cantors of Atlanta. Haskell Boyer was long noted as the former student of my own Vocal Coach! Our young people were deeply impressed with the inspiring ritual of Rabbical Language, the reading of TORAH in Hebrew,especially by the Hebrew vocalizing of the Yiddish Lyrics. It was surely a contrast between that worship and the Kabbalah. And yet Rachel Naomi Remen writes in her Introduction,that her Grandfather taught her "that the Holy may speak to you from its many hidden places at any time. The world may whisper in your ear, or the spark of God may whisper in your heart. My grandfather showed me how to listen." Imagine if you will what a Miracle may have been granted to us by having a Rabbi of Kabbalah for a grandfather. If we could have spent our growing years being inspired by the mystery of reading the TORAH and chanting those awesome Psalms in their original sounds from the Hebrew scripts. One of several that Dr Remen quotes: "Blessed are Thou, O Lord Our God, King of the Universe..." Following that text she names her "grandfather, a man of many blesings." Of course those blessings were prescribed generations ago by the great teaching rabbis." One of her most interesting Chapters is "Keeping It Together." As part of a project she asked 73 physicians to rank the same list of 21 life-values twice... First, according to what was most important to them in their work, and then according to what was most important to them personally. Her list included values such as admiration, control, wisdom, love, power, compassion, happiness, fame, success and kindness. None of the doctors made two lists of the same ranking. In one case, kindness was number 2 on their personal list, yet 11 or last on their working list. Overall the doctors were dismayed, they did not find it possible to live by the same values personally, but strongly valued as their work-values. Finally her conclusion was stated by one man, "as life diminishes you!" He added that it comes only with your permission. I have done this line of questions with prison inmates. They pointedly responded much the same! There are several principles that jump out in Dr Remen's lovely account of written blessings. Upon moving from her university atmosphere, she summarizes..."Symbolism is the language of the unconscious mind; It is the deep wisdom that is part of how we are made." It was on this page that I noted her use of numerous adverbs: instantly, occasionally, personally, thinking, sharing, knowing...all participles and adverbs of action. My sense is that she likely practises effective Pastoral Counseling which is deeply healing for her patients!
Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood
| 
