Non­fic­tion

Becom­ing a Soul­ful Par­ent: A Path to the Wis­dom Within

Dasee Berkowitz

January 13, 2021

This is not a par­ent­ing how-to book. It does not offer the usu­al advice or add to your to-do list, which is already long enough. Instead, Becom­ing a Soul­ful Par­ent asks ques­tions to help you explore the con­tours of your inner life, devel­op­ing your inter­nal com­pass as you lead your fam­i­ly with love and wisdom.

Com­bin­ing insights from thou­sands of years of tra­di­tion­al Jew­ish wis­dom with her own utter­ly relat­able first-per­son sto­ry­telling, author Dasee Berkowitz helps you embrace every moment with your fam­i­ly while lean­ing into the chal­lenges of par­ent­ing with renewed per­spec­tive and enthusiasm.

Becom­ing a Soul­ful Par­ent will help you ground your float­ing anx­i­eties about the state of the world out­side, while giv­ing you the tools to reflect on the state of your world. It will help strength­en ​“mus­cles” that will be essen­tial for you and your chil­dren through­out your lives — mus­cles like love, lis­ten­ing, empa­thy, and curiosity.

edu­ca­tion
fam­i­ly & parenting

Discussion Questions

Dasee Berkowitz’s Becom­ing a Soul­ful Par­ent: A Path to the Wis­dom With­in, affirms that ​“the ulti­mate goal of acquir­ing Jew­ish knowl­edge is to impact our every­day lives.” Par­ent­ing is com­plex and we may often won­der if we’re doing it right or if we should become dif­fer­ent peo­ple in order to be bet­ter parents.

Becom­ing a Soul­ful Par­ent assures us that we are already who we need to be to be the par­ents our chil­dren need. Berkowitz shows us that Torah lights the way, high­light­ing par­ent­ing gems and insights hid­den in Torah pas­sages, bring­ing new light to the famil­iar and a few more surprises.

A whole fam­i­ly approach to par­ent­ing, fam­i­ly, and home man­age­ment not only dis­cuss­es the par­ent-child rela­tion­ship, but also dis­cuss­es our rela­tion­ship with our­selves, the rela­tion­ships between cou­ples and between sib­lings, and how good home man­age­ment can fos­ter bet­ter rela­tion­ships. Sour sit­u­a­tions are trans­formed into learn­ing and grow­ing moments.

Toward the end of each chap­ter, Berkowitz inquires ​“Ayeka (Where are you?)” to pull the gained insights from our minds and begin enter­ing them into our souls. Read­ers come away inspired to find their own path to becom­ing more soul­ful, con­nect­ed, and whole peo­ple, par­ents, and fam­i­ly members.