Crafting the Soul: Creating Your Life as a Work of Art

Crafting The Soul: Creating Your Life As A Work of Art is the latest book by prolific author Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin, Ph.D. Dr. Sherwin is a Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Mysticism and an internationally acclaimed ethicist. He says that "both medical science and psychotherapy are beginning to realize that a spiritual crises often lies at the root of a psychological or physical malady," adding that "people with little meaning in their lives or in their work are primary candidates for 'premature death' from a variety of diseases." He starts with a description of how we got to where we are now, explaining how traditional wisdom was superseded by scientific thought. We've been turned into a "therapeutic society," assuming that we're flawed beings in need of fixing. Dr. Sherwin maintains that "know-why" is more important than know-how, saying that "while technological skill can aid immeasurably in helping to get things done, it never was meant either to address or to replace the deeper problems of human existence." The questions that need to be answered are ones such as "Who are we?" and "Where are we?" His writing is designed to stimulate and challenge readers to answer these questions for themselves, by bringing things like personal history, cultural assumptions, and presuppositions into their awareness. Dr. Sherwin describes crafting the soul as making "explicit the implicit intrinsic meaning of human existence." He says there are nine components to this: hard and constant work; studying the work of past masters; cultivating wisdom (knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing); exercising the imagination; practicing humility; deciding to do one thing rather than another (and thereby taking a risk of being wrong): focusing on what is truly meaningful; striving to meet reasonable goals; and cultivating moral values. Dr. Sherwin says that "the ideal reader of this book is someone who is curious about the meaning of life, who is suspect of simplistic and doctrinaire claims to have found it, who is prepared to set out on an intellectual and spiritual adventure to locate it, and who is willing to enact an action plan to express it." Readers who fit that definition will find Crafting The Soul to be an ideal book for guiding them in creating the meaningful lives they desire.