Reviewed by Amy Shapiro, M.Ed.
In JRT Issue 14, 1996

From Ashes to Healing, Rabbi Gershom’s sequel to Beyond the Ashes, follows fifteen individuals whose past-life memories of Holocaust experiences led to inner peace, strength and healing through their spiritual journeys. The remarkable and multi-dimensional stories in From Ashes to Healing exude a most satisfying sense of spiritual intimacy, as if touching the very threads out of which the cloth of soul is woven.

Recounted, among other fascinating cases, are the experiences of a Canadian goat farmer who located a clock from past-life flashbacks and a Swedish woman whose memories were confirmed when she visited the site of Buchenwald. Also discussed is the concept of the “ethnic soul,” the possible after-life fate of Hitler, and Edgar Cayce’s prophecies concerning Jews and World War II, interpreted with great insight.

It is curious that Rabbi Gershom’s From Ashes to Healing coincides with the publication of Hitler’s Willing Executioners, by Daniel Goldhagen, which is stirring a controversial pot both here and in Europe. From Ashes to Healing provides a critical balance to the otherwise traumatic and ongoing recycling of gloom surrounding the Holocaust. While no sane person could find joy in the subject, Rabbi Gershom injects a note of hope into a dark chorus of pained voices, in desperate need of a process of arriving at karmic closure to these traumatic events.