More Beautiful Than Before

More Beautiful Than Before examines the many ways we experience pain - physical, psychological or emotional - and how we can transform pain into a more beautiful and meaningful life. Rabbi Steven Z. Leder has witnessed a lot of pain: 'It's my phone that rings when people's bodies or lives fall apart,' he writes. After 27 years of listening, comforting and holding so many who suffered, he thought he understood pain and its challenges - but when it struck hard in his own life and brought him to his knees, a new understanding unfolded before him as he felt pain's profound effects on the body, spirit and soul. As Rabbi Leder puts it: 'Every one of us sooner or later walks through hell. The point is not to come out empty-handed. . . . There is real and profound power in the suffering we endure if we transform that suffering into a more authentic, meaningful life.' In this elegantly concise, beautifully written and deeply inspiring book, Rabbi Leder guides us through pain's stages of surviving, healing and growing to help us all find meaning in our suffering. Drawing on his experience as a spiritual leader, the wisdom of ancient traditions, modern science and stories from his own life and others', he shows us that when we must endure, we can, and that there is a path for each of us that leads from pain to wisdom. 'Pain cracks us open,' he writes. 'It breaks us. But in the breaking, there is a new kind of wholeness.' His aim is 'to inspire in us all a life worthy of our suffering; a life gentler, wiser and more beautiful than before.'