Reaching for Comfort: What I Saw, What I Learned, and How I Blew it Training as a Pastoral Counselor

In 2004, Sherri Mandell won the National Jewish Book award for The Blessing of the Broken Heart, which told of her grief and initial mourning after her 13-year-old son Koby was brutally murdered.

Years later, with her pain still undiminished, Sherri trained to help others as a pastoral counselor, one of the first in Israel's hospitals.

Could a stranger offer comfort to patients and their families in the face of cancer? Could Sherri find comfort by comforting others?

Reaching for Comfort is the moving memoir of an experience that was at turns painful, awkward, and funny, but always enriching.