This book draws on in-depth inter­views and Robert Klitzman’s own per­son­al expe­ri­ences to explore how Jew­ish and oth­er patients, fam­i­lies, and doc­tors strug­gle to make sense of seri­ous dis­ease and threats of death, and seek hope, pur­pose, and larg­er con­nec­tions beyond them­selves, and how hos­pi­tal chap­lains often help. Klitz­man descends from a long line of rab­bis — his grand­fa­ther and two great-grand­fa­thers. Yet when his sis­ter died on 9/11 at the World Trade Cen­ter, Robert wres­tled to make sense of this hor­rif­ic loss, and grap­pled with ques­tions from Job—why me? 

The book con­veys how Klitz­man embarked on his own spir­i­tu­al jour­ney, lead­ing him to seek to learn how oth­ers respond to such crises. Klitz­man inter­viewed doc­tors, patients and chap­lains from across the coun­try, includ­ing Jews as well as Chris­tians and Mus­lims, evan­gel­i­cals, athe­ists, agnos­tics and those who are ​“spir­i­tu­al but not reli­gious.” What he found con­stant­ly amazed him. Their sto­ries and insights, con­veyed in this book, can assist all of us in fac­ing the most dif­fi­cult chal­lenges of our lives and find­ing hope in the dark­est times.