Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz is the author of Healing from Despair: Choosing Wholeness in a Broken World and Does the Soul Survive? A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives & Living with Purpose (both Jewish Lights). A spiritual leader and scholar specializing in topics of spirituality and Judaism, he teaches, writes and speaks to a wide range of audiences. He has served as the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Tustin, California, for more than a decade and is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly Committee of Law and Standards.