Explore the Worldview of Rachel Naomi Remen
“Perhaps the purpose of life is to grow in wisdom and learn to love better.” —Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
In this course, step into the worldview of Rachael Naomi Remen, one of Commonweal’s most beloved voices.
Rachel spent a lifetime at the threshold between medicine and mystery. As a physician who lived with chronic illness herself, she came to understand healing as something larger than curing—a return to wholeness that could happen even in the midst of loss, even at the edge of life. Through the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, and decades of teaching at University of California San Francisco, she offered a different way of seeing: that our wounds, our stories, and our deepest questions are not obstacles to a meaningful life but often the very doorway into one. This course gathers recordings from her decades at Commonweal New School, inviting you to sit with her not as a distant authority but as a companion—someone who spent her life listening closely to what it means to be human. Rachel died August 8, 2026, surrounded by loved ones. This course is offered as a tribute to her memory—may it be a blessing.
Rachel hosted a few of our earliest podcasts, and it was always a profound experience to have Rachel in the room. Her quiet voice, sometimes a challenge to amplify and record, demanded an immediate presence in those around her. In every conversation, she brought her singular gift for storytelling and her unflinching curiosity about the sacred dimensions of illness, service, and everyday life—her way of finding the extraordinary hidden inside the ordinary. Allow the conversations in this course to help you slow down, listen the way she listened, and have your own encounter with the deeper questions she spent her life exploring.
Art credit: cover from Rachel’s children’s book, Birthday of the World
Course Material
Life Wisdom from a Lifelong Healer
Host Rabbi Irwin Keller sits with Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen to explore the influences of her childhood and young life on her lifelong calling as a healer and teacher.
Rachel Naomi Remen and Host Michael Lerner
Join us for a conversation with Rachel Naomi Remen about her new children’s book, The Birth of the World: A Story about Finding Light in Everyone and Everything. This event was hosted in-person on the Commonweal land.
Can We All Become Healers?
In this incredible conversation, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, makes a “House Call” at Commonweal New School—to talk with one of his long-time mentors and friends, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen.
Rachel Naomi Remen and Marion Weber
Join TNS host Michael Lerner with two long-time members of the Commonweal community, Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Marion Weber.
Rachel Naomi Remen and Michael Lerner
Join Rachel Naomi Remen and New School Host Michael Lerner as they share some of the poems (and sayings) that they live by.
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Christina Puchalski, MD
Join Rachel Naomi Remen and Christina Puchalski—two pioneers in the discussion of spirituality in healthcare—in conversation about the spiritual dimensions of the end of life.
Ram Dass and Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
Now living on Maui, Ram Dass talked with Rachel Naomi Remen and host Michael Lerner about what his 1997 stroke taught him, and how he now works with others around issues of healing, aging, and dying. From our podcast: Compassion is when you’re one with the person… then their suffering becomes our suffering and my […]
Let’s Celebrate Gratitude
In a special presentation for the holidays, join us in welcoming Commonweal's own Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and musician Karen Drucker: two feisty women of a certain age who have been friends for years. In this episode we sing together, hear stories together, and tell some of our own.
Rachel Naomi Remen and Michael Lerner
Join us for the next webinar from The Learning Community series at The New School at Commonweal, this time with Host Michael Lerner and Rachel Naomi Remen, MD.
Michael Lerner and Rachel Naomi Remen
During this 40th anniversary year for Commonweal, Michael Lerner, Commonweal Co-Founder, and Rachel Remen, MD, Medical Director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, offer the fourth in a series of conversations about Commonweal’s story for The New School.
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
Rachel was a Professor of Family Medicine at Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine and the Founder and Founding Director of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (RISHI), which was at Commonweal for decades and is currently at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. She was one of the best known of the early pioneers of wholistic and integrative medicine. As a medical educator, therapist, and teacher, she enabled many thousands of physicians to find individual meaning and purpose in the practice of medicine and thousands of patients to remember their power to heal. More than 30,000 medical students have completed The Healer’s Art, her groundbreaking curriculum for medical students taught at the majority of medical schools in America. A master storyteller and observer of life, her bestselling books, Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings have sold more than 2 million copies and have been translated into 21 languages. Rachel had Crohn’s disease for more than 65 years and her work is a unique blend of the wisdom, strength, and viewpoints of both doctor and patient. She died August 8, 2026.