Addiction and the Road of Life

I usually don’t shill for TV programs. However, I must tell you about a fascinating program: A & E’s Intervention .

Intervention is a controversial program; it is a documentary that follows people with various addictions as they indulge in reckless, self abusive behavior. At the same time, their friends and families organize an intervention to prod them to go to a rehabilitation clinic. For some critics, watching people at their vulnerable worst is an invasion of privacy. While this may be true, it’s also compelling television. It is a rare program which gives the viewer an insight into real life.

What fascinated me the most was how easy it is to identify with the addicts on the show. They were successful stockbrokers, White House interns, talented artists. They’re simply good people who allowed their lives to get untracked.

While I’m no psychologist, I get the sense that people who lose their way, like the addicts on Intervention, get untracked because they have missed one of the three important stages on the road of life.

The first stage is unconditional self love. For most of us, our parents oversee this stage; they fuss and fret and care for us as babies, even though we’re completely vulnerable, selfish and demanding. They teach us that we are loved, and deserving of love, simply because we are alive.

Of course, there are many who have parents who don’t teach this lesson well, or don’t teach it at all (there’s a big difference between the two, by the way). These unloved children must learn about love elsewhere: from mentors, friends, and even from books and movies.

It is easy to forget the importance of this stage. After all, isn’t self-love selfish? There is a lovely Midrash which makes the point that if you must love your neighbor as yourself, that implies that you must actually love yourself as well!

Without self love, we’re lost. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski often asks addicts who come to his office where they put the garbage in their house. “In the garbage can”, they reply. “Well then”, he ask says, “why are putting this garbage into yourself?....you’re not a garbage can, are you?” .

That’s exactly the point: If we don’t respect ourselves, we might as well treat our bodies like garbage cans. You need to respect and love yourself.

The second stage is self discipline. This stage comes a bit later in life, and for the most part our teachers look after this stage. Starting in nursery, you learn basic discipline. You may not bite. You must share. You have to work with the group. You have to respect your teachers.

Discipline is a challenge nowadays. The reason why is because we live in an era of unprecedented comfort. Unfortunately, with this comfort, we’ve become increasingly whiny and self indulgent. We’re outraged if we have to wait too long in line, or if the food in the restaurant is a bit cold.

Our comfortable lives lie in stark contrast with those of the previous generation. I recently did a funeral for someone who had escaped from Dachau, got smuggled into Palestine, fought in the British army against the Nazis, and then fought in Israel’s War of Independence. His eventful life was emblematic of the sacrifices that his generation had to make.

Ironically, our generation’s comfortable lives have made us weaker. Because we are sheltered, we find it difficult to cope with crises. And in a world where people are available to cater to our every wish, the values of personal sacrifice and self discipline are often forgotten. Without self discipline, we open our lives to all sorts of dangerous whims, because we are so unaccustomed to any self denial.

The third stage is meaning. We usually begin this stage in our teens, and it is God who ultimately leads us to find our true purpose.

What is meaning? There’s no need for a philosophy seminar on this. It simply is a life lived beyond the selfish. There is a story about a Chassid of Rav Schneur Zalman, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe. As is the Chassidic custom, the chasid brought him a kvittl, a lengthy list of personal requests that he asked the Rebbe to pray for on his behalf. Surveying the lengthy list, the Rebbe looked at his chasid and sent him away, saying: “you’ve given a great deal of thought to your needs; have you thought at all about why you are needed?”. Remarkably, the chasid was overjoyed with this sharp riposte: his Rebbe had reminded him that he is needed!

Each day we draw up lists, for shopping: more and new food, clothing, electronics, cars, vacations. We know what we need. But on a daily basis, yesterday’s desires simply aren’t enough. So we search for newer and more exciting thrills; eventually, drugs and other self destructive thrills are far from unthinkable.

God reminds us that He put us here for a purpose. To find our way on the road of life, we must find a response to the ultimate question:

Why are we needed?

A Truly Magical Wedding

It was a moment of Hollywood magic. Film stars Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore got married in a Kabbalah ceremony which (according to the Kabbalah Centre) is “full of understanding, wisdom, and connections that essentially sew the two soul-halves together, creating one new whole soul”. What is more magical than a wedding filled with celebrity and Kabbalah?

We all love magic. We dream of a wedding ceremony, which, with a few quotes from the mystical book Zohar, makes the marriage indestructible. We love rituals that purport to offer protection and blessing. Isn’t it wonderful when you can transform your life by drinking a l’chaim at holy man’s grave or tying a red band around your hand! And if the source of these charms is a respected tradition, how bad can it be?

Actually, very bad. Our relationship with God should be wholesome and straightforward, based on spirituality and ethics; these “holy” superstitions turn God into a heavenly slot machine. They try to “manipulate” God; you drink special water or carry an obscure but expensive Aramaic book in order to get God to bless you.

Of course, we chase these superstitions because we love miracles; they give us hope and optimism. The problem is we chase the wrong miracles.

The Kotzker Rebbe has a wonderful interpretation of the selection of Rebecca, Isaac’s wife. Eliezer, Isaac’s servant, stands by the well in search of a wife for Isaac. He decides the right wife would be any young woman who will show him, a stranger, kindness, by offering him water. The Midrash adds that while Eliezer is watching Rebecca at the well, miraculously, the water of the well jumps into Rebecca’s jug. Yet even though this occurs, the Eliezer continues to wait, to see if she will treat him with kindness. The Kotzker wonders: shouldn’t a miracle be evidence enough that she is a worthy wife? Why isn’t Rebecca selected right then and there?

The Kotzker gives a sharp and illuminating response: “because one act of kindness is worth a thousand miracles”.

Indeed, the greatest miracles in life are the ones where people open their hearts and act with generosity. True love is magical. At a wedding, when two people vow to love each other forever, the greatest miracle, the magic of true love, is in the air.

So, with my apologies to Ashton and Demi, I’d like to tell you about a truly magical wedding. Jennifer Pollack and Andrew Friedberg were to be married on September 4th in New Orleans. Unfortunately, because of Hurricane Katrina, they had to flee New Orleans and relocate to Houston. They left everything behind; their Ketubah, her gown, his tuxedo, their rings. In Houston, the community came to their rescue, and outfitted them with everything they needed. And on September 4, Jennifer and Andrew got married in Houston. To complete the circle of giving, the young couple asked that instead of making a wedding gift, guests make a donation to the Katrina relief effort instead.

This was a truly magical wedding. No, there was no blessed water or passages from Zohar.

What made it magical was the greatest miracle of all: human love and compassion.

The previous post is found in edited form on JPostOctober 1

What I’m Praying for This Rosh Hashanah

“May the year, and its curses, come to an end.” This terse Talmudic statement (meant to explain why the Torah readings of rebuke are read before Rosh Hashanah), represents a sentiment we all feel about the coming New Year. We hope to put last year’s calamities behind us, and look forward to a better future.

One of the curses of the past year was homelessness. In addition to Hurricane Katrina’s terrible death toll, there is also a continuing crisis of nearly a million people who are homeless. In Darfur, hundreds of thousand of refugees have fled an ongoing genocide. And, in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, perhaps as many as 5 million people were left homeless. These horrific events require serious action from each and every one of us. We must figure out how to remedy last year’s curses.

In particular, homelessness is a curse Jews are familiar with. We call it exile. Exile is not an archaic historical occurrence; it is part of our current events. In the last half century alone Jews have had to take flight multiple times. Along with hundreds of thousands of other Holocaust survivors, my mother left Europe to a start a new life in a safe place, the United States. More recently, Jews have fled the Soviet Union, Syria, and Ethiopia as well as other locales. (I recently met a Jew who had to leave Venezuela to flee the Chavez regime). Exile is a large part of Jewish history.

There is a debate among theologians and historians about meaning of exile. To some, exile is a black hole in history: it is an unwholesome state, and the years spent in exile are historically meaningless. Redemption is the only part of Jewish history that really matters.

Others thinkers take a different view. To them, exile is the iron furnace in which Jewish identity has been forged. They understand that exile is a crisis; but they recognize that the challenges of exile have helped Jews cultivate a gritty resilience as well as a profound sense of social justice. Their understanding of exile is based on the belief that every crisis contains the potential for renewal and transformation.

The connection between crisis and renewal is one of the messages of the Rosh Hashanah Torah reading. Immediately after the Akeidah, the binding of Isaac, we are told about the birth of Rebecca, Isaac’s future wife. The Midrash explains that this reference indicates that the Akeidah crisis provoked a serious personal transformation. Isaac had nearly died at the Akeidah. While Isaac stood under the knife, he became aware that he was a thirty seven year old man who had neglected marriage and family. He resolved to immediately find a bride, who later turns out to be Rebecca. The crisis of the Akeidah reminds Isaac that he must grab a hold of life, and that he can no longer be the diffident bachelor, slowly awaiting the right woman.

The message of these last few verses of the Rosh Hashanah Torah reading is this: the New Year is not merely a fresh beginning, a time to forget the past year’s curses and crises. Rather, it is a time to reflect on how to use past crises to teach us the lessons of future renewal. Indeed, the Chassidic Rebbe Sefat Emet compares all suffering to birthpangs; within the very suffering, there is the possibility of rebirth and renewal.

While an awareness of the productive side of crisis is extremely useful, my message is not directed at the people of Asia or Darfur or New Orleans. For these victims, right now is the time for action, not reflection; and what they need are homes, not sermons. Rather, my message is directed at another homeless crisis, one that specifically affects the Jewish people: the disengagement from Gaza.

Politics aside, the disengagement was traumatic. The withdrawal included negative images most frequently associated with exile; families were forced out of their homes, and the synagogues left behind were defaced and destroyed. It is impossible not to feel a profound sense of sadness for the 9,000 newly homeless people.

These emotional scenes, mixed together with nasty political debates and the ever increasing divide between secular and religious, is potentially disastrous. This is Israel's “homeless” crisis, for in the aftermath of the Gaza evacuations, we now have a country divided between orange and blue, religious and secular.

The question the Jewish world has to ask itself is this: Will we use the Gaza crisis as a springboard to renewal? Or is Gaza the first stage of a Jewish civil war?

One of the great lessons of exile is the importance of Jewish unity. In exile, Jews recognized that were best off pulling together despite their differences. What the Gaza crisis has taught us is that this lesson becomes even more important now, when we are back home in Israel. A country without a sense of unity is bound to fall apart.

This Rosh Hashanah, I’m praying that we will be able to move past last year’ s curses and crises. In particular, I am praying that we, the Jewish people, will remember the importance of unity. And after the traumas of the past year, all of us, orange and blue, left and right, religious and secular, will find a way to renew our bonds.

Shanah Tovah!

What God Wants Us to Learn From Katrina

The images of suffering are overwhelming. Watching TV coverage of Hurricane Katrina, you can feel the anguish of the victims of this awful disaster. An unpredictable confluence of circumstances brought about a “perfect storm” that killed thousands, injured scores of others, and left hundreds of thousands homeless. It is a true human catastrophe.

As unpredictable as this hurricane may have been, the human reactions to it are all too predictable. Immediately, there is finger pointing. On the political front, President Bush is blamed for a variety of failures ranging from a slow response to the disaster to having caused the global warming which lead to the hurricane. Religious authorities with agendas of their own come to speak in God’s name and blame the catastrophe on their opponents. A group called Repentance America said it was God’s retribution for New Orleans being a “sin city”. Repentance America did not issue any explanation why somehow, the hurricane managed to miss Las Vegas. On the internet, a popular Israeli Rabbi is sure that this catastrophe is retribution for American support for the disengagement from Gaza. As proof, he notes that the hurricane hit Condoleeza Rice's home state of Louisiana. (Actually, she's from Alabama; but why let facts cloud the issue!) I found this opinion curious; the sobbing woman I watched on CNN who lost her daughter and was searching for her missing sons didn’t strike me as a supporter of the disengagement. An of course, radical Islam couldn’t miss this opportunity to dump on America either. A high-ranking Kuwaiti official, Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi, who is director of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Endowment's research center, said: “It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire.” This confident explanation was issued by Al-Mlaifi a day after hundreds of Muslims in a religious procession were stampeded to death in Iraq.

These finger pointing explanations are not only deeply flawed, they are also deeply insensitive. The Talmud says that anyone who gives a grieving person an “interpretation” explaining that the victim’s sins caused his own suffering has violated the prohibition of verbal abuse. Many Jewish philosophers wrestle with the question of theodicy (why bad things happen to good people), and some explanations consider man’s culpability. However, what is misunderstood is that their explorations are meant to defend God’s goodness, not to torment victims of suffering by blaming them for the crime.

In fact, even the entire project of defending God’s goodness is suspect. First of all, God does not need a defense attorney; He can make a case for himself. And God continues to make a case for himself in every sunrise, every leaf, every breath we take. Furthermore, any explanation we can offer will seem meaningless to sufferers. Those who are suffering feel their pain on a personal, existential level, and fancy, abstract explanations will in no way alleviate their pain.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik offers a very different view of a Jewish response to suffering. He says the “why” question, why bad things happen to good people, is unfathomable. It’s like trying to appreciate the beauty of a tapestry from the reverse side; you simply cannot make out an intelligible design. Any exploration of the “why” question is simply a dead end. Even worse, any answer offered will imply that we should passively accept our fate and assume that God did everything for the best. Soloveitchik points out that on the contrary, Judaism actually refuses to make peace with death and tragedy. When someone dies, Halacha requires that we mourn bitterly and tear our clothes. This is because Judaism demands that we be enraged by tragedy.

To Solovietchik, the real question that has to be asked is the “how” question: How do I respond to tragedy? We do not know why the world contains unexplained evil; however, we can endeavor to make the world a better place. Our obligation in the face of a catastrophe is to act: to comfort and aid those who have suffered, and to use human ingenuity to prevent future catastrophes. The only Jewish response to tragedy is tikkun olam, rebuilding the world.

The tikkun olam response to this tragedy is to join hands rather than point fingers. The most important lesson of any large scale disaster is the commonality of all human beings; we have all have the same vulnerabilities and the same aspirations. Most importantly, we are all created in the same image of God. It is up to us to learn how to live together as brothers and sisters, and help each other with their burdens.

I am hopeful that besides the noisy figerpointers, most people will respond properly to this catastrophe. In the past, I have witnessed how disasters have the unique ability to unite anyone, even antagonists, in a common cause. Last January, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists gathered together in my Montreal synagogue for a service on behalf of the victims of the Asian tsunami. Representatives of the warring Sinhalese and Tamil communities both attended, and a representative of the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, thanked the Jewish community for their efforts on behalf of the disaster victims. People who normally do not talk to each other joined together in common cause. And just today, students at Montreal’s Hebrew Academy, moved by the news reports they have heard, have began mobilizing fundraising and letter writing campaigns for people they have never met, the victims of Katrina.

I am too uncomfortable to issue prophetic statements. But if I have to guess what God wants in the wake of Katrina, it is a recognition that every human being shares God’s image, and that every person, whether they live in Indonesia or New Orleans or Kuwait or Israel, should learn how to join hands rather than point fingers.


here's a link to it in JPost:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1125831261300&p=1006953079865

Rosh Hashanah: Rage Against the Status Quo

Right now, even as you read this article, you are asleep. You are not unique; most of us are lulled to sleep by a constant barrage of daily drudgery. We become thoughtless creatures of habit and allow the status quo to muffle our aspirations. Even idealists can lose focus, and become fixated on chasing mindless trivialities. We need to wake up.

According to Maimonides, the shofar’s call on Rosh Hashanah is a sacred alarm clock, a call to stop slipping into the status quo. The shofar wakes us up, and demands that we reexamine our routines. It reminds us to battle against the status quo.

Considering how stifling the status quo can be, it’s no surprise that greatness is found in those who can break away from their past. Jewish literature is filled with examples of great men who defy the status quo. Abraham walks away from his country, his birthplace, and his family’s home, in order to follow his destiny. His journey leads him to become the father of the Jewish people. Ruth, a Moabite woman, leaves home out of love and loyalty to her mother in law Naomi. Her grace and kindness find her a new home among the Jewish people, and her story is included in the Bible as the paradigm of true compassion. Rabbi Akiva, an ignorant, middle aged farmer, decides that with enough diligence, even he can succeed at Torah studies. This bold decision will lead him to become the greatest Rabbi of his time. These heroes achieve greatness by breaking away from the status quo.

Most of us will not become heroes like Abraham or Ruth or Akiva. But, we need not live in unending mediocrity. We too can rise up against the status quo.

Any new challenge that you undertake is a rebellion against status quo. Any time you stand up for your ideals is a rebellion against the status quo. Any time you give more, volunteer more, care more, you have rebelled against the status quo. Any personal transformation is a rebellion against the status quo.

I know someone who quit smoking. Why? Because one day, observing his kids playing, he realized he probably wouldn’t have the same joy watching his grandchildren playing. He immediately quit cold turkey. Something woke him up, and he could no longer stomach the status quo.

Dylan Thomas, in his poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, insists that we refuse to accept the infirmities of old age, and demands that we “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. Truth be told, all of us, (of any age), begin to decline the moment we become prisoners of habit. Too many of us fail to consider new perspectives and new beginnings. That is why, as the shofar sounds, we must wake up, and rage against the status quo.

Extreme Makeover, Soul Edition

I haven’t had plastic surgery…yet. I have managed to hold out, despite a barrage of television shows promising salvation by the scalpel.

Actually, I have no difficulty with plastic surgery. An improved physical appearance can improve one’s job prospects and possibility of marriage. Cosmetic surgery is simply another example of human ingenuity enhancing quality of life.

However, society’s fascination with plastic surgery is exaggerated. The aforementioned TV programs breathlessly tout plastic surgery as a vehicle for personal redemption. Attractiveness is seen as being next to Godliness. Aspirations of the soul, such as identity and meaning, are now accomplished with liposuction. Unfortunately, this is absurd: plastic surgery is by definition skin deep.

Now I’m not naïve: I realize you won’t see a TV show that features Rabbis performing advanced Torah implants or prayer lifts or charity peels anytime soon. But that’s a shame, because our souls can get just as torn and worn as our bodies. Harsh years in the dog eat dog workplace, coupled with excess consumption, can erode the most spirited youthful idealism. Cynicism and the pursuit of comfort can transform former idealists into sarcastic, brandy sipping, golf playing sellouts.

So how do former idealists get their souls back? With an extreme makeover for the soul.

Soul makeovers come in many different varieties. Sometimes you need to go on the road. Comfortable environments can lead to spiritual decay; you need to leave home in order to challenge your soul again. Find an appropriate spiritual retreat, and break away from the daily grind.

Sometimes you need to just do it. We all say we want to spend more time with family, volunteer more, and study more. But, on any given night, it’s too hard because we’re tired/had a rough day at work/need to take care of some errands. And all of our great goals end up sliding away, one night at a time. So just do it!

Sometimes, you need to go home. There is an amazing amount of spiritual insight in our own backyard. Yet we ignore own treasures, simply to search for fool’s gold. It is at times astonishing to me that some Jews, with the oldest and most influential religious tradition in the world, still run after every bizarre new fad. The best place for a soul makeover is right at home.

A member of our synagogue, Larry, traveled with me on a trip to Israel. It was his first visit, and he was overwhelmed by what he experienced. The history, religion and culture transformed his entire outlook on life. At the end of the trip, he said:

“Before coming to Israel, I was of the Jewish faith. Now, I’ve become a Jew” .

This is what a spiritual makeover is all about. You just do it, break away from the old grind, and return home. At the end, you finish with your life transformed, and even.....ith a more beautiful soul.