09/08/2024
I had the honor to give the D'var Torah today at Beth Am Synagogue, as part of Our Jewish Recovery's National Recovery Shabbat initiative, where we invite every Jewish community to highlight recovery on any Shabbat in September during National Recovery Month. I'm grateful to those communities who have signed up. More welcome. Info here: bit.ly/OJRAnnualRecoveryShabbat
It was nice to be able to share the Torah of my life's work in the shul I belong to. Thanks Rav Daniel Burg for giving me the opportunity to do so.
Here is the full text of my remarks:
Shabbat Shalom. On this Shabbat 32 years ago, I became a bar mitzvah. 750 people attended my Bar Mitzvah at the Princeton Jewish Center. My dad had been the rabbi there for seven years. My Bar Mitzvah was our last Shabbat in town. We moved the next day to London, Ontario, where we would spend the next three years, before moving again to Fairfax. My dad was the rabbi of ten different synagogues. It was an interesting – and challenging - way to grow up…
When I think back to thirty-two years ago, I remember only a little. I remember that the shul was packed. I know I was sad that I was moving away from my friends. Would I see them again? Would I make new friends in London?
My dad, in his blessing to me that day, told me to “beat my own drum” – I’d already been taking drum lessons for five years, and he encouraged me to keep bringing music into the world. I’m sure 13 year-old me could not possibly have imagined how important music would be in my life, and had you told me then that melodies of mine would be used in services around the world, or that I’d be able to record an album of original melodies in this sanctuary, I would not have believed you. To be fair, I sometimes hardly believe it myself, and I’m grateful every day that we were able to record and launch the album here at Beth Am.
My Savta, in advance of my Bar Mitzvah, crocheted 500 kippot for Shabbat morning, one of which I’m wearing today. It took her months to do. My mother made the tallit I’m wearing today – on the atara it has a verse from our Torah reading – “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – justice, justice, you shall pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that Adonai your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 16:20). Without justice, we can not thrive. Without justice, we can not be settled, even on the land God is giving us. We might be able to live on the land, but being able to step into the fullness of God’s blessings will not be possible for us unless there is justice.
Anyone here ever have one of those days where you question your existence? Maybe you get up, you go to work, and you wonder “what am I doing here? Is this really my life? Someone get me out of here…” That’s a dangerous place to be – on the outside you may still go to work, take care of your loved ones, but on the inside there’s a gnawing question that won’t go away. Maybe you feel called to go in a different direction, but you’re afraid to upset the apple cart of your life – I have a job, I can pay the bills, why should I complain, even if I hate being there? Other people have it worse than I do. It’s not so bad…Just keep going… Maybe instead of a job it’s a relationship that’s not working anymore...maybe it’s the illness or death of a loved one that we can’t quite get past. Why would a good God allow innocent people to suffer?
My mother was a Jewish day school teacher and principal, and was a wonderful teacher of Torah, when her body was well enough for her to do so. She had five different kinds of cancer and two liver transplants. She used to say she had two speeds in life, fast forward and reverse. I can remember too many nights when she was in the hospital, too many days when she was struggling, and the anger that consumed her, that she all too often took out on me and my siblings. Why does God let teachers of Torah suffer years of illnesses and die young? I don’t really believe that God causes illness and suffering. And yet, there clearly are too many people who are ill and suffering all over the world. Why are so many suffering, and why does God allow this? I’ve spent many years studying Jewish texts, and I still don’t have a good answer to this question. How can any of us be settled when there is so much sadness in the world? How can God be settled? The guilt, shame, grief, and brokenness we all carry with us takes a toll. Can we be settled even with the questions we don’t have answers for, the sadness we carry about those who are no longer with us, the dreams we don’t have the energy to pursue, and the changes we know we need to make, someday, soon, maybe, hopefully, when we finally find the courage?
32 years ago on the outside I was the nice, happy-go-lucky, always ready to do a mitzvah nerdy rabbi’s kid you might expect. On the inside though, I was sad, angry, scared, lonely, and wondering if life would ever improve. Home was not a safe place to be, and I didn’t have the support I needed. When Mom was ill, which was often, I had to run the house and take care of my two younger siblings. Dad was always busy at shul, and my older brother tried to find whatever support he could outside of the house. When she wasn’t in the hospital, and sometimes even when she was, Mom was very critical, and was almost entirely unable to get out of her own pain and see me (or my siblings) for who I was. I lived in fear of being yelled at, which I regularly was, and like many traumatized children, I thought that if only I could spend all of my time being the perfect kid she wanted me to be, then I wouldn’t get yelled at, and she’d actually show me the love I was looking for. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I can remember coming home from school and putting a load of towels in the washer, and when she got home, she yelled that I should’ve put darks in instead. I remember coming home with a 98% on a test. I thought finally she’ll be happy for me. I brought her the test and I said Ima, I got a 98! And without batting an eye, or even looking up at me, she said “What did you miss?”
I don’t tell you any of this to bad-mouth my mother. This is part of my journey and how I got here. It took me a long time to realize that yelling was just something she did, and had very little to do with me. Years of therapy and healing helped me see that her perfectionism robbed her – and me – of happiness. She thought she had to be perfect to matter. So did I. You’re either the best or you’re terrible is a horrible game to play. I have learned that I can only be the best at being myself, and I can only do that some days. None of us can be perfect, and trying to be will only make us even more settled, even more disconnected from who we are meant to be.
What do we do with the questions we don’t have answers for? What do we do with the pain that keeps screaming at us? Many of us push it away. Sometimes we even refuse to admit that we’re struggling. We rationalize – well, others have it worse. At least I don’t have that problem… or we distract ourselves with enjoyable activities. If I can get through the workday I’ll go out to the bar with friends…I’ll go on vacation sometime…I’ll be happy when the next project is done…and who am I to want a better life anyway? What makes me think I’m worthy of it? I should just be able to do what I’m told, pick myself up by the bootstraps, and keep going….right?
What I didn’t know 32 years ago is that even at the age of 13, I was already an addict. In addition to teaching Torah, my mother was also a professional level baker on the side. I mentioned there were 750 people at my Bar Mitzvah. She made all of the desserts for the entire weekend. Her desserts were legendary, and I can still see the different desserts she made regularly. She baked regularly, and then she would eat her desserts, and copious amounts of ice cream too. I learned that food was how to address emotions. The unwritten philosophy of emotional health in the houses I grew up in was this: there’s no emotion that can’t be solved with the right amount of sugar. Anyone else familiar with this ancient philosophy? There’s no emotion that can’t be solved with the right amount of sugar….except, there are at least two problems with this approach. The first is that there are consequences to consuming too much sugar – in my case I gained a lot of weight, and was then ridiculed for being overweight, which just made me want to eat more. The second is that I wasn’t actually solving the problem, I was just numbing myself so that I couldn’t feel it for a few moments. I once heard at a recovery meeting that “drinking isn’t the answer, but at least when you drink, you can forget the questions for a little while…”. Indeed. But the desserts didn’t actually love me. And the more I ate, the greater the tolerance I built up for sugar, so that I no longer got a sugar high from one piece of cake, or one cookie, I wanted to eat all of them. How many would it take to get the sugar high feeling? More and more…and there was never enough.
Many addicts are addicted to one thing. Food. Drugs. S*x. Alcohol. Gambling. Ci******es. Etc. Some of us are blessed with multiple addictions, and in my case it wasn’t just food it was also gaming and skin-picking and hair-pulling and codependency and po*******hy and television and did I mention food? Incidentally I was never addicted to alcohol or drugs. My mother had two liver transplants and she knew that alcohol damages the liver and forbid us from drinking. And I’m a child of the 80’s – anyone remember the “this is your brain on drugs” commercials? I certainly didn’t want my brain to look like the egg splattered all over the frying pan, no thank you. But you don’t have to be addicted to alcohol or drugs to be addicted. An addiction is really just any behavior that you repeatedly do that’s bad for you. Left untreated, addiction is a progressive and fatal disease. It only gets worse, unless you are lucky enough and willing enough to find a community to support you on a path of recovery.
It wasn’t until I was in rabbinical school in my early 30’s that I came to understand that I was an addict. I was required to do a unit of chaplaincy training at a hospital and we had a monthlong unit on addiction, where the instructors said they would show us videos of addicts so we could understand the kinds of questions they asked and how to work with them. And there in a hospital classroom I heard the kinds of questions that addicts ask and I thought, wait a minute - that sounds an awful lot like the kinds of questions I’ve been asking for a long time. But, but I can’t be an addict. I’m a nice Jewish kid. I’m going be a rabbi. And we Jews don’t have these problems, right? I can’t be one of those addicts – aren’t they the people homeless on street corners? I’m not one of those. I work, I teach Torah, I can’t be an addict….can I?
It took a few more years and much more turmoil for me to get the memo. I was living in Memphis co-rabbi’ing at a Conservative shul with my now ex-wife, and both the shul and the marriage were not in good shape. My therapist sent me to a weeklong healing trauma retreat. I told no one at the shul I was going, because rabbis aren’t supposed to have problems, and I went on a week of “vacation.”
I remember the first day when Sue the therapist handed out markers and posterboard to me and the other 8 participants of the retreat. She told us to draw our trauma history. Admittedly, I laughed (a trauma response in and of itself) and said “how much time do we have, and can I have a 2nd sheet of paper please?” There was so much there, so much I had never processed, and that week I finally understood how unhealthy my life was, and I decided that I needed to do all that I could to walk the path of recovery and find healing.
I started going to 12-step recovery meetings by phone, and eventually at the Hope Presbyterian Church in Memphis, reading recovery books, and listening to a lot of recovery podcasts. I found a sponsor and worked the 12 steps. I did a lot of therapy and worked with a life coach, a spiritual counselor, a nutritionist, and an alternative healer or two. And I eventually worked up the nerve to step foot into the one part of the Memphis JCC I hadn’t yet encountered, the fitness center. I started exercising. I went on long bike rides. I joined Toastmasters and had a lot of fun with speaking. I kept working at the shul, and, after I got divorced, I spent a lot of time examining my relationship patterns. It seemed clear that my parents marriage and ugly divorce was not the model of loving relationships that I wanted. I had to unlearn, process, heal, and let go of a lot of schmutz I had picked up over the years. And, I had to find other people who had gone through it as well, others who understood the challenges. I needed to hear their stories, and I needed to find my voice and share my own. I needed to learn how to live, and to give myself permission to do so.
I also needed to do teshuvah to the people I had harmed and clean up the messes I had made of my life.
What does teshuvah look like?
“When I was in high school, I was learning how to drive in my family’s Chevy Astro minivan. It was a big box of a van, with eight seats. Because I have [now had!] a lazy eye, it took me some time to figure out where in the road I should be looking. Shortly after getting my learner’s permit, my grandparents came to visit us for Passover. When it was time for them to go home again, my mother was supposed to drive but wasn’t feeling well that day, and dad was at work. It was decided that I would drive the van, with my grandfather sitting in the front passenger seat next to me, and my mother and grandmother in the row behind us.
We lived in Fairfax, Virginia at the time, which meant taking my grandparents to the airport on the beltway, in a big minivan, with only a learner’s permit, and a lazy eye. I didn’t have a choice, so off we went. When we got on the beltway, I struggled to make sure I was in the lane. I literally pressed my body against the window so that I could see where the lines on the left side of the lane were, so that I could avoid crossing over into the next lane. My mother and grandmother were screaming from the back seat, saying I was too close to the bus, the truck, and the other cars. I yelled back at them that yelling at me wasn’t helpful (my yelling at them to stop yelling at me wasn’t either). My grandfather then did something I’ll never forget. He placed one hand out in front of him, and if I veered too far to the left, he moved his hand a bit to the right. When I moved too far to the right, he moved his hand to the left. I followed his lead the rest of the way to the airport, and everyone calmed down.
When I think of teshuvah, of repentance, I picture my grandfather with his hand in front of him. Sometimes, we stray too far to the right, or too far to the left, and our job is just to move ourselves back to the center, so we can keep driving, and keep living in the middle of our lanes. The thing is, life is a journey of course-correction. Flights are off-course ninety-percent of the time, and pilots are constantly course-correcting. The same is true for us. We need not judge ourselves harshly – it’s a natural part of the human condition. Like my grandfather’s instructions, we can just move ourselves back to where we’re supposed to be.” (And God Created Recovery, 110-111).
When I made my list of people to whom I felt I needed to make amends, there were over 40 on the list. It was daunting, but I found a way to make every last one. Interestingly, many of the people had no recollection of the wounds I caused them. And some told me I had really hurt them. I had to listen, without getting defensive, and accept what my behavior had caused. I asked each one for forgiveness and it was always granted. When I finished the last amends, I felt an inner peace I don’t think I had felt before. It’s a lovely feeling knowing that you don’t owe anyone anything. I’ve tried since then to make sure to behave in ways that won’t result in my needing to clean up any more messes. Obviously, I am not perfect, and I make mistakes like everyone else. And I have learned to apologize for them, and to not beat myself up for them either. Even I get to be human, and I don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of love.
When I finished making amends, I took myself to the mikvah to have a moment of personal transformation. It was Erev Yom Kippur. Later that day, I stood in front of the ark, and I thanked God for allowing me to survive where so many others haven’t. I poured out my gratitude to the Holy One for supporting me on the journey of recovery – I know I have not done it alone. We can be as sick as we want on our own. In order to heal, we need community, and many of us need a spiritual path to guide us, and a new sense of connection to a loving God who wants the best for us and sends blessings our way, even when we’re not aware of them, and even when we think we don’t deserve them.
Our Torah portion speaks a lot about justice. What do we do with people who accidentally cause harm to others? The Torah talks about six cities where people who accidentally murder others can go and be safe, protected from the family members of the deceased coming to take vengeance upon them and kill them too. How might you accidentally murder someone? The Torah describes two people who go to chop wood and the ax-head of one flies off the handle accidentally killing the other. The accidental murderer needs to flee to one of these six cities, lest the family take vengeance upon him.
I support there being places where people who have caused harm can find refuge. But I think there is a danger is forcing those who have caused harm to be sentenced as outcasts for the rest of their lives. Does the family of the deceased actually feel better because they know they can’t kill the murderer? Does the murderer find any way to address the pain they caused? Does anyone actually get to be vulnerable and work toward healing the pain, or is it enough to just banish the pain we don’t want to think about to the outskirts? So long as I don’t have to see them, I’ll be okay….maybe….
What might the world look like if instead of banishing problems from our midst we actually found ways to address them and provide healing to all who need? We are thankfully not all of us murderers, but when we label some people as worthy of love and affection and others worthy of being banished from our midst, we do everyone a great disservice.
Addicts are not just those people out on the street corners, though there is a large amount of addiction and mental illness in the unhoused community. Addicts are also our children spending hours each day on social media, buying alcohol with fake id’s, smoking ma*****na with fraudulent doctors notes claiming medical necessity. Incidentally, today’s ma*****na has a much higher THC content than ever before, and in every state that has legalized recreational ma*****na, there has been a staggering rise of ma*****na-induced psychosis and su***de. More than a few school shootings have been carried out by someone in this state. Whether or not anyone should be in jail for ma*****na use is a different, and important, question. But if we’re going to legalize ma*****na, shouldn’t we at least make sure it’s not going to kill our children first?
Though there are very few statistics, the Jewish community isn’t immune from addiction. I’ve heard it said that in the general public, about 10% of people are addicted to something, and in the Jewish community it might be slightly higher. A recent article I read said that since October 7th many Israelis report that their alcohol and drug use has risen. Everyone is traumatized.
When I got into recovery, I started looking around the Jewish world for Jewish wisdom and community. I found a few books, Beit T’Shuvah, a great Jewish in-patient rehab in LA, and a few other organizations which were either ultra-orthodox, incapable of returning a phone call, or unwelcoming to me. In one case I was told I couldn’t go to the annual recovery retreat because it was only for those in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction. We humans are remarkably creative at finding ways to be addicted to all sorts of things. We obviously need treatment for alcohol and drug addiction, but there are few resources and treatment providers for any other addictions. Only around 10% of people who are addicts receive any medical help, and the system of care is incredibly dysfunctional, hard to access, expensive, and has too many charlatans trying to make money off of family tragedies.
The only Jewish movement that has really addressed recovery in a significant way is Chabad. I’m not a Chabadnik, but good for them.
Many Jews think that recovery is Christian. Why? Most recovery meetings are in churches. God bless the churches for hosting them. Why don’t we? Too many people still say “a shikr is a goy”, a drunkard is a non-Jew, ie we don’t have these problems. That was never true. So the Jewish community doesn’t even try to solve the challenges that have taken the lives of too many of our people. We’d rather banish the problem from our midst then do what we can to address it…
Five years ago I started a facebook group called Our Jewish Recovery. I thought it was a small thing I was doing while I was looking for my next real rabbi job. Five years later, we have 1500 in the group from all over the Jewish world, we have our own recovery meetings, Torah study from a recovery lens, individual and group coaching programs, virtual retreats, and a lot more in the works. We are a tiny organization, though we serve a lot of people, and it’s really remarkable for me to be able to bring Jewish spirituality and recovery together.
Every Shabbat afternoon, 10-20 people study Torah together on zoom. It’s often the holiest time of my week. We’ve had a few people tell us they might not still be here if it weren’t for our group. When people find space where they can be both Jewish and in recovery and not have to explain either half of that sentence, they can feel safe enough to heal, and they do. We’ve started connecting with treatment facilities. I got a call from the program director at a rehab out in Washington State last year. Someone Jewish ended up there, and on their way there their tallit, siddur, and kippah had been stolen. Where could they get replacements? I posted in the facebook group and within five minutes we had about a dozen offers and items were sent out to the facility for him. Not only that, I worked with the program director to have the gentleman in question zoom into our meetings and classes. He was delighted to be able to have a Jewish connection while he was in rehab. We were delighted to assist.
Many Jews addicts feel ostracized and unseen, both in the recovery community, and in the Jewish community. A few weeks ago I went to a large recovery conference, which started on Tisha B’Av. It was very odd to be there on our second most important fast day of the year. Last year one of the other biggest recovery conferences met on Rosh Hashanah. I reached out to the organization and said if recovery is for everyone, why would you do that, and they said, rabbi, we tried, we did everything we could to avoid meeting on Rosh Hashanah. Somehow, I don’t think they actually tried everything. Maybe they will in the years ahead… I have sent the Jewish calendar to them and other recovery organizations and have offered to help them with scheduling anytime they need.
Because most recovery meetings are in churches, many Jews assume falsely that recovery is Christian. And, the early recovery literature does have some Christian undertones. Sometimes, we Jews have to translate or adapt to make it work for us. It’s worth it. Rabbis, cantors, and Jewish educators often receive no training about addiction. That’s true for too many non-Jewish seminaries too. Too many Jewish professionals would rather ignore the problems of addiction. Because of the lack of education on the topic, many assume that addiction is a result of poor choices. I’ve heard from more than a few members of our community whos aid that they went to their rabbi for advice, and their rabbi said “if they hadn’t married a non-Jew they wouldn’t have these problems….if only they kept Shabbat….if only they kept kosher….if only they donated to the shul, their life would improve.” I am In favor of keeping Shabbat and kashrut and I want to vomit at the ignorance of our clergy.
If only addicts made smarter choices, they wouldn’t get into the messes they’ve made, right? While it is true that addicts sometimes make bad choices, one doesn’t have to be an addict to do that. And when someone is in the throes of addiction, their brain chemistry has been altered to the point where it’s not even a choice anymore. For many, like myself, addiction starts out as healthy coping mechanisms to traumatic situations. Unfortunately, the coping mechanisms themselves become unhealthy. If only my ax-head hadn’t come off the handle a few too many times…
Recovery is about doing the hard work to escape the throes of addiction. It’s about finding supportive groups and new friends who will walk with us and help us find a way out of the darkness. On December 19th, I will have ten years of imperfect recovery from multiple addictions, and not a day goes by when I’m not grateful for being one of the lucky ones who have survived.
Somehow, with barely any funding, no marketing, and me in charge, Our Jewish Recovery is now one of, if not the largest Jewish recovery organization on the planet. Anyone impacted by addiction is welcome to join the facebook group and get on our email list and come to our events. We welcome allies and friends, Jewish and non-Jewish too.
We all have choices to help make the world a little more just. Do we ostracize people who are suffering or do we welcome them into our midst and offer a hand of friendship? Can we remember that addicts are not just their disease, they’re also beautiful souls wrestling with the challenges of life, just like everyone else?
Jewish wisdom has been incredibly helpful for me on my own recovery journey. So let me conclude with a piece of Torah, and a blessing. The Torah talks about what to do when we need to go into battle against enemies and forces larger than ours. Before going into battle, the priest comes forward and says to the people:
“Hear, O Israel! You are about to join battle with your enemy. Let not your courage falter. Do not be in fear, or in panic, or in dread of them. For it is your God יהוה who marches with you to do battle for you against your enemy, to bring you victory.” (Deuteronomy 20:3-4)
Recovery is sometimes a battle. I know that the Holy One is with me, and I need not be afraid. I also know that I have the choice and the wisdom to make healthy decisions and to make sure that the wounds of my past stay in the past. Thankfully, I still go to recovery meetings and can reach out to others anytime I need. And there’s nothing like Sherri’s love and Rami’s wiggles and smiles to turn my frowns upside down too.
Too many of our people have died from addiction. Too many of our people still suffer.
Misheberach for Addiction Recovery
Our God and God of our Understanding, we ask you today to heal the hearts, minds, bodies, and souls of everyone impacted by the disease of addiction in the Jewish community. Help all of us raise up the needs of our friends and loved ones who suffer. Give us the strength to overcome our natural instincts to look away when the problems of others are too hard for us to look at. Remind us that so many in our community struggle with illnesses we often don’t see, too many struggle with feelings of loneliness and isolation, and all of us deserve community and support.
Holy One of Blessing, help us create a community where all who are lonely find comfort, where all who feel broken can be made whole. Give us the strength to be agents of healing to all who need us, and fill us with compassion and kindness so we may treat everyone, including ourselves, like the beautiful vessels of Your glory that we are.
We pray that everyone struggling with addiction find access to quality healthcare and a community of support, and that they be treated with the dignity and respect we all deserve. In this season of teshuvah, may we remember not to judge ourselves or others by our worst deeds, and may we celebrate the learning we have done, the obstacles we have overcome, and may that give us strength to continue growing into the best versions of ourselves.
May we and all who’ve been impacted by addiction be healed, along with all others who are ill. May all of us and all who need find happiness, holiness, and healing, today and every day, one day at a time. Amen.
Shabbat Shalom.
