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All the way from Joplin, MO!
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My Goodbye to David L.

When I was around David I was always wearing two hats; I was leading the community he helped me create and I was his personal friend. Over the past two days I had to juggle between my two positions, here and now I just want to be a friend. Today I am a survivor. Today I am a mourner. Today I want to cry. Today I want to be comforted. I hope I will be able to convey to you my feelings and emotions so we can all mourn together and maybe even be comforted together.

As a child I was taught to study a portion of Torah every day, usually the portion of that corresponds to the reading of the week at the synagogue. Sunday was a long day and an even longer night. As I sat on Monday evening to read my daily portion I realized I had skipped my Sunday reading. So I read: "These are the journeys of the children of Israel who left the land of Egypt in their legions, under the charge of Moses and Aaron" The Torah lists the 42 stops that the Jewish people made during their Journey in the desert. Our Sages ask why are all these stops listed now at the end of the 40 years? Apparently it is repetitive since they were listed as they were happening. One sage, Rabbi Tanchuma, the teacher of Consolation, answered: It is analogous to a king whose son became sick, so he took him to a far away place to have him healed. On the way back, the father began citing all the stages of their journey, saying to him, “This is where we sat, here we were cold, here you had a headache etc.”

I took it as a sign. I spent the next three hours reading email conversation I had had with David, I scrolled through all my saved text messages on my cell phone; I relived all the major events in my intertwined journey of the last six years. Six years I knew David. Six years that David allowed me to know him and in retrospect, six years that I allowed David to know me. This may seem like a short span of life for most of you, but for me the most revolutionary six years of my life; and David was there every step of the way.

David was at all my firsts. The first class I taught, and the next 100; the first time I had guest over for Shabbas and the next 200; (we would lay on the floor in the family room, gaze at the ceiling, and talk for hours...) the first spiritual group I led, the first house I bought; the bris of my first son; the first time I traveled with a group to New York; when we inaugurated the Friendship House and when we signed a purchase agreement to buy another one. He was my first emergency call and my first success story...(I define success differently than most people).

So as I continue the life that David started me on and sit at Starbucks where I first met David, as I teach my Thursday night class out of the 12 & 12 he gave me, as I look at the picture of us that David framed for me on my desk, as I continue studying with Justin for his bar mitzvah, as I look on my watch on Wednesdays at noon and wonder if we are on for lunch, as I sit on Monday nights at Eric's kitchen table and gaze at his empty seat; as I walk into a funeral and my tie is crooked; as I see again all the people that are in my life because of David; as I travel again on the roads of the past years and the as I look to the next six years and more, I will carry your voice in my ears, your face in front of my eyes, and your memory in my heart.

I love you, my brother.

Jewish Recovery on Chabad.org

We are now building up a Jewish Recovery section on Chabad.org, please visit us there too, eventually we will combine the sites.
www.JewishRecovery.org

Jewish Recovery Thought - Balak

"And the people began to go astray after the daughters of Moab.”

Numbers 25:1

The name of this week's reading, Balak, refers to the name of the Moabite king who battled the Israelites prior to their entry into the Land of Israel. Daunted by the divine protection enjoyed by the nation of Israel, Balak sought the advice of the wicked prophet, Bilaam. Bilaam explained that no strategy would be effective against the Israelites so long as they were connected to G-d, but that if one could lure them to turn away from G-d, they would then become vulnerable to their enemies.

Balak and Bilaam thus devised an elaborate scheme to entice the Israelites with harlots. The harlots successfully seduced many Israelite men and even led them to worship idols. It seems that Bilaam understood what many of us have learned in recovery -- that it is the pursuit of gratifying our most basic instincts that disrupts our natural connectedness with G-d.

It is particularly interesting that Bilaam specifically chose the desire for sex as the lure. It is instinct that draws us into self-will and away from the will of G-d and no instinct is more powerful or more deeply rooted than our physical, emotional, and mental drive for sexual gratification. Our sexuality touches upon almost every part of our ego -- self-esteem, the desire to be accepted, emotional security and so on.

One ought not derive a puritanical message from this story -- that sex is evil and provokes divine wrath. To do so would be to miss the point entirely. The point is that whenever we choose to selfishly pursue any kind of instinctive drive, we separate ourselves from G-d. Sex, as it were, just happens to be one of those things –- or perhaps the thing –- that most exploits our powerlessness over our own will.

Giving our life and our will over to the care of G-d, as our program suggests, can be frightening. We worry that perhaps G-d won’t take care of us and we’ll be left to fend for ourselves. In building our case, we point to all the problems we have even in sobriety. Many of us may even feel that G-d has ‘turned His back’ on us.

But our reading this week tells us that precisely the opposite is true. If we are facing an absence of G-d in our lives, we should ask ourselves where it was that we turned our back on Him and not the other way around. Did we make decision somewhere along the line to take care of ourselves rather than to let G-d do the job? Did we feel that if we left things up to G-d, he wouldn't cater to our desires as we would wish? If we look honestly at ourselves and the choices we have made, we will see that it is we who rashly chose to part ways with Him if only to be free for a while to run after more of what we want.

Fortunately, however, it is our very problem that holds for us a solution. Nothing but our own will can upset the natural state of G-d’s constant care for us and it is the surrender of our will to His that restores the natural order, allowing G-d to determine what is best for us so that we we may always receive the help and care that we need.

Jewish Recovery Thought - Chukas

"This is the decree of the Torah….”

Numbers 19:2

The name of the portion this week, “Chukat,” means a suprarational decree – a law without logical explanation. The particular decree of which the reading speaks is the procedure for ritual purification from contact with a dead body. The process involves the burning of a red-haired cow, a piece of cedar wood, a bundle of hyssop and a scarlet thread, mixing these ashes in water and sprinkling them upon the person or object that has become defiled.

While there are many commandments that appeal directly to our sense of logic, and still others that after having been commanded make sense to us, there are other laws that entirely defy human understanding. Such a law is the curious procedure for purification from contact with a corpse.

It has been said that the Twelve Steps work but that no one is really sure how or why they do. It can be unsettling to give oneself over to a process that you cannot understand. Pride doesn’t seem to want to let us. But we alcoholics have been forced to accept that the solution for our alcoholism is not something we need to understand.

Uncomfortable with the spiritual nature of the program, some alcoholics have sought to devise other systems for curing alcoholism that appeal more to reason. They would rather approach the problem from a rational perspective. If people can find sobriety that way, more power to them. If not, however, one would think it less important that the treatment make sense than the fact that it works.

There is yet another lesson to be learned from the above-mentioned law. One may understand the opening verse of this portion -– “This is the decree of the Torah” –- to not only mean that this particular commandment is a suprarational decree, but that really the entire Torah transcends logic and that while some commandments may make more sense to us than others, all of G-d’s laws are ultimately beyond the pale of mortal comprehension.

This, too, is a concept with which we in recovery may already be intuitively aware. Much of our program does strike us as sound thinking. But that is not why we stick to it. The foundation of our recovery is to be of service to G-d and to allow Him to make full use of us. We no longer ask to know why G-d wants something, but rather, to know what it is that He wants so that -– whatever it may be –- we may do it. Such kind of living may not always satisfy the intellect, but it is a G-dly way of living, and G-d, we think, need not justify Himself to our sensibilities. It is we who must conform to His will and understanding, not the other way around.

12 & 12 Step Two - Audio Class

From our series Judaism & Recovery - Thursday, June 26 2008

Twelve & Twelve Study - Step Two Part I

12 & 12 Step One - Audio Class

From our series Judaism & Recovery - Thursday, June 12 2008

Twelve & Twelve Study - Step One

Jewish Recovery Thought - Korach

"The entire community is holy and G-d is amongst them; so why do you raise yourselves above the congregation of G-d?"

Numbers 16:3

This week we read of Korach, a cousin of Moses, who led a rebellion against Moses and his brother, Aaron, the High Priest, charging them with unduly taking high offices for themselves. Although both Moses and Aaron were divinely appointed to their posts, Korach suspected that they were merely grabbing power for themselves and trying to assert their superiority over the rest of the nation. "The entire community is holy and G-d is amongst them," said Korach, "So why do you raise yourselves above the congregation of G-d?"

Moses and Aaron had held their positions long before Korach's rebellion in the second year in the wilderness. What prompted Korach to challenge them at that time?

In last week’s reading, we read of the scouts sent by Moses and how they feared entering the Land. The scouts enjoyed the nomadic life in the wilderness where they were free to study, pray and meditate all day. They were thus reluctant to establish a homeland for fear of being distracted from their spiritual pursuits. Their grave error lied in failing to appreciate the importance of serving G-d not just in speech and thought but in action.

Korach took this episode to heart and drew his own conclusion. Since action is of paramount importance and since everyone performs the same commandments, there is apparently no difference between one person and the next. The fact that people like Moses and Aaron have a heightened sense of understanding and appreciation for the commandments should be irrelevant. Action is action and we all follow the same code, reasoned Korach.

As such, Korach resented the very notion that Moses and Aaron should be recognized on the basis of their greater spiritual sensitivity.

But Korach was wrong. Granted, right action is more crucial than right thinking or feeling. But that does not mean that thoughts and feelings are insignificant. The same deed may be done with various degrees of awareness and feeling. Those who perform the commandments with greater intellectual and emotional depth are rightly placed in their positions as mentors, teachers and guides.

There is a direct application of this lesson to our experience in recovery. We all work the same Steps. We all take the same basic actions: admitting our powerlessness, turning our life over to a Higher Power, taking moral inventory, making amends, etc. In this regard, everyone who works the program is the same as everybody else. But we must not make the same mistake as Korach by thinking that technical execution of the deed is all there is and that everybody is on the same level. There is such a thing as “quality of sobriety,” and we should humbly recognize that in this regard there are those who surpass us.

We all know what it means when we hear that “so-and-so works a good program.” It’s not just about action. It’s about internal growth -- intangibles such as serenity, courage and wisdom. It can be a hard pill for such an insecure lot as us to swallow, but if we know people who have real quality sobriety, we should admit it and aspire to be like them. In order to "stick with the winners" we have to give the winners their due.