T’Shuvah Means Redemption

By Jaron Zanerhaft

At some point in the midst of life’s successes, everyone must eventually fall. When you do, what’s the thing to do next?  With what
method do you move forward?

Sometimes, in order to keep moving forward, you need to move forward in a different direction.  By recognizing that the path you are on
does not lead to where you want to go, you commit the first step of T’Shuvah.  Sometimes it’s difficult, however, to know in which
direction to turn and how to proceed.

T’Shuvah is a complex concept and quite pervasive ‘round these parts. It’s what we are supposed to do, who we are supposed to represent to the outside world, and what we venture towards within ourselves.  But what does it mean?

Traditionally thought of as “return” or “repentance,” T’Shuvah is what we are commanded to engage in during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).  It’s the act of considering and accepting our misdeeds and the active attempt to both rectify our actions and return to holiness.

Different from other methods of forgiveness such as absolution, T’Shuvah is not something that you are granted but rather something you seek.  It is up to the person who committed a regret-worthy act to make amends to all he has harmed.  It’s about responsibility, and that’s not always easy.

Now, this is the difficult part.  This is where you change your life. To continue T’Shuvah, you must take the necessary measures to ensure that a hate of the same nature will not reoccur.

At Beit T’Shuvah, T’Shuvah claims a large portion of everyday actions and practices.  Groups, meetings, study sessions, and more involved projects here are all in some ways created for residents to engage in T’Shuvah for their own past.  This way, similar mistakes in the future may be prevented.  Here we learn that T’Shuvah is a way of life that drives a person to constantly excel and improve on his being.  By continually examining our lives for actions we might regret, we take strides in becoming integrated human beings who face truth and righteousness instead of deceit and shadows.

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My Rabbi: The Ex-Convict

By Ben Spielberg

I hate my rabbi. He makes me clean my room. He yells at me when I’m being disrespectful, and he always calls me out when I’m lying! I hate that my Rabbi makes me a better person—I mean, after all, who does he think he is? Some sort of religious authority?

The first time I had ever heard of Rabbi Mark Borovitz was a couple years ago when I read his autobiography, The Holy Thief. It was a quick read, a good story, and well written. After coming to Beit T’Shuvah for about four months for therapy once a week, I eventually set up a meeting with him. I complimented his book; we chatted a little bit, and set up another meeting for the next week. I don’t think I had ever even talked to a Rabbi before.

The next meeting didn’t go over so well. I was loaded, and he knew that I was loaded. Without so much as completing a sentence, he called me out on my manipulation. He knew I was lying to everybody around me and he knew I was in trouble. “You have a week to tell your family that you’re getting loaded, or I will.” Needless to say, I was furious. This guy I don’t even know was trying to ruin my life!

My Rabbi is a man who cares. My Rabbi has been through it all—he’s been to prison, he’s been confused, frustrated, angry, sad, and lonely just like me. And that’s why he cares so much about everyone here. He has been through exactly what all the residents are going through, and after making T’Shuvah, he has figured out that the greatest thing he could possibly do would be to help out others in positions he was in, and bring them to making their own T’Shuvah. I hate my Rabbi for making me clean my room, but I love him for it, too.

Related articles

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Our Very Own Beit T’Shuvah Brand of Torah

Image by Tilemahos Efthimiadis via Flickr

By Michael Soter

The Torah has always interested me, both as a piece of literature and as a historic document; as a point of contention, rather than as a means of connection. I studied it in college and criticized it with my friends. I rejected it, seeing it as a document to control the masses.

It wasn’t until I came to Beit T’Shuvah that I began to see the Torah as a path, as a way, as instruction, as teaching, and as law. Beit T’Shuvah’s brand of Torah is one of personal redemption and of recovery.  Each story in the Torah can teach a lesson to the drug addict, the depressed, the gambler, and the person who wants a better life. I had been looking at The Torah through the eyes of a cynical rejectionist contrarian; once my mind was opened, even by one grain of sand, the messages were able to flood in.

I had always learned that the first sin was eating from The Tree of Knowledge.  Beit T’Shuvah teaches that the true sin in the Garden Story is hiding.  When Adam and Eve realize what they have done, they hide, attempting to avoid God’s wrath.  Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the snake. I have committed many errors (heit, missing the mark) in my life.  I must stop hiding when I miss the mark and show through my actions that I can change.

While wandering in the desert, after leaving my master, Pharaoh Heroin, I search for other comforts.  These are my golden calves—the girl across the hall, the new job, the power, and the prestige. The battle for freedom is just beginning.  I am free from the grips of The Pharaoh, but false gods are omnipresent. I must not find false gods in sobriety.

During Simchat Torah, the celebration that marks the end of Deuteronomy and the beginning of Genesis, we wrap the Torah around each of the residents and community members. Everybody is assigned a word from the Torah; mine was B’reishit (the beginning). Just as the Torah is incomplete if one word is missing, the community suffers if one member is missing.  Every word matters and every person matters.  What a novel, enlightening concept for this cynic!

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James Franco: Was He High and Why Do You Care?

Image via Wikipedia

By Michael Soter

 

So I am reading some blogs about Sunday night’s Oscars and I see widespread gossip that James Franco was loaded.  Aren’t there enough people in Hollywood that are in rehab, in recovery, or currently drinking themselves into oblivion that we do not have to spread lashon hara about somebody else?  Maybe he was just a bad host.  Maybe he thought that his cool, calm demeanor would get him more “James Dean-esque” movie roles.  Maybe he was embarrassed by Anne Hathaway’s cross-dressing Les Miserables rendition of “On My Own”.  Maybe he wanted to look high because the younger, “hipper” viewers remember him in Pineapple Express, not Milk or 127 Hours.  Maybe that is just the way he is.

On the other hand, maybe he was loaded; maybe he was smoking crack backstage with Charlie Sheen’s hookers, had just stolen from a jewelry store, or had just been in a hotel room on Sunset shooting dope.  But the point is that we, the viewers, have no idea.  Why must we guess?  Why must we prod and poke?  Why must we believe that another person has this awful disease of addiction?  Did Charlie Sheen not say anything funny yesterday?  Did Lindsay Lohan not send a floral amends to a jewelry store? Did nobody shoot their wife?  Find something else to speculate about…or give him a drug test if it really makes any difference to you.

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Freedom Song: Just Me and Drugs, One Happy Family :(

By Jamie Zabludowski

“For as long as I could remember I felt like I didn’t fit in, in school, on the streets, at family dinners, I couldn’t shake this unbearable feeling that I didn’t belong… so I created my own escape.”

For 4 years I was immersed in a very dark heroin addiction. I lost my friends, my family, but most importantly I lost my soul. I was in and out of treatment centers and couldn’t find my inner most self. That is, until I came to Beit T’Shuvah fresh off of being homeless in Florida. I left everything that was familiar to me in Miami without looking back.

I spent two months figuring out how to speak again. Once I found that courage to open up, I joined Freedom Song as an understudy, not really knowing what to expect. Freedom Song is an original musical/play put on by residents and alumni of Beit T’Shuvah. It follows the inspiring real-life stories of 18 addicts sharing a Passover Seder very different than all others. The immensely moving stories and songs form the need for a broader understanding of the disease of addiction. More than a play, Freedom Song is a real life drama that opened my eyes and changed my life.

When I first moved into Beit T’Shuvah I couldn’t form a full sentence. I was completely closed off to everybody–I wasn’t sharing anything about myself, or my past. At first, being a member of the cast was scary. I remember at my first rehearsal, being told, “You need to project! Project Jamie! Project!” And my response was a quiet, “I don’t know how to.” I remember sitting in my room one night with a veteran of the cast and felt as if the words of my character were my own. I realized how similar my story was to my character’s story; in fact they paralleled almost seamlessly.

My first performance was in Irvine about two months ago. I projected and felt every word as I performed. This play has allowed me to find that hidden voice I shut out for so many years. Freedom Song gets every single person in the cast to not hold back and do something different. Who would have thought that I’d go from a homeless heroin addict to performing in front of hundreds of people singing and dancing in a musical?

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Ohh, That Gala!

By Ben Spielberg

Six months ago, if I’d have pictured myself half a year later, the last image to come to my mind would be myself, wearing a full tuxedo inside of the Beverly Hilton, thanking strangers and board members for undoubtedly saving both my life and the lives of others.

And yet, that is exactly how things ended up happening. Beit T’Shuvah’s annual gala helps pay for a lot of our program here. Not only does it pay for about 50 beds, but also programs like surf therapy, art therapy, and Freedom Song. Over 900 people attended, and they were all supporting this one cause.

I have never seen anything like it before. I really felt a part of what was going on—this huge mass of people congregated in the same place feeling passionate about the same thing. We want to be free of this longstanding epidemic of addiction. One bed, one soul, and one example of recovery one person at a time, we are making the world a little bit brighter each day. We want to be free from this slavery.

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Let Our Hearts and Minds Not Be Fooled By Subtle Forms of Slavery

By Gregory D. Metzger

As God’s first act in the Torah, we learn that separating the light from darkness is of primary importance.  Distinguishing between good and bad, between light and darkness is a challenge in a world colored by rich and complex shades of gray.  The subtleties are better understood by the heart than the mind, but both can be tricked.

Since the beginning, man has searched for a simple answer or rule to follow.  The best answer so far comes from Rabbi Hillel, who offered: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and study.”  -Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat 31a

When he concluded with, “go and study”, he may have been referring to this week’s parsha, Mishpatim Exodus 21:1-24:18, which lays out a set of laws to guide us in our personal, religious and communal lives.

In the first of these laws addresses slavery.  In my professional life, I see all forms of slavery.  As a Rabbinic Intern for Jewish World Watch, where Rabbi Harold Schulweis reminds us that we must not “stand idly by the blood of our neighbor”, I see a world  where oppressive chattel slavery is even more prevelant, claiming even more victims than there were at the height of the North Atlantic Slave Trade.  There is no mistaking light and darkness when it comes to this chattel slavery.  It is clear that we must cry out for the voiceless and stand up for the powerless.

But what about consensual slavery?  At the Jewish Committee for Personal Service, where I counsel and advocate for Jewish inmates in Los Angeles County Jail and California State prisons, I am confronted and challenged by issues of consensual slavery.  Our Torah presents us with an ugly truth: there are people in our society who become enslaved by drugs, negativity and the worship of false idols (money. property and prestige).  Theirs is a darkness which blinds them to the beauty of freedom and allows them to willingly adopt an anti-social lifestyle so devoid of light that it is as if they are declaring “I do not want to go free” and allowing their masters to pierce their ears with an awl.

As we follow Hillel’s proposal and “go and study”, we see amid the criminal legislation and religious laws described in this parsha, that we are commanded to provide justice for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan.  In fact, the call to care for the stranger, the widow and the orphan is so important to Judaism, that it is repeated no less than 36 times in the Torah – more than any other idea!  All slaves – those who are victims of others’ brutality and those who are subject to an inner oppression – are strangers, widows and orphans from freedom, from dignity and from justice.    As Jews we are commanded to care for those who have no voice in our society – those who have no power to advocate for themselves.

Slavery in all forms is devoid of justice.  It is hateful. We are called on to go further than Hillel suggests, not just avoid to enslaving ourselves and others, but we are called to take action to liberate those who are not free.   It is our duty to restore justice to the world.   We must counsel the consenting slave and aid in his redemption and return to community.

Maimonides, suggests in Hilchot Matanot Aniyim, that to fulfill the Mitzvah of Pidyon Shvuyim (redeeming the captive) is the highest and most holy of acts “The redeeming of captives takes precedence over supporting the poor or clothing them. There is no greater mitzvah than redeeming captives for the problems of the captive include being hungry, thirsty, unclothed, and they are in danger of their lives too. Ignoring the need to redeem captives goes against these Torah laws: “Do not harden your heart or shut your hand against your needy fellow” (Devarim 15:7); “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed” (Vayikra 19:16). And misses out on the following mitzvot: “You must surely open your hand to him or her” (Devarim15:8); “…Love your neighbor as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18); “Rescue those who are drawn to death” (Proverbs 24:11) and there is no mitzvah greater than the redeeming of captives.”

As we consider our duty and commitment to repair and bring justice to the world, let us begin by fighting slavery.  Let our hearts and minds not be fooled by the subtle forms of slavery.  Let us search for slavery within ourselves.  Let us help others to see their own self-enslavement.  And let us all cry out to God to end slavery now in every form and every place.

Gregory D. Metzger

Harold M. Schulweis Rabbinic Intern

Jewish World Watch

greg@jewishworldwatch.org

President Obama on Universal Human Rights

Image by rebuildingdemocracy via Flickr

By Michael Soter

Chinese President Hu Jintao is currently in Washington DC meeting with Barak Obama.  Obama has used a lot of icy rhetoric in recent speeches concerning US relations with China. One of the cruxes of this conflict is the case of Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist.  In December 2009, he was charged with “inciting subversion of state power” and was sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment and two years’ deprivation of political rights.  Liu Xiaobo was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize while serving his sentence.

In the presence of Hu Jintao, Mr. Obama made a comment indirectly concerning Liu Xiobao that reflects a larger problem Obama has with The People’s Republic of China:

“History shows that societies are more harmonious, nations are more successful and the world is more just when the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld, including the universal rights of every human being.’’

I agree with Mr. Obama.  The world would be a better place if every nation and every people upheld man’s universal rights.  However, I had a major problem with Obama’s statement when I first read it.

At what point in history were universal human rights completely upheld?  Was it during the Roman Empire? The Mongolian Empire? Was it during the Crusades?  The Spanish Inquisition?  World War Two?  Or was it sometime in between?

The answer is that there has never been a time in the history of humankind where universal rights were granted to every individual.  When I told this to Rabbi Mark Borovitz, he smiled at me.  He told me that I am looking at it in the same way I look at the entire world.  I must always find fault with everything; something must be perfect or completely disastrous, nothing in between.  He told me about the movements throughout history attempting to grant universal rights to all people.  The Torah repeats 36 times that we must take care of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.  The United States Bill of Rights attempts to grant universal rights to all of its people.  Western Civilization’s general conception of universal rights is founded upon Judeo-Christian morality.  According to the Book of Matthew Chapter 5, Jesus said:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Have the Jewish people been perfect in their attempts to protect the widow, the orphan, and the stranger? No.  Have the first 10 amendments to The Constitution been upheld perfectly? No.  Have Christians always blessed the poor, the mourners, and the meek?  No.  But we must continue to make progress as individuals, as a culture, and as a nation.  We cannot just stand idly by because the world is not perfect and never will be.

We must protest when we see that universal rights are being infringed upon.  We must continue to question exploitation, cruelty, and abuse; we must “be the change we wish to see in the world ”(Gandhi) where there is inequity, where we see hate, and where rights are not granted to everyone.

What do you think? What are our rights?  And most importantly, what can we do to make sure that universal rights are upheld?

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Santa Monica Suicide and Societal Pressures of Perfection

We are all so “driven to distraction” and comfortable in denial that it takes a catastrophe to focus our attention on self-examination and problem solving.

Last week we were forced to confront our collective insanity acted out by a lone madman.  Who should we blame?  Was the madman’s paranoia a reflection of us or simply a brain disease, a thinking disorder that developed in a vacuum?  Was he on the left or the right?  Were his parents to blame or not?

The discussions were dizzying, all of them avoiding the truth of our collective responsibility.

We project onto our leaders our inner conflicts, our childish craving for a black-and-white, all-or-nothing reality, which would relieve us of the burden of our opposing inclinations.  We demand good guys and bad guys.  The bad guys represent all the things we don’t like about ourselves; the good guys re-enforce our image of perfection and blamelessness.  The stronger the split within the more we polarize and blame “the other.”  As Rabbi Heschel noted: “Some are guilty; all are responsible.”

Another casualty of our Addiction to Perfection was a 14-year old boy who bolted from a ball game, ran into a hotel and jumped off the roof.  “He was the perfect child,” his grandparents said. …he was popular, good in sports, upbeat, showed no signs of distress.  His Rabbi expressed the communal shock: “He was bright, upbeat and dependable and gave no indication he was seriously troubled… He was not the kind of person you would expect to have these feelings… Something went horribly wrong.”

What went wrong, I think, was this kid wasn’t allowed to feel bad or tell anyone about his doubts and fears.  He was the carrier of his parents’ and grandparents’ vision of perfection, his spirit crushed by their expectations.  “I’ll never live up to their requirements of me – no matter what I do.  I’d rather jump than disappoint them.”

Our children are acting out our struggles within.  If they are perfect we are absolved of our own imperfections.  They carry the burden of their parents’ insecurity and self-doubt.  The parental cop-out of “Do as I say, not as I do” says it all:  What I can’t do for myself, I can do for you.  I will shield you from discomfort or disappointment or doubt.  You will be the Crown Prince or Princess of Perfection.

“The best and the brightest” suffer the most; their insides and outsides are most mismatched.  They’ve done everything they were supposed to do (and more) and they still feel rotten inside.  They perform without passion and strive without purpose.

Judaism is a program of recovery for addiction to perfection.  All of our heroes are imperfect.  The Torah is the story of our people’s struggle to submit their will to God’s Will, to act themselves into right thinking and being.  Over and over they forget God’s directions, lose faith and gratitude and build “golden calves” to protect them from their fears and fill the hole of their separation from God.

Instead of calves we are building “golden children,” whom we worship.

Judaism in Aronofsky’s Black Swan

Image via Wikipedia

By Michael Soter

Saturday night, I went to see Darren Aronofsky’s new film, Black Swan.  It is the story of a naïve, perfectionist ballet dancer cast into the role of both The White Swan and The Black Swan in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.  To me, a great piece of art is something that I can see many times and relate to emotionally and intellectually differently upon each viewing.  This time, I saw the film through the eyes of a recovering Jewish addict and for two hours I felt that I was inside the mind of Natalie Portman.

The three main actresses in the movie Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman, and Winona Ryder are all Jewish.  The director Aronofsky was raised in a Conservative Jewish household.  I saw every scene as a projection of Portman’s subconscious, the battle between her Yetzer Hara and her Yetzer Hatov.  For her whole life, she has lived in the Yetzer Hatov.  Every move must be perfect; she could not lose herself and let go (in the ballet or in her life).  She did not know sexuality, she did not know adventure.  Her only passion, ballet, did not even seem like a passion.  It became a job, a job that she must perform perfectly.  Her obsession was perfection.

She is a perfect White Swan, but the entire film depicts her attempting to find The Black Swan inside of herself; perfection was no longer possible or desireable.  She saw perfection as perfecting each step, but as Claude Debussy said “music (read: ‘art’) is the space between the notes”.  Enter Mila Kunis: a wild, uninhibited dancer straight off the plane from San Francisco.  She is Portman’s projected embodiment of The Black Swan.  The remainder of the film presents Portman’s descent into paranoia, into insanity as she attempts to internalize this once external Yetzer Hara.

Natalie Portman’s character is everything that goes wrong if there is not a balance between “good” and “dark” forces.  I experienced the same feeling when I smoked my first joint.  I had been so anti-drug, so “straight-edge”.  But all of a sudden, I was a drug addict.  I do not want to make the same mistake in sobriety.  Sometimes, I want to do everything “right”.  I “should” wake up, clean my room, go to all my groups, eat healthy food, write, read, help a newcomer, and go to a meeting.  If I do this every day, the Yetzer Hara will eventually arise with incredible force and vigor.  I must feed my dark side every once in awhile; maybe I sleep in on a Sunday, maybe I talk to a girl I shouldn’t, maybe I blow off a meeting to watch a movie.  The dark side will always be there; I must keep it close so that it does not ever take over again.

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