The catastrophic numbers of drug users, deaths, and overdoses only pale next to the nightmare of a 90 percent relapse rate. This plague has not passed over the Jewish people.
Does Judaism have anything to offer in the recovery of those battling addictions? Can poring over the weekly portion, mumbling through Minchah prayers, tying tefillin, kindling candles, and sitting in a sukkah really be the magic pills to eradicating the epidemic of alcohol, drug, sex, food and gambling addictions? That sounds foolish.
But don’t be so foolish to not understand that Yiddishkeit is indeed the shining key to unlocking the elusive chamber that contains the treasure to finally healing the addict forever.
The reality is that Judaism is the gateway solution; it helps to transform one’s life by revealing the actual reason why we are here.
The addict is all about selfishness. It is a nasty, dangerous business of self-indulgent, hoggish, egocentric narcissism. The user is devout and devoted; it is his religion. And it’s not a two-day-a-year religion for him. He is orthodox about it. Every minute of the day he is either using or praying to be using. And he will sacrifice his own family, even his only son Isaac. He wants to be high and then get even higher; he wants to be the highest. Which essentially means no one and no thing can be higher. That is his goal and the purpose of his life.
Enter Judaism. Torah. The practices, texts, stories, deeds, and mystical teachings are all about negating one’s self-centered, ungenerous, greedy plots and plans.
The negation occurs by serving others – and by serving the Highest Entity, Who is higher than any mortal seeking to get high. A complete transformative focus must be the new goal. How can I connect with the Creator who awoke me from my slumber this morning? And how can I selflessly connect to His creations living in my community and world?
The spark of connection is initiated via the mitzvah and the ongoing contact is protracted and propagated through continued acts and teachings that define one’s very purpose in life. Was the whole world created – and sustained over the centuries – for me to be born and wake up this morning in order to get wasted? Or is there a much deeper meaning to my life?
“Judaism may work or help in other aspects of life, but addiction is different!” So goes the mantra of some in the recovery world. But we should be reminded how very wrong that mantra is by the anniversary earlier this month of the release from prison of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Chabad Lubavitch Rebbe, also known as the Friediker Rebbe, the Previous Rebbe.
After being rescued from Nazi-occupied Warsaw in 1940, the Friediker Rebbe arrived on the shores of New York. Upon reaching dry ground, he was told the western world was dissimilar from the old world and western goals and purposes differed from what was contained in his sacred old world books.
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak firmly straightened up from his wheelchair and said, “America is nisht anderisht!” America is not different.
From a righteous man who understood what it took to be freed from a Soviet prison cell – and who went on to lay the foundation for the global renaissance of Torah – we can learn that recovery “is nisht anderisht!” Recovery is also not different. We need Judaism.
As Jews, we indeed have tools that will assist us in escaping from our imprisonment. We can work with confidence on our personal growth – the kind of unselfish growth that leads to discovering our real purpose in this world.
Stopping addictive behavior is not about the end of a specific action; it is about complete love, loyalty, and purposeful enthusiasm for a new and all-consuming positive stimulant.
