Spring is definitely in the air! It's hard to believe Pesach has come and gone, and we're now counting the days until Shavuot...woah. This means it's time for two of my favorite seasonal rituals:
1) Feeding the leftover matzah, in small doses, to the geese and ducks at the pond
2) Reading Pirkei Avot
Both bring me a lot of joy in completely different ways, but for the sake of thematic consistency, I'll focus here on #2.
To be honest, I read Pirkei Avot in snippets throughout the year, but it excites me that the weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are earmarked for reading this tractate of the Talmud in earnest. Yesterday, during the closing hours of Shabbat, I studied the first chapter with my friend (and chevruta par excellence), and then when I got home I couldn't resist looking ahead. Toward the end of Chapter 2, I came across one of my favorite quotes, from Pirkei Avot 2:16:
"He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: You are not expected to complete the work and yet you are not free to evade it."
In its original context, this quote relates to the immense tasks of acquiring Torah wisdom and working to repair the world. However, I think it can be generalized to other realms of life and applied to any situation in which a person faces a daunting yet necessary task. Certainly, then, it speaks to the work of recovery.
In the beginning of my recovery, I often got overwhelmed when I stared down the road ahead, seeing the end result that I sincerely wanted but having no idea how--or if--I would get myself there. One of the most supportive things my treatment team did was to communicate to me that I did not have to do everything at once, and none of it would have to be done alone--but they were not going to let me avoid the work, either. Baby steps, they accepted and encouraged; inertia, they did not. To be honest, this balance served me well. I needed someone to acknowledge that what I was doing was hard and scary, and to reassure me that "slow and steady" would get me there, in the end. But at the same time, I needed to be held accountable and to be reminded that it was my responsibility to take myself as far down the recovery road as I possibly could. Rabbi Tarfon understood this principle and the truth of his words reaches out to us today: We do not have to do everything, yet we must do something.
Which brings me to an excerpt from one of my other favorite quotes, taken from the famous words of Rabbi Hillel:
"And if not now, when?" (Pirkei Avot 1:14)
Let's face it: There is never going to be a time that actually feels like a convenient time to work on recovery. There's always something in the way: work, school, family obligations, vacations, etc. Few of us believe we have the luxury of "taking time off from life" to focus on getting well...but the truth is, it's not so much a luxury as it is a necessity. Life, after all, is more than just going through the motions. If anything we do is going to have any meaning for us, we will have to be fully present to experience it. I would argue that time invested in recovery--even when it initially feels like a loss or concession--is ultimately going to result in a life that is richer and more satisfying than anything you could experience through the haze of an eating disorder. It's as Hillel said...there is never a good time, so the best time is now.
I hope you can take the words of Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Hillel with you into the coming weeks as you work on your respective journeys: Take small steps, but take steps...and take them now!
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