The Aftermath

Let me just start by saying, feelings are exhausting. Nod if you're with me.

If you read my last post, then you know I was hit pretty hard by the news of the suicide of one of my former students. The process of...well...processing this has been kind of surreal and unlike anything I've experienced before, thank G-d.

First, there was the wake. I went with some teachers from my school who also had this child in class, and I will say that I am very, very glad that wakes are not part of the Jewish tradition. It was excruciating, bearing witness to so much pain. But it was also kind of lovely in the sense that it was a beautiful tribute to this child and it was clear the family had so much support from the community. I met one of her current high school teachers, and we had a long, comforting conversation in which we shared memories of her and talked about how we were coping. Still, I don't imagine I will get images from that wake out of my head any time soon.

All of this has brought up a number of interesting parallels to themes of my recovery. Here are the two big ones:

1) I am not entitled to my feelings.
I mean, this girl was my student seven years ago and I hadn't seen her in five. Do I even get to call this, "grief?" Am I entitled to that emotion? These questions echo refrains that came up time and time again when I was struggling with my eating disorder:

a) I'm not sick enough to really "qualify." 
b) Why am I so miserable when I have a lot of good things in my life? 
c) Nothing terrible has ever happened to me. Am I even entitled to have an eating disorder, or am I making it all up?

Sound familiar?

(In case you are wondering similar things about yourself, the answers are: a) Everyone says this, and you do qualify; b) That's depression, baby; c) YES you can have an eating disorder without a history of trauma.

What I've decided in this case is that, yes, I am entitled to grieve this student. I call my students, "my kids," and they are my kids forever--so when something bad happens to one of them, even if I haven't seen her in a few years, my heart is going to break a little bit. My grief will look different than that of the teachers who taught her this year, but it's still real and I have to let it happen.

2) Black-and-white thinking
Oh, I am in this. As a former Queen of Black-and-White Thinking, this should not surprise me at all. But I will admit that I was a little taken aback by the train of thought I went down the day after the wake:

What I do to nurture my students is so insignificant. It's not going to help them later when they're really struggling. And it won't matter anyway if they kill themselves.

Now, here's the thing: I KNOW this is not rational. I know it doesn't make any kind of sense to just throw in the towel and say, "Well, I'm not teaching anymore because I can't fix all their problems." I GET IT. And yet. There are still days when I look at my current students and I just feel sad, because I can't predict what is in store for them as they get older and therefore I can't prevent their future pain. I look at them and I feel exhausted, because I can give them everything I have and it might still not be enough. But what choice do I have, really, other than to keep giving? Giving them my whole heart is the only way I know how to do my job.

Sometimes, when I reflect on my recovery and dwell on a particular area where I still need work, I will suddenly develop tunnel vision and only be able to see that way in which I am not 100% "fixed." I then start thinking, "I haven't made any progress at all," or, "I'm still really sick." In my rational moments I know that neither of those statements is true. I have made a TON of progress, and I am NOT really sick, or even close to really sick. I just still have things to work on. But if I only focus on my deficits, I can't move forward.

And if I only focus on the ways in which I can't help my students, I won't be able to be present for the ways in which I can.




One of my favorite Jewish quotes comes from Pirkei Avot, and I have been thinking of it often as I wade through this grieving process:

"He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not for you to complete the task, but neither are you free to stand aside from it." (Pirkei Avot chapter 2)

That's how I am thinking about teaching. I am not going to be with my students for their whole educational careers; I will not be able to coach them through every crisis that comes their way; I won't be there to pull them out of the dark places the mind can go in adolescence and beyond. But I can--and I must--give them a strong foundation. I can teach them how to persevere, how to manage their feelings, and how to value themselves. I can show them love and hope that it sticks with them. If I make their world bright and safe while I have them, that is the most important thing I can do.

In an effort to remind myself of this, I spent some time before Shabbat going through my "Teacher Treasure Box." I found a number of adorable notes from my student who died, which I am using as a warm and positive way to remember her. But I also found this valentine from another student, which brought tears to my eyes and reminded me exactly why I do this job:

That child moved to another state the year after I had her, and I don't know how she's doing or where life has taken her. But I know I helped her love school when she was in third grade. I shined some light into her life and made her feel loved. What more can I hope for, other than that?

I'm not going to complete the task. But I'm going to continue doing my part.

That Happened.

So, remember how in my last post I talked about my fear that Donald Trump would get elected and I would have to explain that to my students? I didn't really think it would happen. It was just a "what if" scenario--a scary one, but not one that I thought would actually come to pass.

Well, it happened. And I had to have that conversation. Here was one of their questions:

"Is Donald Trump really going to do all those things he said he'd do to Black people and Mexicans and everyone?"

Dear G-d, I thought, help me.

So I answered that student with some ideas I'd gleaned from my early morning reading of an article in the Huffington Post about how to talk to children about the results of this election. I told my students something about the Democratic process and how no one person truly dictates how the country actually runs; I said something about how our country as a whole doesn't share those values and wouldn't allow such things to happen. But even as I was saying those things in my most convincing, reassuring teacher voice, there was a voice inside me saying, "Well, really? Because what we thought would never happen, JUST HAPPENED. So how do I know we would never let his threats become reality?" I wanted my students to feel safe, protected from the sense that their country was sliding out from underneath them. But I was also keenly aware that I couldn't say, with certainty, that their fears were unfounded.

On my Instagram feed yesterday, Elizabeth Gilbert posted the following photo:

She also wrote a corresponding post on her Facebook page in which she outlined the qualities she wanted to possess during this crisis: Calm. Strong. Open-hearted. Curious. Generous. Wise. Brave. Humorous. Patient.

If she can do that, I thought, she is far more highly evolved than I. I do not know how anyone is living any of those attributes right now. I do know that yesterday I was exactly zero of those things. No one has ever accused me of handling crises gracefully, and I certainly did not see fit to start now. Yesterday morning, when I checked Instagram, I found my feed full of photos saying versions of the theme, "Love always wins." THAT IS TOTAL BULLSHIT, I thought. LOVE DOES NOT ALWAYS WIN. SOMETIMES HATE WINS. HATE WON THIS ELECTION. My anger was palpable and near to boiling. I was furious at the people who had voted Trump into office, and I was also mad at the people who were telling me to think positively. There might be a place for that in the future, I reasoned, but not now. Now I get to be angry. And I was, all day. 

The only feeling that overpowered my fury was despair. Complete and overwhelming despair. I didn't know my country anymore. It was not a place I recognized and I feared it would not be again. As a nation, we had brought upon ourselves the most devastating self-inflicted wound in at least fifty years. Trump was a disaster. Congress was a disaster. The Supreme Court would become a disaster. I couldn't even begin to contemplate the impending doom on a global scale. All day, I had one thought: I do not even want to exist in the world right now. It seemed broken beyond repair. 

Today I woke up feeling the same way. Trump was still President elect, and the world was still broken in more places than I could even begin to count. But at some point during the morning, I realized that my 100% Doom perspective was not a sustainable operating principle. I would not be able to function if I didn't shift my mentality at least a little bit out of the anger-and-depression zone. 

The thing that has helped the most so far has been finding out that Hillary did win the popular vote, so at least a little more than half the country truly doesn't agree with Trump's misogynist, racist, and xenophobic views. Of course, we have our antiquated and eternally puzzling Electoral College to thank for Trump still getting elected, but at least it's comforting to know that the country hasn't gone entirely off the rails. Maybe love did win a little bit, even if it didn't actually win win.

Also right up there is venting. I spent from 6:30-6:40 this morning commiserating with another teacher at my school, and there was something so validating about hearing him say, "Yesterday was the hardest day I've ever had as a teacher." We talked about our continued shock and our sense of not knowing what to do. I left that conversation not feeling as though anything had been resolved, but still feeling a bit lighter because I had shared my heavy feelings with another person who understood. We all need to do that. Air that sh*t out. 

And finally, finally, I am starting to think about action. One thing I noticed about myself this election cycle is that while I had strong views on the candidates and the issues, I did not voice them loudly or often because I was afraid of offending or alienating people. In retrospect, I appreciate my sensitivity but also wish that I had been brave enough to be more authentic about my views. Now, I am never going to be an activist and I am probably never going to go to rallies. I am not a campaigner, or a canvasser, or even a phone-banker. I'm not putting bumper stickers on my car, and I will probably continue to avoid engaging in political debates on social media. But. There are social causes I believe in, and groups I want to defend, that might be threatened over the next four years. If I can find ways to lend my support that do not fly in the face of my confrontation-averse nature, I want to lend my time and energy to those causes. I'm ready to think about this now. And while I don't know that I'm ready to completely buy into the idea that "love always wins" on a large scale, I do think it can win on a small one...and in the end, that's all I can control. The world is too complicated and its problems are too overwhelming for me to solve. The outcome of this election and the damage that might follow are out of my hands. All I can do is what I can do in my own little corner of life. Guide and nurture my students. Empathize with my friends and family. Actively support causes that connect with my passions. Write. It's all I can do. It's enough and not enough at the same time. But that's where we're at.

I don't know how I'll feel when I wake up tomorrow, or how the country will feel. I think we just have to take it day by day. Or hour by hour. Most importantly, we need to be there for each other. This was a viciously ugly election cycle with a traumatic outcome and aftermath. We're all going to need some comfort, no matter whom we voted for. I know I'm sending love out to you all.

Getting Political

Unless you have been blissfully living under a rock, you know that there is a national election coming up (this week!) in the U.S. Personally, I have had a stomach ache for about 72 hours straight just thinking about it, and that's just the Presidential election. There's also the matter of Congress, and there is no collective body in the United States for which I currently have more disdain than Congress. But the Presidential election clearly steals the show in the absurdity department. I feel like where we are today as Americans is kind of like the experience of waking up one morning, taking a look at your life, and thinking, "How did I get here?" If you do a careful and, honestly, not-so-difficult analysis, you can easily see how you did get to where you are. But it still seems so impossible. That is the United States right now. This situation was an impossible joke until we realized we made it happen, and now here we are.

As a teacher, I often worry about how I will explain disturbing current events to my young students. Thankfully, most of the time my kids exist in a state of age-appropriate unawareness. Every year, 9/11 comes and goes without more than a peep of recognition. After the Sandy Hook massacre, only one student seemed to know what had happened. The Boston Marathon bombing also seemed to pass in and out of my students' consciousness with minimal disturbance. So I was hoping, perhaps irrationally, that maybe my kids would also be unaware of the complete mess that is this Presidential race. But then two weeks ago we were on a school bus, coming home from a field trip, and I heard one of my boys in the back of the bus yell, clear as day, "TRUMP TOUCHED UP HER SKIRT!" And then I knew, there was going to be no avoiding it.

I told this story to my best friend in Israel last week, and I asked her, "G-d forbid he gets elected--how am I going to explain to my third graders that the man who brags about basically committing sexual assault is now our President?!" She paused, and then replied, "Yeah...I wish I could say that was my biggest problem with him."

I think that about sums it up.

And so, I have been a puddle of anxiety for the past few days. Right before Shabbat I had to take a Xanax, because OH MY G-D. Then I thought, how am I actually going to survive Tuesday? Or Wednesday, for that matter? I can't just keep taking Xanax. I mean, I can, but I'm going to need an actual strategy. So (and here's the Jewish connection I know you've been waiting for), I decided to see what Jewish tradition has to say about managing acute anxiety. Here's what I found.

There is a verse in Proverbs (12:25) which says:

דאגה בלב איש ישחנה ודבר טוב ישמחנה

Anxiety in the heart of man bows it down, but a good word makes it glad.

As is so often the case in Hebrew, the word for, "bows it down," ישחנה, can have other meanings, depending on how one reads the word in context: 1)  to suppress; 2) to ignore; 3) to articulate. These meanings also correspond to three strategies (or stages) for managing anxiety.

STAGE ONE: Suppress/Minimize

In this stage, we can make our anxiety bearable by making it smaller, often by telling ourselves that the problem isn't really as big as it seems. Regarding this election, I definitely did this for quite a while when I told myself, "Americans would never let Trump get elected." Since the possibility seemed too awful to even begin to deal with, I just told myself it wouldn't happen. But that only worked for so long. Which brings me to...

STAGE TWO: Ignore

This is when we separate ourselves from the source of our anxiety. Personally, I have spent a lot of time in this stage lately. I stopped watching the news, I didn't read any articles on politics, and pretty much just stuck my head in the sand without apology. I figured this was the only viable option because whenever I came across any non-comedic election coverage, I felt my anxiety shoot up almost instantly. I'll be the first to say, avoidance is one of my favorite strategies. But now the election is two days away and I'm finding myself checking in with Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight several times a day, so it's time to move on to the next phase of the plan:

STAGE THREE: Articulate

This stage, my lovelies, is where we talk about it. 

I did this at shul yesterday with a friend of mine during Kiddush--we spent the entire time processing the current political situation, and every ten minutes or so we would say, "I can't even talk about this anymore"--at which point we would continue to talk about it. While it didn't solve anything, it was so helpful to just talk about it with someone who could commiserate. And while this was shared anxiety that we both were feeling, I think this strategy works even when the anxiety is all yours--talking about it takes some of the power away. 

I don't know about you, but I am going to need all of these stages over the next few days. I suspect 

that, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, you are going to need them, as well. So use them as often as necessary to combat the stress of the current situation and its aftermath. And if it all works out well, I, for one, will be bentching gomel. Feel free to join me!

Lessons From an American Buddhist Nun

Well, it's happening: my time in Israel is winding down. A week from Sunday, I will be heading home to the States. My summer program at Pardes finished yesterday, and that was when it hit me that I was going to have to say goodbye to everything and everyone that has been so precious to me this summer. Now, this isn't new; it happens every year and every year it's awful. But this year I am feeling it particularly acutely, I think because my connections were so authentic and so nourishing. I was able to really put myself out there and let myself be seen, and the reward was total acceptance--not something I experience on a daily basis at home. Who would want to say goodbye to that? Not I.

So I woke up this morning with "gray goggles" on and thought, "I am not going to get through this day." But I got myself together and went out to meet a friend, which helped for a couple of hours...but I had only been back in my apartment for about ten minutes when I started crying. I just felt such a void, so much loneliness--my brain just kept saying, Fill it, fill it, I can't bear it. Distract with something, anything.

So I picked up a source sheet from one of my classes because, desperate times. Now, this was an AMAZING class, and the last session focused on "losing and finding meaning." The source sheet boasts an impressive variety of contributors; to name a few: Rav Soloveitchik, Leo Tolstoy, Woody Allen, and Fred Rogers. For real. But I bypassed all of those in favor of an excerpt from an interview with the American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron:

"For me the spiritual path has always been learning how to die. That involves not just death at the end of this particular life, but all the falling apart that happens continually. The fear of death--which is also the fear of groundlessness, of insecurity, of not having it all together--seems to be the most fundamental thing we have to work with. Because these endings happen all the time! Things are always ending and arising and ending. But we are strangely conditioned to feel  that we're supposed to experience just the birth part and not the death part. 

We have so much fear of not being in control, of not being able to hold on to things. Yet the true nature of things is that you're never in control...You can never hold on to anything. That's the nature of how things are. But it's almost like it's in the genes of being born human that you can't accept that. You can buy it intellectually, but moment to moment it brings up a lot of panic and fear. So my own path has been training to relax with groundlessness and the panic that accompanies it."

That's it.

That's how I feel right now, and how I feel at the end of every summer in Israel. I want to hold on to everything. I'm afraid of losing my connection to Judaism and my connection to the people I care about here. I hate the groundlessness I feel when I transition away from this place. And what accompanies all of this is grief--for the loss of people and places that are such a big piece of my heart, even if I know they're not really leaving me and I can still stay in touch. But it's not the same. And it does feel like death. The joy I felt at the beginning--that was the birth part. And what I'm experiencing now--this is the death part.

But that's how it is. It's unavoidable. And I do panic: What if I can't come back next summer? What if my friends forget about me? What if they don't respond to my emails? What if I have to spend an entire year feeling lonely and spiritually unfulfilled? And on and on. But I recognize these thoughts, and I am able to label them as Typical Leaving Israel Thoughts; this doesn't take the sting out of them but does let me relax into them a little bit because I know they're normal. I'm allowed to be sad, because endings are hard. But I have strategies: I can go for a walk; I can watch the birds; I can write. I can bring my grief to people I trust and say, Here it is. You don't have to fix it. You don't have to make me feel happy. Just be with me where I am. Help me relax with the groundlessness.

And yet, there is still so much love. So much sun. And one week left, which I plan to enjoy as best as I can while still making room for All The Feelings. Going into this Shabbat, I am profoundly grateful for all that I have been given over the past month, because those blessings are precisely what makes leaving so hard. I think I'm the lucky one.

Love Is the Sun

So. Remember how, in my last post (all about how happy I was), I said:

"I know the happiness won't last forever, probably not even for the duration of this summer program. I'm a mood cycler, and eventually the downswing will come."

Well, today was one of the Down Days.

I felt the shift beginning yesterday, and I thought, Oh...it's happening. And then I woke up this morning, and I couldn't access the pure elation of the previous week at all. I went to class, and all the material felt hard; I observed the participation of my classmates but couldn't bring myself to chime in.  At one point, a fellow student caught my eye, smiled at me, and said, "How are you?" So I did what I always do when I'm not feeling it--I fake it to the best of my ability. I dug up a smile, pasted it on my face, and said, "Good! How are you?" Social obligation fulfilled.

Now, there's no real reason why I am emotionally slogging through today, whereas last week I was on a happiness high. Nothing bad has happened; nothing good has gone away. I just know that some days are like this, and when it happens, it doesn't really do me much good to wonder why. Rationality doesn't help; "looking on the bright side" doesn't help. But there are a few things that do:

1) Perspective. Over the years I have experienced the full range of moods, ranging from lying on the floor in the fetal position and not wanting to wake up the next morning, to genuine happiness and inner peace. The mood I am currently experiencing is somewhere in the middle. It's not the best, but it's also not the worst. It's uncomfortable, but it's something I can deal with. I know how to do this because I have done it before.

2) Time. With regard to my own personal mood cycles, the most important thing I have learned is that given enough time, things will even out and I will feel better. This truth has proven itself over and over--if I can just hang in there and take care of myself, the waves of negativity will wash away.  Now you might be thinking, "Wait-it-out is not a viable strategy for combatting true depression," and I would say that you are correct. When I have been truly depressed, the most essential tools in my arsenal have been therapy and medication. Actually, those are still tools I use regularly, which probably explains why I have fewer episodes of genuine depression than I used to. But of course, there are lots of shades of low moods that aren't as extreme as depression, and those also need to be dealt with. For me, recovery does not mean that my mood is always positive, or even on the positive end of the spectrum. But it does mean that I know how to handle darkness, and that I take the initiative to combat it however I can...and one of the ways is by telling myself, "This will pass," and then doing something to distract myself in the meantime.

Glennon Doyle Melton recently wrote a profoundly brave and honest post on her blog, Momastery, in which she explores what it feels like to literally be at emotional rock bottom--a place in which death doesn't seem like such a bad option--and how to lift yourself up just enough to know that life is always worth fighting for. I'm linking the whole post here and I encourage you to read it in its entirety, especially if you or someone you know is struggling/has ever struggled with thoughts of suicide. These issues need to be de-shamed and talked about honestly, and Glennon opens up the dialogue thoughtfully and articulately. When I read her piece, I thought, "Yes. That's exactly it." And here is the part that I have taken with me and integrated into my core, the part that best captures what my experience of depression and lowness has been like in recovery:

"You just don't follow Despair's directions. You wait the despair monster out. You let it yammer away and try to scare the shit out of you and then you remember that despair is loud, but it's a LIAR...

Am I able to do this because I beat the monster? Because it leaves me alone now? NO! Still speaks to me. It's just not the BOSS of me. I just say: Oh, shut up. You lie. Pain comes and goes like clouds. LOVE IS THE SUN."

And that's really it. Pain comes and goes like clouds, but LOVE IS THE SUN. So today, as I waited for the clouds to pass, I did my best to engage in learning, got myself a yummy drink at a cafe after class, sat outside on the porch and read, reached out to a friend, and wrote. I still felt down, but I told myself, "This is just clouds, and love is the sun." And here in Israel, thank G-d, I have access to so much love.

I think it might just be a sunnier day tomorrow.

Depression--it's the Pits

You know it's going to be a bad day when one of your first thoughts upon waking is, "I hate this."  Never mind that you might not even be sure what "this" is--you're in a Mood, and the Color of the Day is grey.

Maybe you manage to get yourself to work or school where task-driven adrenaline propels you along as the ever-competent person you are, but behind the smiles and efficiency is the thought, "I will not make it through this day." But, of course, you do, because what is the alternative, really?  The more you get done, the more overwhelmed you become by all that there is yet to do, even once you finally get home ("Wait...I have to SHOWER?!")  The very IDEA of simply standing under the water is enough to make you curl into the fetal position on the couch and stay there for a good long while.

You probably can't help but notice that everyone else in your life seems happy and well-adjusted (even if you know they really aren't, you still allow yourself to think that they are). And instead of rubbing off on you, everyone else's happiness only makes you feel more alone, more sad, and more discouraged at the state of your own life.

After feeling like this for several days, or weeks, you start to worry that you will be like this forever.  You don't actually want to be dead, but you also don't want to continue on the path that you're on, and change just does not seem in the cards.

That's depression, friends.  I've been there.  And it is the worst.

Even though I spend less time in that state of mind now than I did in the past, I still revisit it every now and then, and even though I know it is time-limited and I know it's just me being out-of-sync biochemically, it is still real and painful--and incredibly isolating.  I thought about that recently while I was in one of these Moods, and I noticed that during the entire two weeks that the depression lasted, I did not ask any of my friends for help in the moments when I needed it.  That led me to wonder, Why is it so hard to ask for what we need?

Personally, I can think of several answers.  To start, depression is too hard to explain. What can you really say to convey to someone how awful you feel despite the fact that your life is objectively not so bad?  And then, there's the issue of how your "neediness" will be received. Sure, there is the potential for empathy, but there is also the risk of being told some version of, "You're too much for me"...and if you're anything like me, that does not always seem like a risk worth taking.

Last week, as I struggled with the question of, "to tell, or not to tell," I came across a bit of wisdom by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his book, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Vol. 2.  He cites a story of some peasants who were drinking in a tavern, and one peasant asked another, "Tell me, do you love me or don't you love me?" The other peasant said that he did love the first peasant, to which the first peasant replied, "You say that you love me, but you do not know what I need.  If you really loved me, you would know."  The lesson?  That loving another person means knowing his or her needs and offering help without being asked.  In response to this story, Rabbi Telushkin says the following:

"One day, though, it occurred to me that the second peasant might truly have loved his friend, but just didn't know what was bothering him or precisely what he needed.  Indeed, how many people who know you--and who may well love you--might not be aware of all the things that cause you to be upset or sad?...perhaps the first peasant should have told his friend what he needed or what was troubling him and thereby offered him the chance to be helpful and empathetic."

I can see the wisdom in this...after all, when my friends come to me with their sadness or troubles, it feels very satisfying and rewarding to be able to offer them comfort. In fact, those moments bring us closer together. So why am I denying my friends the same opportunity?

Sometimes, when I'm in the middle of depression, it seems like the best thing to do is to just grit my teeth and push through--because that's what a "strong" person would do.  But Rabbi Telushkin offers another perspective on that misconception, as well, through a short story:

"A little boy was struggling to lift a heavy stone but could not budge it.  The boy's father, who happened to be watching, said to his son, 'Are you using all your strength?'  

'Yes, I am,' the boy said with irritation.

'No, you're not,' the father answered. 'You have not asked me to help you.'"

It's hard to remember, in the moment, that asking for help is a sign of strength--in fact, it's foolish to think we can go it alone.  Maybe that means asking a friend, or a family member, or a therapist...or G-d.  I'll admit that I did not do a good job of this during my most recent foray into depression, but next time (because there will be a next time!) I am going to make it a goal to reach out to at least one friend and try to let her in on how I'm feeling.  I encourage you to do the same...because a little companionship can make anything, even depression, a lot more bearable.

For more on asking for help and responding with empathy, watch this short gem narrated by Dr. Brené Brown. Pretty much nails it.

Small Yet Mighty!

The past two weeks have been unusually trying ones, headlined by a major crisis at work and filled in with the more-mundane-yet-still-stressful demands of my professional and personal lives.  I've had to pull out all my tricks in the name of maintaining some semblance of emotional equilibrium, and what I've discovered is that learning Torah makes for some great distress tolerance.  Text study exercises my intellectual powers and allows me to shelve my feelings for a bit, permitting me to operate in a realm that is dominated by the analytical--not the emotional.  Over the past ten days, when I've needed to ground myself in something I've often found myself turning to my chumash.

If you like cubits and animal sacrifices, the past two weeks' worth of parshiot would be right up your alley.  Personally, I don't find either of those topics overly compelling, but this week in particular I found something in the parasha that grabbed me.  It's small (I like small things), it's mysterious (fun!)...it's...

A little aleph.

Yep, a little aleph, right there at the end of the first word of the parasha:  vayikra. Why the tiny letter, in a text written painstakingly and precisely by hand?

The word, vayikra (ויקרא), can be translated as, "and He called" (as in, Hashem called to Moshe).  The Sages explain that the word, called, indicates a degree of closeness and affection that Hashem felt for Moshe.  Without the aleph, however, the word becomes, vayikar (ויקר), which means, "He happened upon."  Vayikar denotes a coincidental or accidental relationship, and in comparison with the implied meaning of vayikra, is indicative of an inferior connection.  It is also used to describe Hashem's interaction with Bilaam, the gentile prophet known for being haughty and indifferent to the power of Hashem in the world.  In contrast, Hashem calls to Moshe, a man who is the epitome of humility and sensitivity to the Divine presence.

That distinction seems to make solid sense...but why is the aleph at the end of vayikra so tiny?  The Sages teach that it is because Moshe was so humble that he didn't believe he deserved for Hashem to call to him; he thought the word, vayikar, was prestigious enough for him.  Hashem, on the other hand, wanted to express His affection and love for Moshe through the use of the word, vayikra.  Because Moshe was so uncomfortable with the idea that he merited that supreme honor, Hashem compromised with him and allowed Moshe to write vayikra with a little aleph.

What I take from this is that humility is an important virtue...but so is recognizing one's significance.  It's almost as if Hashem said to Moshe, "I know you think you're not special, but *I* know that you are.  I won't force you to publicly acknowledge that you are exemplary, but neither will I let you forget that you are precious in My eyes."

Jewish tradition makes it clear that Moshe Rabbenu was one of the greatest men our people has ever known; yet, this man with so many gifts was also plagued by self-doubt.  Part of what (I think) makes Moshe such an inspiring personality is that he was able to find balance between recognizing his uniquely prestigious role among the Jewish people, and believing that he was completely ordinary.  Moshe found a way to acknowledge and honor his value without letting it consume him or alienate him from other people or from Hashem.  This balance is what the little aleph symbolizes.

We all need the little aleph in our lives.  We need to believe that although we are not everything, we are something.  We might not be the most important person in the entire world, but we are uniquely created and loved by Hashem.  And, we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that at times when we're not able to believe that we have value, Hashem will keep the little aleph handy as a way to call to us and remind us of our specialness and importance to this world.

Anxiety Comes Calling...

Whenever I sat down to think about this week's blog post, my mind would stay on task for a few minutes before being distracted by news coming in from Israel--reports of rockets, missiles, air strikes, and sirens.  No matter how hard I tried to focus on philosophical issues, I always ended up dwelling on current events in the here and now...so I decided I needed to write about that.

As much as I relish a rich political debate, I don't want to have one here.  The more I learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more I realize I will never be able to sort through all of its complexity.  To be honest, right now I am relatively uninterested in the nitty-gritty details of that complicated history.  What occupies my mind is something much more basic:

People I love are in danger, and I'm not able to help them.

For me, this is what it boils down to.  In my mind, Israel is no longer just a place where a lot of Jews live.  It is the place where my friends and teachers live, where I lived this past summer, where I have learned and grown and shared and connected.  The land of Israel is a place where I feel at home, and the friends I have over there are some of the people dearest to me in the entire world.  This week, I talked with friends of mine whose lives had gone from mundane to surreal in a matter of hours; I read about rockets landing near the communities of two of my teachers; I found out that my friend's husband was called up to the army; I heard about sirens going off in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  My best friend told me about how she and her coworkers ran for cover when they heard a siren, and this morning I started my day by reading headlines about a public bus bombing in the city where she lives. As I go about my days in my relatively safe neighborhood far across the world from the center of the action, I can't help but notice the pit I feel in my stomach or the way my breath often stops just short of actually reaching my diaphragm.  I am aware of my fear, my frustration, and my sense of helplessness--and my need to manage all of those emotions effectively in order to keep living my life.

Historically, I've not done well with handling anxiety over things beyond my control.  My mind spins and whirls around the what-ifs, and I tend to need more reassurance than usual that no news does not, in fact, mean bad news.  In early recovery I started learning about the "cognitive distortions" in which I often engaged:  catastrophizing, emotional reasoning, jumping to conclusions...those were but a few of my favorites.  For a long time, I dealt with helplessness, fear, and anxiety by exercising or starving them into oblivion.  At this point in my journey, though, clearly I need some new strategies...and this past week has given me an opportunity to practice the coping skills that I've worked hard to develop.

Here's what has worked so far:  I try to keep my consumption of news reports to a reasonable amount, as opposed to keeping Israeli news sites up in my browser for the entire day.  I don't check the news late at night, when I need to be relaxing in preparation for sleep.  I make an effort to curtail the number of emails I send to my friends--enough to satisfy my need to know they're safe, but not so many so that taking care of my anxiety becomes another problem on their plates (okay, so my best friend still gets a lot of emails...but isn't that what best friends are for?).  When I say the prayer for peace every day, I say it with more feeling, more kavannah.  I signed up for the Shmira Project, started by two families affiliated with Livnot U'Lehibanot, one of my favorite Israeli organizations.  And, I've tried to shift my focus from what I can't control to what I can...how can I bring light to the lives of the people I care about in Israel?  How can I bring light to the lives of the people I care about here?

Two hours ago, a ceasefire went into effect.  I'm hopeful that it sticks, and that the rockets that have continued to rain on southern Israel will slow to a trickle, then to nothing.  I hope that life gets back to normal for my friends and teachers, and that soon we will return to thinking and talking about matters not related to national security.  Finally, I hope that this week when I wish them all a shabbat shalom, that's exactly what it will be.

The Best Laid Plans...

I really dislike curveballs...

...and yet, life seems to enjoy throwing them.

You know how it is...you have a plan, one that excites you and energizes you, one that you think will move your life in the direction you want it to go, and then...WHAM.  Curveball.  So much for the plan.

Very recently, I found myself in this situation--a plan that I had looked forward to with great hope and excitement suddenly fell apart and left me back at square one.  Now, it's true that I've been in therapy for over a decade, but let's be real--the demise of a Really Good Plan is still cause for some serious emotional crumbling.  First thought:  Now what will I do?  Second thought:  I can't do anything.  Third thought:  I don't want to eat.

Yep, that was the third thought, because even in recovery, I know that when I am vulnerable, that's where my mind goes.  But the amazing thing about recovery is that I can recognize such a thought as a red flag and can intervene before ever putting that thought into action.  So, instead of not eating, I did the following:  I cried; I reached out to someone I trusted; I distracted myself; I took a nap (all of which, it should be noted, ultimately were way more effective than going hungry).  And, I thought about the concept of bitachon.

Bitachon is translated as trust.  It is a way of applying the concept of "faith in Hashem" to one's everyday life.  If you have faith in Hashem, then you should trust Hashem.  But what does that mean?

On a simplistic level, it means understanding that Hashem would never make us go through something that wasn't ultimately for the greater good.  It also means acknowledging that we don't see the whole picture--only Hashem can do that.  Consequently, we might have plans that seem perfect to us, but maybe they won't ultimately get us where we need to go--and when that happens, Hashem intervenes and foils our plans.  This may seem devastating to us because we can't see where we are headed--all we can see are our ruined plans.  But, remembering that Hashem creates reality in a way that is for our benefit--and the world's--can help us trust that even that which seems bad, might lead us somewhere good.

However, it's important to understand that bitachon does NOT mean being complacent or believing that "everything will be fine if I just sit back and trust Hashem."  Rav Shimshon Pincus Zatzal explains that when we are confronted with adversity, it is misguided bitachon to convince ourselves that there is no problem and that Hashem will handle everything.  Rather, bitachon means acknowledging the severity of the challenges we face and using the tools Hashem has given us to lift ourselves out of problematic situations.  Bitachon is not passive--it is the active channeling of our trust in Hashem to propel ourselves forward.

Personally, I like this idea of bitachon much better than the notion that I just should be happy no matter what my circumstances, because Hashem is taking me where I need to go.  I mean, I have faith in Hashem, but I also believe in personal agency--and bitachon is the intersection of the two.  Perhaps that "great plan" of mine actually wasn't in sync with Hashem's big picture--I can accept that.  I can also use the skills and tools that Hashem has given me--determination, resourcefulness, thoughtfulness, patience--to find another option for myself that is better aligned with what Hashem ultimately wants for me.  Yes, life threw me a curveball...but, I don't need to throw up my hands and wait for the next pitch to smack me in the face.  I can pick up my glove, channel my fielding skills...and trust that Hashem will help me catch it.

"Why Should I?"

Although I initially planned to spend each week of Elul looking at a different theme of the month, I've decided that for the time being I'm going to stick with teshuva, on the grounds that there is just so much to explore within that one theme.  The more I thought about what I wrote last week, the more it occurred to me that in explaining a reason why the process of recovery can be so painful, I had really addressed only half of the issue.  What naturally follows from that is the question, "Well, if recovery hurts so much and is so uncomfortable, why should I bother putting myself through that in the first place?" Convincing someone (or yourself) that enduring the unpleasantness of early recovery is a worthwhile process can be a tough sell, but recently I came upon some words from--you guessed it--Rav Kook, that I believe both validate the paradox of a painful recovery and offer a solid argument in favor of sitting with the discomfort:

"At the inception of creation it was intended that the tree have the same taste as the fruit (Genesis Rabbah 5:9).  All the supportive actions that sustain any general worthwhile spiritual goal should by right be experienced in the soul with the same feeling of elation and delight as the goal itself is experienced when we envision it.  But earthly existence, the instability of life, the weariness of the spirit when confined in a corporate frame, brought it about that only the fruition of the final step, which embodies the primary ideal, is experienced in its pleasure and splendor.  The trees that bear the fruit have, however, become coarse matter and have lost their taste...But every defect is destined to be mended.  Thus we are assured that the day will come when creation will return to its original state, when the taste of the tree will be the same as the taste of the fruit."  (Orot HaTeshuva)

Here, Rav Kook acknowledges the reality that oftentimes, the process by which we achieve what we most desire is not, in fact, pleasurable.  If full recovery is the "fruit," then the process of getting there is the "tree"...and I think we can all probably agree that the journey is nowhere near as sweet as the destination.  Rav Kook validates this and also normalizes it by teaching us that this is one of the imperfections of life on earth, a less than ideal situation that is familiar to anyone who has ever traveled a long, arduous path toward a much-anticipated goal.  But, he also reassures us that someday the "injustice" of this reality will correct itself, and we will find ourselves in a world where both the process and the result are full of delight.

You might be thinking, "Okay, great.  Someday far, far in the future, this yucky situation will no longer be the reality.  But what about NOW?  How do I deal with it in the present as it happens?"  I have received many valuable answers to the question of how to cope with the discomfort and have personally tried a wide variety of "distress tolerance skills" and methods of "cognitive restructuring."  While not every strategy hit the mark, there were many that did help me manage the uncomfortable feelings and sensations that came along with early recovery.  However, another critical contributor to my ability to push through the unpleasantness was the underlying sense I had that all of the struggles I was enduring were serving to teach me something important.  Even in the moment, underneath all my stubbornness, resentment, and fear was a glimmer of understanding that if I could just pull this off, I would end up stronger for it.  Rav Kook reinforces this idea when he says,

"Penitence does not come to embitter life but to make it more pleasurable.  The joy of life resulting from penitence emerges out of all those currents of bitterness in which the soul is entangled in its initial steps toward penitence.  This is the creative higher prowess, to know that sweetness is drawn from all bitterness, life from all the pangs of death, abiding delights from every disease and pain." (Orot HaTeshuva)

For me, this has proven to be true.  While I would never, ever wish an eating disorder on anyone, I also would not want to give back all the insight and understanding that I've gained through the process of recovery. This does not erase the significant pain I often felt or the very real losses I incurred along the way...but it helps me to accept that this struggle was given to me so that it might teach me something important, and I believe it has.  In that light, my hope for all of us is that we find the courage to radically accept the discomfort, move through it, and emerge stronger on the other side.