Breaking Down the Labyrinth

For me, Pesach prep is a bit like everything else--the anticipation is nearly always worse than the reality. For weeks, I am an anxious mess as I stare down the monstrous amounts of cleaning and cooking I need to do, and then the actual day comes, and I wake up at 7 am, bang it out, and am done by 3 pm. I do recognize that in this one particular instance, living alone in a small city apartment is a blessing, because the cleaning is manageable and I am cooking for one. Bottom line--I'm officially Kosher L'Pesach with time left in the afternoon to do some writing, so I feel pretty accomplished. The OU would probably find fault with a few things, but lately I've found fault with a few of their things, so I guess that makes us even.

Despite all the frenzy (or perhaps partly because of it; it's such a classic cultural ritual), I really enjoy Pesach. I appreciate that it forces me to do things differently--staying up late, eating different foods, etc. But what I really love doing during this holiday, especially in the days leading up to it, is thinking about freedom and what it means for me, personally.

In the conventional sense, I have never been an unfree person. I had the good fortune to be born in the United States to a middle-class family who never needed to worry about money. Though I'm in a religious minority in this country, I'm also in the racial majority, which has bestowed upon me benefits I would be remiss not to mention. I have never been tied down to unfavorable circumstances by debt, and though my finances do not afford me every option, I have enough decent options that I can build a good life for myself. In short, I have been very, very lucky, both as an accident of birth and as the result of planning and hard work.

But there has always been something that has bound me. In childhood, it was OCD; I could not go to bed without making two trips around my bedroom to touch certain objects, and my stuffed animals had to be arranged just so on my bed or it physically didn't feel right. I played endless games of "magical thinking," telling myself that I would do well on a test if I could throw a small object in the air and catch it with one hand three times in a row, three times (also, I loved the number 3). If I was out for a walk and stepped on a manhole cover with one foot, I had to step on it with the other foot, as well. I was never sure what, exactly, would happen if I didn't adhere to these rituals, but I had a firm (if vague) sense that it would be "something bad."

In college, some of those compulsions lessened because I was physically removed from the environment where they took place (my childhood bedroom), but that was okay because I found something better: compulsive exercise and obsessive dieting. Anorexia was the ultimate ritual. Every morning, at the same hour every day, I went to the gym. I did the same machines, in the same order, for the same amounts of time (or a little more, but never a little less). I ran the same distance every day (or a little longer, but never a little shorter). It was mind-numbingly boring, but OMG THE ENDORPHINS. Then, there was eating. I ate at the same times every day, picking from the same narrow variety of foods, counting out numbers of things to make sure my intake was exactly the same as the day before (or a little less, but never a little more). Of course, I had rituals WITH food, too--precise methods of eating from which I could not deviate. By the middle of freshman year, I had come up with a system that I had fully mastered. It did not occur to me that the system had mastered me.


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I recently read a book of memoirs called, Abandon Me, by an author named Melissa Febos. I actually don't think I can adequately describe this book or its effect on me, except to say that it is, hands down, the most powerful memoir I have ever read. I got it from the library and it was a "speed read" so there were no renewals, and on the day I had to return it I went to my local bookstore and bought my own copy, even though it just came out and is only in hardcover, and I have a somewhat strict (if informal) policy against paying "extra" for hardcover books. But this book, I needed to own, and immediately.

My favorite essay is the one called, "Labyrinths," in which Melissa outlines her own addiction to heroin and her recovery from it, as well as her brother's battle with bipolar disorder. The title of the essay is a reference to the 1986 movie, "Labyrinth," in which a teenage girl named Sarah (played by Jennifer Connelly) wishes for her baby brother to disappear--and then he does; he gets taken away by Jareth, the Goblin King (played by David Bowie), who stores the baby in a castle in the center of a labyrinth. Sarah has 13 hours to solve the labyrinth and rescue her brother.

Sarah enters the labyrinth and begins to run. She falls into many distracting traps designed to throw her off course; in actuality, like all labyrinths, it is only one path and will inevitably lead to the center, so all Sarah needs to do is follow it. But, as Melissa Febos writes:

Throughout the film Jareth tries to convince her that the labyrinth is too difficult to solve. He drugs her. He sends creatures to mislead her. He promises her that happiness is in succumbing to his fantasy and abandoning her quest to solve the labyrinth.

"I ask for so little," he pleads. "Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want."

When I read that, I thought of how similar Jareth's voice sounded to that of my eating disorder. When I fell into anorexia's labyrinth, my list of "everything I wanted" was simple: I wanted to fill the empty space within me. Anorexia promised me that if I allowed it to rule me, it would fulfill my wish by simply erasing my need altogether. And so, I gave in. The labyrinth seemed too complicated, the center too elusive, and so I allowed myself to be swallowed up. The truth is that I didn't even know I was trapped--I still felt like I was in control.

Recognizing the structural layout of my labyrinth was the key to its undoing. Once I knew that the voice of my captor was lying, that I would never be free unless I broke down the walls myself, I started to come back to life. But there were so many distractions. I had to learn to recognize my own anxieties and compulsions for what they were, and to be in tune to the mental and physical cues that signaled I was starting to give in to the eating disorder. Let me say: it was a complicated f*cking labyrinth. But I used my tools: I went to treatment, I participated in therapy, I took my medication. And I found the center, where my self was waiting.

My favorite excerpt from Melissa's essay is in the picture below:

I love it because this is the key to everything, this realization that our addictions, our obsessive and compulsive belief systems, are nothing more than captors trying to take away our power. They will promise us everything, but leave us with nothing. The truth is that we hold the power. The minute we even entertain the idea that we might not have to listen, the labyrinth weakens a little bit. And as soon as we are willing to say the word, "No," even if we just whisper it, that is the moment that we start to get back our freedom. The labyrinth cannot withstand a lack of worship, and when we refuse to fear it any longer, it will begin to crumble.

Sometimes, it can seem tempting to go back to the labyrinth, with its small enclosed spaces and clear boundaries. But it will never again be as satisfying as it once was, because it will have lost its luster. Every time I went back to anorexia after my first round of treatment, I found that I had too much knowledge for it to stick for long--I knew what I was doing, I recognized the irrationalities, and I knew what I should be doing instead. More importantly, I understood what my eating disorder had taken from me, and was still taking from me, and that made me angry. The day I decided that I was simply tired of this particular labyrinth, that it held nothing of value for me anymore, was the day I left treatment and never went back.

Putting my life back together and growing into a functional adult has been a lot of work; it isn't always fun and sometimes makes me cry. But since I left the labyrinth, my life has never again felt as empty as it did when I was held captive by the eating disorder that promised to fill me. I make my own choices, now. I have space for relationships, I have energy and passion for a demanding profession, and I actually have emotions, which are quite possibly the most wondrous part of the whole operation.

Freedom is everything.

And so, my Pesach wish for each of us is that we recognize the labyrinths that hold us captive, and that we start to deconstruct them, brick by brick. Freedom is out there, and in it our true selves are waiting, as they have always been.

The Challenge of Freedom

Yesterday my good friend and chevruta introduced me to my new favorite haggadah:  A Night To Remember by Mishael Zion and Noam Zion.  It has the full traditional text accompanied by contemporary insights, spectacularly clever artwork, and commentary from a wide range of contributors (Rav Soloveitchik, Aviva Zornberg, Yehuda Amichai, and Amos Oz to name but a few).  I loved it so much that this morning I had to rush out and get my own copy.  If you've never been to the haggadah section of a Jewish bookstore on the day before Erev Pesach, put it on your to-do list for next year.

In a section discussing the meaning of freedom, the haggadah quotes 20th century French author Andre Gide:

"To be liberated--that is easy.  To be a free person--that is very hard."

I think this is a critical yet often unspoken aspect of freedom:  the challenge of maintaining it after it has been won.  In fact, the responsibilities of living as a free human being can be so daunting that sometimes people find themselves missing the predictability and security of slavery.  The ancient Israelites certainly experienced this--not even two months into their liberation from Egypt, the Jews began to whine about their new living conditions.  What would they eat?  Where would the food come from?  Oh, if only they had stayed in Egypt where they had their fill of meat and bread!  But, the Jews weren't being simply ungrateful complainers.  Rather, they were experiencing the fear that comes from understanding the responsibility of being self-sufficient.  When they were slaves, the Jews didn't have to worry about their own upkeep--they ate what was given to them and had their basic needs met by their masters.  Once the novelty of freedom wore off, the Jews woke up to the knowledge that life was no longer predictable and security could no longer be counted on.  Crossing the sea was a scary but finite event; in contrast, freedom stretched before them as a continuous stretch of fending for themselves.  Through those infamous rose-colored glasses, the Jews forgot about the backbreaking labor and crushing oppression that had been their lot as slaves, and saw only one thing:  the comfort of a lifestyle that had been familiar to them.

Andre Gide's quote resonates for me personally as well.  I remember that when I first went into intensive treatment for my eating disorder, I felt relieved that I would no longer be allowed to be a slave to my anorexia.  I was scared, of course, but I was also exhausted and tired of having every day be a battle between my mind and body.  Treatment provided me with a kind of scaffolded freedom--it taught me how to make more liberated choices around food and exercise but also provided me with a supportive framework in which to practice those skills.  A nutritionist watched over my meal plan, a staff of therapists and counselors tended to my emotional needs, and my case manager handled most of the major decisions around my treatment.  I had my hands full just trying to assimilate all the new knowledge and emotions, but I definitely didn't have any big "life responsibilities" during that time.

When I left treatment and began to live as a "free person," all of that changed.  I still had the skills that I learned in the program, but now I was fully responsible for using them.  I had an outpatient team that coached me along, but the major legwork was on me:  the responsibilities of shopping for food, following my meal plan, monitoring my own exercise, and providing my own in-the-moment distress tolerance fell squarely on my shoulders.  It was very, very hard.  There were many times when I wished I could go back to treatment...not because I wanted to be sick again, but because I just wanted to be taken care of.  Never mind that intensive treatment had been hard in a completely different way; when I was newly into "independent recovery" all I could remember was that it had been safe and secure.  Learning to take ownership of my own life of freedom from my eating disorder was a challenging yet critical step in my process of attaining recovery.

Years later, I still have all the "real world" obligations that come with living an adult life:  I have a full-time job, pay my own bills, and cook and clean for myself.  I am responsible for continuing to make recovery-oriented choices and for keeping myself physically and emotionally healthy.  There are times of overwhelm, but really, these "burdens" don't seem unbearable anymore--they just feel like life.  Recovered life.  And, although they bring their share of stress, these responsibilities also bring me lots of joy and a sense of accomplishment.  I remember what it felt like to be enslaved to an eating disorder, and I am proud that I now have what it takes to sustain my own recovery.

This Pesach, I hope we can all validate for ourselves that freedom is hard, and it is normal to miss the familiarity and security of whatever oppression we've left behind.  But, I hope we can also remind ourselves that what freedom brings is infinitely more gratifying than anything we could expect in slavery.  Remember--the Jews didn't go back to Egypt.  They trusted Hashem, they persevered, and they became a stronger people because of it.  If our ancestors could do it, we can do it, too.

חג כשר ושמח!

The Count is On

With the conclusion of Passover last night, my life shifted neatly into its post-Pesach routines: switching back the dishes, grocery shopping once again for "regular" food, feeding leftover matzah to the neighborhood waterfowl, etc. I'm also back to writing, which means I can now begin to share my thoughts on another great post-Pesach tradition: counting the Omer.

Brief overview: beginning on the second night of Pesach, Jews traditionally begin counting the days until Shavuot. Pesach marks the Exodus and the Jews' emergence into freedom; Shavuot is the day that the Jewish people received Torah at Mount Sinai. Because freedom without Torah would be incomplete, we "count the Omer" as a way to show how much we yearn to fulfill the word of Torah. The annual 49-day counting period is considered a time of introspection and self-improvement, during which we prepare ourselves once again to receive Torah. (For a much more in-depth explanation, visit chabad.org or aish.com.)

Each of the seven weeks of the Omer corresponds to one of seven sefirot (the forms of Divine energy through which Hashem makes manifest different attributes and qualities). Because the concept of gradual self-refinement seems so in line with recovery, I've decided that during the Omer period, I will focus my blog entries on each week's respective sefirah. Hopefully, this exercise will help us all use this time period to examine our own lives and to reach for higher ground.

Stay tuned!

Splitting Our Seas

It's here...Erev Pesach. For the past week, I've been a ball of anxiety: heightened demands of work plus the added stress of cleaning for Pesach rendered me a frazzled, short-tempered mess. Now, though, the work week is over; the cooking and cleaning are done. None of it is perfect, but I've decided it's good enough. And now, in the time remaining before Shabbat and Pesach begin, I have some thoughts that I want to share with you.

Last week, I got a surprise phone call from one of my beautiful friends all the way in Israel(!), and she shared with me a teaching she had read about regarding the Splitting of the Sea. The Chassidic masters teach that we each reside in two worlds: the land world and the sea world. The land world is our revealed life--our social and professional selves, our conscious thoughts, our family lives. In contrast, the sea world is hidden, full of our deepest desires and innately known truths which, though essential to our core beings, rarely get expressed in our day-to-day existences.

I often have felt a stark contrast between my land and sea realities. Because of the concrete, immediate demands of my daily life, I sometimes need to act in ways that do not directly support my innermost values and convictions. Depending on my surroundings, I may or may not feel comfortable admitting to my true feelings or deepest yearnings. Sometimes, it is hard for me to decipher what I really want...is this a quick fix, or something that will make me genuinely happy? I think the struggle to blend my revealed life with my hidden core has been a major theme of my recovery.

The Chassidic masters recognize this conflict, and they teach that this is the meaning of the Splitting of the Sea. When Hashem split the Red Sea, He also split the seas within every human being. The Israelites were able to walk across what had been submerged underwater moments before; we as individuals are able to see clearly our innermost selves that ordinarily seem inaccessible. This is an opportunity for us to engage with our cores and to bring to light our deepest hungers and our concealed selves. We can bring out into the open whatever it is about ourselves that we ordinarily keep hidden from view.

Of course, after the People of Israel crossed the sea on dry land, Hashem closed up the waters, and what had been passable was once again closed off. Similarly, we can expect that we will not always be able to connect so clearly with our inner selves. However, the potential for such a crossing, such a connection, will never be lost.

I hope that each of us allows ourselves the opportunity this Pesach to get in touch with our "sea realities." Listen to the voice at your core: what is it telling you? How might you use these eight days to bring some of your inner world to light?

!!חג כשר ושמח

Considering Kitniyot

Oh, Pesach. So many food rules, so many opportunities for obsessive thinking. Now, I love the holiday's theme of liberation and take seriously the idea of "freeing myself from my own personal Egypt." However, I do think there's an element of irony involved: this holiday, which focuses so much on freedom, also plays right into the food restrictions and regulations that enslave so many people with eating disorders.

For me, nowhere is this struggle more pronounced than around the question of kitniyot. Every year I revisit the same question: Do I eat them, or not? Here are the particulars: I am Ashkenazi; I'm a vegetarian; I'm also fiercely protective of my recovery from almost a decade of anorexia. Each time Pesach rolls around, I have to decide which takes precedence: an ancestral custom that is hundreds of years old, or my internal wisdom that the severely limited diet of a kitniyot-free Pesach might inadvertently reawaken the food-restrictive mentality that I've worked so hard to put to bed.

Aside from the very real halachic issues involved, this dilemma also cuts to the heart of my perfectionist tendencies. If I were to eat kitniyot, would I be doing a "good enough" job of keeping Pesach? Would people find reason to look down on my lenience and criticize my choice? I believe the answer to both questions is yes. Undoubtedly, the norm among observant Ashkenazi Jews is to avoid eating kitniyot on Pesach. The decision to break with this custom would likely meet with some resistance from many members of the observant community. However, there is also the case to be made that where health is involved, the ban on kitniyot is not as stringent as the ban on chametz, and so people are permitted to eat kitniyot if their health requires it. Furthermore, there are Orthodox rabbis who have ruled that Ashkenazi Jews within the land of Israel are allowed to eat kitniyot because the custom of eliminating those foods was unique to Europe and therefore is not binding in the Middle East. Conservative Rabbi David Golinkin takes it a step further in his responsa, which clearly argues that all Jews may consume kitniyot during Pesach "without fear of transgressing any prohibition." Again, I fully recognize that these opinions run counter to the prevailing custom among the observant Ashkenazi community. However, their arguments seem valid, especially when recovery is at stake. I would encourage Ashkenazi Jews who are trying to recover from any type of eating disorder to consider giving themselves permission to eat kitniyot on Pesach. I would also suggest that if a person DOES choose to eat kitniyot as a means of safeguarding his/her recovery during Pesach, that family members attempt to view this decision not as a rebellion or transgression, but rather as a way to protect that which is most precious: health and life.

If you do plan to incorporate kitniyot into your Pesach food repertoire, here are some recipes to get you started! It's possible to find KP versions of all the needed ingredients. Both feature quinoa...because, as a vegetarian, I am always looking for new ways to use quinoa on Pesach! The first comes courtesy of fabulous nutritionist Marci Anderson; the second, from Mark Bittman, author of one of my favorite cookbooks (How To Cook Everything Vegetarian...in case you were wondering.)

Bean Salad with Quinoa

Sweet Potato and Quinoa Salad (when I make this, I add a 15 oz. can of garbanzo beans for a little added protein)


Chag kasher v'sameach!

Spring Cleaning!

Although it's a small space, I'm always grateful to live in a studio apartment when the time comes to clean it. Now, I love for things to be clean and as germ-free as I can get them. I just am not wild about the actual process of cleaning, and the scrubbing and dusting tends to get old pretty quickly. Luckily, my living space consists of only three rooms...but even so, I take a lot of shortcuts: cleaning around things instead of under them; making neat piles instead of actually finding homes for everything, etc. This works relatively well most of the time, with one big exception: Pesach.

The pre-Pesach clean is no ordinary task. On Pesach we are forbidden not only to eat chametz, but also to have it anywhere in our possession. As a result, Jews all over the world engage in a thorough cleaning of their homes in the days leading up to Pesach, scouring every surface and searching every crevice for any sign of chametz. We have to get rid of all of it--not one crumb of edible chametz can remain behind. Clearly, this process is an intensive undertaking.

The annual Pesach cleaning reminds me a lot of the work that a real commitment to recovery requires. On Pesach, it is not acceptable to allow traces of chametz to remain in your home. The presence of even a tiny amount creates a halachic problem and prevents you from fulfilling the mitzvah of getting rid of chametz. Similarly, being fully on board with recovery requires a person to eradicate all traces of the eating disorder. As long as someone knowingly hangs onto small behaviors or thought patterns, he or she cannot fully participate in recovery. I definitely have found this to be true. There were plenty of times when I said I was committed to getting rid of my eating disorder, but I kept a little ritual or restrictive habit here and there in the hope that it wouldn't really matter, that I could enjoy recovery without having to get rid of everything. I have never found that to actually work. The only way I've been able to be wholly committed to recovery--and to fully experience it--is to actively search out the remnants of my eating disorder and tackle each one until I am ready to let go of it. There have been no shortcuts to this "soul cleaning"...leaving even a trace of the eating disorder behind would make all my efforts incomplete.

The Sages instructed us to physically destroy all of our chametz before Pesach because they knew that if we allowed it to remain in our possession, we might end up consuming it...or, we would just think about consuming it all the time! I've found this to be true in recovery, as well: getting rid of the concrete remains of the eating disorder (not just the emotional ones) is often a valuable and cathartic experience. At various points in my journey, I gave away my "sick" clothes, threw out diet food, ditched the bathroom scale, and recycled so-called "health" magazines, because I knew that hanging onto any of those things was going to keep me from fully living in recovery. Physically ridding my environment of those eating disorder symbols was hugely significant...and, let's be honest, it felt glorioiusly empowering! I would encourage anyone in the process of fighting an eating disorder to consider doing the same.

This year, as I prepare to tackle the Pesach cleaning, I am reminded of the importance of looking inward to see what internal "chametz" I need to get rid of. Are there any thought patterns, habits, or belief systems that are keeping me stuck in an uncomfortable space? Are there things I am hanging onto simply because they are familiar, even if they have outlived their usefulness? Now is the time to get rid of them. I hope we can all take this opportunity to clean not only our homes, but also our selves, so that we may enter into Pesach with our hearts and minds pure and shining.