January 31, 2013 | 3:56 pm

Fifty Shades of Television

Posted by Beit T'shuvah

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By Michael Soter

There is an ancient myth that states that the act of reading is an enlightening experience.  Supposedly, the printed page expands the mind— whether it’s Socrates, the Bible, Ginsberg, or Stephanie Meyer.  If I were to try to pinpoint the moment in history when anything written on a page was deemed educational, I would guess that it had to be around 1439.  Before then, the written word was reserved for academics, priests, and the nobility. It was a sign of education.  So, when Guttenburg developed a Western mechanism that allowed for the mass-production of printed material, the word spread—common people had instant access to what was once reserved for the elite.

This allowed for the popularization of ancient texts and in part, gave rise to the Renaissance—but what once opened the door to Homer has since opened the door to Us Weekly.  Meanwhile some parents are still living in 1439 and demand that their children read, believing that this will make them intelligent and cultured.

With the advent of television came a new medium that could be brought into the home.  A man named Minow, chairman of the FCC, said in 1961 that television had become a “Vast Wasteland.” Television was defined as a numbing medium.

574 years after Guttenburg and 52 years after Minow, we have an irrational dichotomy that goes something like this: “Books=Good and Television=Bad.”

Instead of looking at the medium, it might be more important to look at the content.  I don’t quite see how 50 Shades of Grey is more educational than 60 Minutes.  I don’t understand how Twilight can be seen as better for your kids than the latest episode of Homeland.  After all, Minow also happened to say, in the very same speech, "When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.”

January 17, 2013 | 12:31 pm

Sex, Drugs, and other Blogs

Posted by Beit T'shuvah

By Michael Soter

I was recently looking through the analytics on the “Addicted to Redemption” blog and noticed some interesting statistics.  One would think that the most popular blogs on the Jewish Journal would be about Torah, Israel, and the state of modern morality—but this is not the case.

The most popular entries have been about sex and marijuana—pop culture topics that I had thought would get the most traction on other Internet forums, but not necessarily on the website of a newsletter designed for the Jewish community.

I want to know why.   Why do these topics stir our attention and grab our focus while discussions of Torah lay by the wayside?  Maybe we are not so different from everyone else.  Maybe enlightened readers fiend for instant gratification just as much as gossip column junkies.  I wonder— what are the most popular articles in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker?  Do they follow this same trend?

I am not exempt.  I am certainly more likely to read a blog that has a picture of a marijuana leaf than one with an image of Moses hoisting two stone tablets, but I thought that I might be the exception rather than the norm.

Why are you reading this blog?  Is it because you thought it would be about sex and drugs?  Be honest…I’m not a harsh critic.

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January 15, 2013 | 12:32 pm

The Reality of OCD

Posted by Beit T'shuvah

By Michael Welch

 

The level of ignorance that exists around Obsessive Compulsive Disorder astonishes me. If you are wondering whether or not you possess this anxiety disorder that consists of a repetition of feelings, behaviors, thoughts, and ideas that compel immediate compulsion…. The answer is NO you DO NOT have OCD.

Those that possess OCD don’t share it with anyone; in fact, they are ashamed to discuss their disorder in fear of terrifying loved ones and scaring them away. If you are intent on having a tidy desk at work or struggle with the public restroom (such as I do) this does not give you carte blanche to utter, “My OCD is kicking in.” OCD does not kick in! And more importantly, you can’t have a bit, a dollop, or a sprinkling of OCD. If you obsessively wash your hands and are intolerant of a germy door handle; sorry, you do not qualify for membership. If your home is clean and appears to be well-organized, you still do not have OCD. Further, as much as the media would like you to believe OCD is a positive attribute, it is not. To morph an anxiety disorder into a catchy, hip, slick, and cool character trait is egregious.  It is akin to a disgusting college frat boy declaring himself a victim of alcoholism as an excuse for his lasciviously inappropriate behavior.

 

Instead of making it popular and jumping on the bandwagon, I feel the urge to share the reality of OCD— here is an example: a woman with two children who has daily obsessions about her imminent death due to germ exposure, bacteria, viruses or other contaminants. Because of these concerns she is unable to hug her children. I wonder if her child (someone so desperately in need of human touch and connection) finds it humorous that her mother’s OCD hasn’t stopped “kicking in.”

Having OCD is not a positive character trait.  So, don’t seek it out.  Don’t aim for it.  Instead, just be productive, keep your area clean, and make it common to keep you and your surroundings in order. That way the next time you move your papers from one side of the desk to the other to make it look like you’re busy it will make sense that your OCD never existed and you are just lazy!      

Having OCD is not a positive character trait.  So, don’t seek it out.  Don’t aim for it.  Instead, just be productive, keep your area clean, and make it common to keep you and your surroundings in order. That way the next time you move your papers from one side of the desk to the other to make it look like you’re busy it will make sense that your OCD never existed and you are just lazy!      

Having OCD is not a positive character trait.  So, don’t seek it out.  Don’t aim for it.  Instead, just be productive, keep your area clean, and make it common to keep you and your surroundings in order. That way the next time you move your papers from one side of the desk to the other to make it look like you’re busy it will make sense that your OCD never existed and you are just lazy!       Ooops sorry, my OCD was kicking in.

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January 9, 2013 | 4:01 pm

Fixing Misperceptions with Communities

Posted by Beit T'shuvah

By Ben Spielberg

I am very attracted to the idea of a community. It is not something that I had when I was growing up, and when I was thrown into Beit T'Shuvah as a dope-sick, existentially disturbed 20-year-old, communal living didn't exactly seem like the answer to any of my problems. In fact, after reading enough Sartre and Thoreau, I preferred being alone to being around large groups of people.

What I realized, however, is that communities are often a cognitive necessity. It is well known that our senses are generally unreliable: taste and olfactory become diminished after years of Marlboro Reds; our brains make up what we see in our periphery; a worldwide loss of hearing occurred after the introduction of the iPod. As a result, we are people whose words carry very little merit. Even memory is so malleable that the courtroom may not accept it as valid. I see this daily in my office: after reciting a sequence of digits, my clients will be asked to repeat the same sequence. Once they reach their capacity, they—unconsciously--guess the missing numbers. Just as there is a blind spot in our vision, there is a blind spot in our memory.

This trait is common among different aspects of human beings. C4N Y0U R34D TH1S? We are excellent at filling things in; in fact, I could probably write “C4N R34D Y0U TH1S,” and most people wouldn't notice the difference between the two alphanumeric phrases. While this is evolutionarily—and realistically—necessary, there are still problems. What if we misperceive something? What if a drug and alcohol counselor gives a set of directions, and they become discombobulated and nonsensical by the time they are understood? What if twelve-step programs are just too many steps for most individuals to comprehend in one sitting?

Communities fill the hole in the gap of our senses. As individuals, we understand very little of what goes on in the outside world. As community members, though, we fill in the gaps for each other. If a twelve-step program seems too daunting, overflowing your mental and emotional capacity, you get a sponsor. If you don't understand a passage in the Torah, or one of Rabbi Mark's sermons, you ask a member of the community. After all, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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January 6, 2013 | 1:23 pm

Accepting Your Faults

Posted by Beit T'shuvah

By Josh Silver

Growing up, I was one of those kids who always compared myself to others. No matter how hard I tried I never seemed to be quick enough, smart enough, tall enough, artistic enough. Really you can just fill in any adjective and I would have found someone that was better than me. When I look back on the way I felt about myself I think that using drugs started as a way to quiet that voice of discontent in my head. I fell back on drugs as a crutch and as long as I was high I could rationalize my faults and blame my lack of “enough” on the fact that I was an addict.

Sobriety has given me a much better solution to this problem. I’ve learned that once you accept your faults, you are then able to see your own strengths. Of equal importance is the fact that once I accept my own faults, I can then accept the faults of others. I can learn to look at a whole person and not extrapolate their whole personality from a single action that they’ve made. So now, with these new tools, I can accept both others and myself.

It might seem pretty obvious that accepting your own faults can have a positive impact on your life; the truth is this is easier said than done. While there may never be a definitive “How To” on acceptance, there are a few little tricks to use.

First of all, start with the little things. Let yourself have some time everyday to be you. Be lazy, be scared, be weird, nerdy, stupid, obsessed, depressed—just be you. Next, try and make a list of things that you like about yourself. Funny enough, this is harder than it sounds but I refuse to believe that you (the reader) aren’t talented at anything. Lastly, combine these two aspects of yourself and try looking at the whole picture. Try surrounding yourself with people that will both call you on your bullshit and let you know when you’ve done something right.

Most importantly, realize that nobody is perfect and it’s pointless trying to be.

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December 13, 2012 | 11:10 am

If Marijuana isn’t the Gateway Drug:  What is?

Posted by Beit T'shuvah

By BTS Prevention

Two weeks ago, I asserted in my blog that marijuana is not the gateway drug.  So then, I must propose a subsequent question: “What is the gateway drug?”

Is it alcohol?  Is it heroin? Is it cocaine?  Bath salts? Spice?

No.  The actual gateway drug, the thing that most often leads to other illicit behaviors, is a discretionary income.  Kids are running around Los Angeles with a wad of bills and their parents’ credit cards—they are bored and searching frantically for excitement.  There are only so many movies they can go to with their friends, so many clothes they can buy, so many expensive lunches they can purchase—before they want to find a more exciting way to spend their money. Eventually, in many cases, the more exciting purchase is a bag of weed or a bottle of pills.

Here is an elementary principle of economics: the more money you have, the more goods you can buy. 

Sure, in low-income neighborhoods, kids hustle and steal so that they can buy their drugs.  But a few miles west, they don’t have to go to these extremes.  They just ask their parents for a little money, call their friend, and wait for their excitement to arrive.

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December 6, 2012 | 1:25 pm

The Allegory of the Cliff

Posted by Beit T'shuvah

By BTS Prevention

“But Mom, Johnny’s mom let him do it!”

“If Johnny jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?”
Does this conversation sound familiar?

Since the dawn of Jewish parenting, The Allegory of the Cliff has been used to illustrate the hazards of peer pressure.  The pressure to get drunk, to smoke weed, to ditch class is supposedly analogous to a suicidal death leap.  But this is not the reality.  Peer pressure—especially the pressure to do drugs—is more like seeing your friend jump off a cliff, walk back to the top unscathed, and tell you how awesome it was.  In the days before my first puff,

I was under the impression that jumping off a cliff would leave me in a pool of blood, thousands of feet below— this is what I had always been told.
But then I saw the truth with my own eyes.  I saw classmate after classmate return from the apparent death leap, choosing to take another jump.  They never once pushed me, prodded me, or told me that I had to jump after them.  They didn’t need to.  All I had to do was observe.

I didn’t see that some of those kids were jumping off the cliff because they were miserable.  I didn’t see that some of those kids ended up in rehab, some ended up in jail, and some ended up dead.  I didn’t see the whole picture.  All I saw was the immediate reality, and the reality was that The Allegory of the Cliff was a lie.

Maybe we should stop lying to our kids.  Maybe, instead, we should start telling kids the truth.  If we don’t, they may do the unthinkable— they may start thinking with their eyes.

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November 6, 2012 | 1:45 pm

Pitch Imperfect

Posted by Cantor Rachel Goldman Neubauer

In my experience, Beit T’Shuvah is the sort of community where it’s hard to fit in unless you are either aware of or are in the process of becoming aware of your dark horses and battling them.  And no, those dark horses do NOT need to include alcoholism of some sort (hopefully you have picked up on this from previous blog postings.)  However, since every human being has at least one demon that they struggle with, it’s actually a pretty easy community to become a member of—maybe the easiest and most inclusive of all—and your membership hinges only on your level of openness.  Since I am, first and foremost, a proud member of the Beit T’Shuvah community, I will introduce myself like this:

Hi my name is Rachel and I am a perfectionist (amongst other things, one of which being the acting cantor at Beit T’Shuvah).  How did I come to that conclusion, and why is that relevant to Beit T’Shuvah?  

I started singing at a very young age, and hit a professional level when I was only 11.  By the time I had finished high school, I was on a path to train to be an opera singer as a permanent career.  What had started out as an extracurricular hobby that made me smile turned into the end-all be-all purpose of my life by the time I hit college and declared myself a Vocal Performance major.   

There are so many aspects in the music world that are terrifying.  In the classical world, perfection is constantly sought after and applauded.  In the recording world, perfection is even electronically manufactured and therefore expected as a norm.  For me, when I took the hobby and passion that had grounded me and handed it over to this world of demanding perfection, I was completely unprepared.  Nothing could have more greatly demonstrated to me how un-whole I was.  The only thing I was aware of in my early college days was this: anything less than perfection made me feel unequivocally unworthy, and I was supposed to be ok with that.  As soon as things got even the slightest bit difficult, I started to drown.  My body and my mind could handle this constant striving to be perfect, but my spirit could not.  I thought it was my singing voice that was my curse and for many years had stopped singing altogether, but I now know that it was buying into this belief that was being shoved down my throat—this belief that, if I tried hard enough, I could be perfect. 

Letting go of this belief could very well have been as hard for me as it is for a junkie to kick heroin.  The thought of being perfect and chasing after its possibility is alluring, intoxicating, and incredibly addicting.  And it is just as false as the belief that drugs will make everything better.  Being in recovery from perfectionism, though, is just as rewarding to me as I witness any other recovery to be (and I get to witness a lot of recovery).   

Though music is back in my life, I no longer buy into perfectionism.  Instead, I put my stock into knowing that I am ok as I am, no matter what.  No longer do I have some impossible standard that I hold myself to or perceive others to expect of me.  And that, in my opinion, is also redemption.

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