JBFCS: Rita J. Kaplan Jewish Connections Programs

Rita J. Kaplan Jewish Connections Programs of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services

August 2007

Jonathan Katz, LCSW

Rabbinic Texts Help JACS Group Draw Inspiration

One of the ways that JACS helps Jews who are recovering from alcohol and other drug abuse is to provide resources drawn from Jewish traditions and values. While we strongly encourage JACS members to attend regular AA and other 12-Step meetings, we supplement those fellowships by providing regular JACS meetings and retreats. At these JACS events, participants connect or reconnect with prayers, Psalms, texts and rituals that give comfort, meaning and guidance to their struggles to become and remain clean and sober.

This past month, Jews around the world marked the ninth day of the month of Av, Tisha B’Av, as the "saddest day in Jewish history," a day on which we mourn for the destruction of the First and Second Temples, and for other great calamities that have befallen our people. At our weekly Monday evening JACS group meeting, we incorporated rabbinical texts selected by JACS’ rabbinical intern, Hayley Mica Siegel.

Among the texts that group members found most inspiring were:

Self respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
— Rabbi Abraham Heschel

In the era of the second temple, the people studied Torah and performed mitzvos, so why was the Temple destroyed? Because there was gratuitous hatred between people.
— Gemara, Yoma 9b (Maharsha)

Oh how much good
I’ve lost
in losing control
of my anger;
such a large portion of my life,
so much growth
I’ve let slip from my hands
by allowing burning thoughts to get the better of me.
God,
teach me to let go.
— Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

A person who confronts the necessity of making a change in his life or of pressing on with renewed determination must also reckon with internal resistance, partly conscious and immediate and partly unconscious and revealed only with the passage of time. He cannot simply "turn over a new leaf" and start afresh; even after he sets out on his new path he will be hounded by those parts of him that remain unreconciled to his decision. The very struggle to ascend gives one the feeling of being at the bottom of the ladder; but this is only a trick of the senses and the imagination; for the ascent is, in fact, well underway.
— Adin Steinsaltz

A person is like a bird. A bird can fly very high, as long as it keeps moving its wings. If it stops flapping its wings for even a moment, it will fall. So, too, it is with people.
— Rabbi Israel Salanter

Group members took turns reading these and other texts, and then discussed how particular texts "spoke" to them. For example, several members described how moved and comforted they were by Adin Steinsaltz’s admonition to recognize and appreciate the step by step changes we make in improving our lives, rather than dwelling on past mistakes and future ideals.

For further information about JACS and its programs, contact Jonathan Katz, LCSW, at 212 632-4500 or

These "Spirituality Notes" are excerpts from our monthly E-newsletter. Articles are © JBFCS Rita J. Kaplan Jewish Connections Programs and may be reprinted free of charge as long as this credit line is included.

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