150 Attend “Recovery Shabbaton”

By Lily Rosenblatt

Walking into the grand social hall of the Boca Raton Marriott Hotel for the Jewish Recovery Center recent weekend was an immersion into a world of strangers, yet brothers and sisters, a world of shared freedom from dependence.

150 people gathered together for the From Strength To Strength Shabbaton & Retreat for individuals and family members recovering from the bondage of addiction, retelling of journeys through lonely deserts, and recounting their struggles with the promised land of sobriety.

Run impeccably and led by the center’s director, Rabbi Meir Kessler, and a small, committed army of volunteers, this weekend was all about becoming familiar with the stranger within us, the strangers around us, and the welcoming place where we are strangers no more.

Do try this on your own, boys and girls. Weekends like this – concentrated fellowship, shared stories, workshops, divrei Torah and inspiration are ways of becoming familiar with the unfamiliar, getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. This should be mandatory curriculum for all manners of growing up.

Every family walking the path of personal struggle, any individual working through daily challenge can benefit from witnessing the courage, the perseverance, the determination with which these individuals endeavor daily to rid themselves from their inner ‘chametz’ – that which weighs them down and burdens their souls.

Rabbi YY Jacobson, speaking over Shabbat affirmed how only through our chinks and cracks can the light shine through. Ultimately, variations of the twelve steps are for all of us as Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twersky shared in his keynote address, because “The 12 steps are not about drugs and alcohol; they’re about change.” And as the Chofetz Chaim upholds: man was born to change!

Addiction is woven into the fiber and fabric of our hectic, overstimulated and overwhelming lives, to lesser and greater degrees (think anything we reach for excessively that dys-functionally separates us from those we love, and from living healthy, functional lives—computer games, work, golf!). We can acquaint ourselves with our inner stranger by learning from the stranger beside us – to be more present, less judging, more welcoming of our moments of greater weakness, intensified fragility, crumbling stability. And who do you know in life, who does not experience such moments?

That’s what we learn from Rabbi Kessler and Frummie, his ezer k’negdo, his helpmate in every sense of the word. This was crystallized in just one of the many stories shared that weekend.

This was the story of M, a young man who, with his parents by his side at this retreat, walked us through his account of addiction and redemption. It was one freezing night, over seven years ago when his parents, two religious, strong and loving people, (who ‘there but for the grace of G-d go I’), had to finally lock their doors and harden their aching hearts to the son they loved but could no longer enable. ‘Tough love’ inside and one warm coat left outside were the only things left to give him at the end of a long and anguished road of drugs, lying, stealing, homelessness.

Months later, in the midst of his rehabilitation, this young man decided he wanted a piece of his spiritual, religious life back. His mother, a woman whose small stature could never be misconstrued for anything but a vessel for a giant neshama, left no stone unturned until she stumbled upon Rabbi Kessler and Frummie, who lived in the vicinity of “M’s” rehabilitation facility, and asked them to host their son for Pesach. After his mom sent pounds of matza and brisket, ‘M’ became a staple in their home, not only for the chag but also for shabbat.

Rabbi Kessler, then unfamiliar with this foreign world, wondered: A Jewish drug addict?

“Are there others like you?” he asked, letting the stranger in.

“Oh, a few,” the young man retorted knowingly.

Frummie, who was just 23 years old at the time, and with one small child, had a conversation with her husband after this.

“These kids need shabbos. They need love, and they need us,” they both decided.

“Rabbi, if you’re gonna do this,” said ‘M’, “Then you better get familiar with the Big Book.”

He wasn’t referring to the Torah.

And thus began the education of the Kessler family – Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12-Step Program, and the Jewish Recovery Center. Five years and hundreds of strangers-turned-family later, the Jewish Recovery Center is using their growing strength to help others get stronger every day. Find out more about the work they do at jewishrecoverycenter.org.

Lily Rosenblatt is a Marriage & Family Registered Intern working in private practice. She can be reached at LilyRosenblattTherapy.com