100 Blessings Every Day

Kerry M. Olitzky

Description

This book is not just for Jewish people. It is for all people who would gain strength to heal and insight from the Jewish tradition.

Using a one-day-at-a-time monthly format, a spiritual leader who continues to reach out to addicted people, and all those seeking spiritual renewal, reflects on the rhythm of the Jewish calendar with recovering people and other teachers. Together they bring insight to recovery from addictions and compulsive behaviors of all kinds. This sensitive volume soars with the spirit of the Jewish soul and year. Its "exercises" help us move from thinking to doing.

Who Should Read This Book i
How to Use This Book ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
Are the Twelve Steps Jewish?
A Foreword by Rabbi Neil Gillman xv
How the Jewish Calendar Works xxv
A Calendar of Months xxix
A Calendar of Festivals and Fasts xxx
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous xxxiii
Tishrei • A Fresh Start 1
Cheshvan • Making Ready 33
Kislev • Freedom 65
Tevet • Self-Reliance 97
Shevat • Rebirth 127
Adar • Joy 159
Nisan • Liberation 191
Iyar • Independence 223
Sivan • Revelation 253
Tammuz • Living with Hope 285
Av • Beginning Again 315
Elul • Introspection 347
Spiritual Renewal in the Jewish Calendar
An Afterword by Dr. Jay M. Holder 379
Glossary of Important Words and Concepts 383
About the Authors 385

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Hanukah
• Judaism
• Hanukkah
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 22 avril 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580234900
• Langue: English

Extrait

Who Should Read This Book
T his book is not just for Jewish people . It is for non-Jews and Jews alike-anyone who is open to healing and to recovery-oriented teachings that can be gleaned from the Bible and the teachings of Jewish tradition.
People who want to enrich their understanding of the Twelve Steps with teachings based on Scripture, as seen through the prism of the Jewish holiday cycle and the calendar.
Everyone facing the struggles of daily living who looks for insight and guidance from the Bible and Jewish tradition as a source of faith, strength, hope, and healing wisdom.
People in Twelve Step recovery programs.
Alcoholics and drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, those with eating disorders and sexual addictions-and the people who care about them.
Individuals who seek an authentic spiritual foundation for holy living based in sacred text and the rhythm of the Hebrew calendar.
Rabbis, priests, and ministers-clergy who want to offer spiritual guidance to congregants and parishioners.
Psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists who seek a religious dimension to the counseling context.
Jews and non-Jews from all walks of life.
Jews whose spiritual awakening might lead them to take a fresh, mature look at the religion of their birth.
Anyone who read any of the books in the Jewish Lights Publishing Recovery Series including:
Twelve Jewish Steps to Recovery: A Personal Guide for Turning from Alcoholism and Other Addictions
Renewed Each Day: Daily Twelve Step Recovery Meditations Based on the Bible
Recovery from Codependence: A Jewish Twelve Steps Guide to Healing Your Soul

100 Blessings Every Day: Daily Twelve Step Recovery Affirmations Exercises for Personal Growth Renewal Reflecting Seasons of the Jewish Year
2008 Sixth Printing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please write or fax your request to Jewish Lights Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below, or e-mail your request to [e-mail] . Copyright 1993 by Kerry M. Olitzky
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
One hundred blessings every day: daily twelve step recovery affirmations exercises for personal growth renewal reflecting seasons of the Jewish year/by Kerry M. Olitzky; with selected meditations prepared by James Stone Goodman, Danny Siegel, and Gordon Tucker; foreword by Neil Gillman; afterword by Jay Holder.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-879045-30-9 (pbk)
ISBN-10: 1-879045-30-3 (pbk)
1. Twelve-step programs-Religious aspects-Judaism -Meditations. 2. Fasts and feasts-Judaism-Meditations.
3. Compulsive behavior-Religious aspects-Judaism. 4. Substance abuse-Religious aspects-Judaism. I. Goodman, James Stone.
II. Siegel, Danny. III. Tucker, Gordon. IV. Title V. Title: 100 blessings every day.
BM538. T850435 1993 296.7'2 -dc20 93-9090 CIP
First edition
10 9 8 7 6
Manufactured in the United States of America
Published by Jewish Lights Publishing
A Division of LongHill Partners, Inc.
P.O. Box 237
Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4
Woodstock, Vermont 05091
Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]
www.jewishlights.com
For Rabbi Norman J. Cohen, teacher, colleague, and friend
Contents
Who Should Read This Book
How to Use This Book
Acknowledgments
Preface
Are the Twelve Steps Jewish?
A Foreword by Rabbi Neil Gillman
How the Jewish Calendar Works
A Calendar of Months
A Calendar of Festivals and Fasts
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
Tishrei A Fresh Start
Cheshvan Making Ready
Kislev Freedom
Tevet Self-Reliance
Shevat Rebirth
Adar Joy
Nisan Liberation
Iyar Independence
Sivan Revelation
Tammuz Living with Hope
Av Beginning Again
Elul Introspection
Spiritual Renewal in the Jewish Calendar
An Afterword by Dr. Jay M. Holder
Glossary of Important Words and Concepts
About the Authors
About Jewish Lights
Copyright
How to Use This Book
W hile this book provides the reader with its own unique blend of inspiration and affirmation, it also serves as a guide to the Jewish calendar, the annual cycle of holiday observances and special Sabbaths. As a result, it provides you with a guide to the rhythm of Jewish living, using the familiar one-day-at-a-time format. Since the Hebrew calendar is soli-lunar, it does not precisely follow the secular calendar which is solar. Different adjustments are made each year according to a traditional rabbinic formula to bring the two in line. This is done through a variation of 29- or 30-day months and an addition of a second month of Adar during leap year. 1
You might choose to read this book one day at a time, one week at a time, or one month at a time. Whatever you decide, all we ask is that you keep on reading. You might find it helpful to coordinate your reading of this volume with Renewed Each Day: Daily Twelve Step Recovery Meditations Based on the Bible (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1992).
Texts generally have been chosen from the liturgical, scriptural, or talmudic material relevant to the particular day, especially when it is a festival or fast. Other sources, including the voices of modern and contemporary texts, have been selected which reflect the themes of the months, as well.
1 The basic calendar, to be used in a typical year, may be found under Calendar of Festivals and Fasts ,.
Acknowledgments
L ike the other books in the Recovery Series published by Jewish Lights Publishing, the contents reflect the work of many people. To all of them named and anonymous, I express my thanks. As one elderly woman told us when she asked us to send a copy of Renewed Each Day to her grandson whom she feared was lost, struggling with his drug addiction, It is one Jewish soul helping another. I thank God for the opportunity to do such work in this world.
I also thank Aaron Z. with whom I wrote Renewed Each Day . Our conversations and his recovery insights are certainly present in many pages of this volume. And to the following people who read page after page, helping me to make sure that I captured the essential message of Jewish life and living on each calendar page: Rabbis David Ellenson, Emily Feigenson, Neil Gillman, Ron Isaacs, Eric Lankin, Steve Rosman, Susan Stone, and Bernard Zlotowitz; and Arlene Chernow, Dr. Robert Deutsch, David Kasakove, and Harriet Rossetto. I also want to thank my editor Jeanne Engelmann for helping me to make sure that I said what I want people to hear. And thanks to the caring people at Hazelden s publishing activity who brought her to us and who work so hard to heal the world.
I have the opportunity to work, study and teach at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. It is not a privilege which I take lightly. There
I am provided with a sacred environment that allows me the freedom and support to stand on the shoulders on those who came before me and to try to reach higher. I share my ideas with them and they share their strength with me. To Alfred Gottschalk, president; Paul Steinberg, vice president; and Norman Cohen, dean, go my grateful appreciation. Without their constant encouragement, my work would not be possible.
When the publishers at Jewish Lights articulated their vision to me some years ago, they promised that together we could change the direction of Jewish publishing and, in doing so, the Jewish community. And they were right. I am honored to work with them, and to learn from them: Stuart and Antoinette Matlins, colleagues and cherished friends. To the entire staff at Jewish Lights Publishing, I express my abiding admiration, appreciation, and respect. They are makers of dreams, helping to take an abstraction and help make it real. Thanks to Rachel Kahn, whose creative skill as a designer of radiant books draws people to the message, and to Carol Gersten and Jay Rossier, who get the message out so that people can hear it.
More than anything else, I acknowledge the presence of God in my life and the life of my family whose healing made my wife Sheryl s recovery from cancer possible. Praised are You Adonai who heals body and soul-and delivers us all.
Kerry M. Olitzky New York, New York
Preface
T he Jewish calendar has a melody, a rhythm of its own. It reflects the soul of the Jewish person and the Jewish people. Called a soli-lunar calendar, it follows the lunar cycle and gets adjusted by the solar seasons. Sometimes it meshes easily and smoothly with the solar calendar. At other times, it feels disjointed-holidays are late or early, never on time. But it is the way Jewish people divide time and live their lives. The holy days and the events of Jewish history color the calendar with rich hues, throwing lavish blotches of color on each day of the month.
Likewise, the calendar may not always be in sync with the seasons of our own life. We have crises, passages, get stuck along the way, even at times when the season says otherwise. Plumb the depths of your life. Find its place now on the calendar and begin there. That s the beauty of the Jewish calendar. We can all find our place in time and then we all can cycle back through it together. It s what helps to anchor us in the world.
In this volume are the thoughts of many people, those who have found their places on the calendar, teachers and students, and those in recovery. For all of us, it is the calendar of the Jewish people wandering through the barren desert, the midbar , laboring to find our way home to the Promised Land for ourselves and, symbolically, for all people.
Are the Twelve Steps Jewish?
A Foreword by Rabbi Neil Gillman , Chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America New York, New York
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