Follow-Up Post

In connection with a recent post, here, it occurred to me as I was listening to his talk that he probably doesn't "go for" the 12 Step program.  He did not say anything about it, so this is just me surmising. 

 

As someone recently put it to me,  they like the 12 Step program but see that the people involved with it are perpetually focused on the same issue.  And that is precisely why I think Rabbi Weinberger wouldn't like it.  Because it keeps its practitioners perpetually in the basement, dealing with the same stuff forever.  B'shitta (on principle), 12 Steps does not allow you to "go up" to a different floor.

 

As Rabbi Wallerstein puts it, Judaism believes in teshuva.  You do teshuva and you move on.  You can't call yourself "a 30 years recovered addict."  If you stop drinking you are a new person.  The Zohar says if you do teshuva, you are a briya chadasha (new entity).  You're not a recovering treif-food-eater, or recovering mechalel Shabbos.

Moving Up, Out of the Basement

Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, of the Aish Kodesh shul in Woodmere, gave a different sort of Shabbos shuva drasha this year.  Actually, he gave it on motzoei Shabbos, and you can watch it here .

I am more accustomed to hearing a speaker or writer say to undertake something small and doable for the new year.  R' Moshe Weinberger, acknowledged the importance of positive changes, but urged people to go beyond that.  To go, as he put it, from the basement to a higher floor.  You can fix up a basement and live nicely there, but how much better to move up in the world.  By this he means, moving to a different level of living where previous shtusim (nonsense) are seen for what they are.