Excerpt from THE FIRST MANUAL FOR ADDICTS

By Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson

We read in the Parsha:

On Jubilee, he will automatically go free. He and his children with him. Because the children of Israel are servants to ME, they are My servants; I have taken them out of Egypt.

Here is where the Torah reveals the true source of our freedom. How can the slave automatically be freed on the Jubilee year? The answer is: “the children of Israel are servants to ME, they are My servants.” We have only one master, G-d, and any subsequent sale to another master is merely superficial; it’s not a real sale.

In the words of Rashi: “Shtari Kodem.” G-d says, “My contract precedes your contract.” The divine contract proclaiming that He owns each of us precedes the contract of the slave owner. I may sign a contract with you for my house, but there is one problem: someone else has a previous contract!

I may sell my soul to addiction; I may sell my mind, heart, and schedule to addiction. But before all of the addiction began, my soul already belonged to G-d. On my deepest level, I am Divine. I am not an addict. I am a mirror of infinity, a fragment of G-d. My addiction may be powerful but it cannot penetrate to the essence of my being. My being belongs to G-d. There is core self, sacred and wholesome, which is powerful than all my trauma, abuse and addiction.

All the addictions and desires that control me are ultimately external. Each and every one of us has only one true allegiance: Our oneness with the Infinite One. Thus, at the end, a “jubilee” will come and set us free.

The Camel

A mother and a baby camel were lying around, and suddenly the baby camel asked, “mother, may I ask you some questions?”

Mother said, “Sure! Why son, is there something bothering you?”

Baby said, “Why do camels have humps?”

Mother said “Well son, we are desert animals, we need the humps to store water and we are known to survive for weeks without water”.

Baby said, “Okay, then why are our legs long are and our feet rounded?”

Mother said, “Son, obviously they are meant for walking in the desert. You know with these legs I can move around the desert better than anyone does!”

Baby said, “Okay, then why are our eyelashes long? Sometimes it bothers my sight”.

Mother with pride said, “My son, those long thick eyelashes are your protective cover. They help to protect your eyes from the desert sand and wind as you trek hundreds of miles.”

The Baby, after thinking, said, “I see. So the hump is to store water when we are in the desert, the legs are for walking through the desert, and these eye lashes protect my eyes from the desert. If so, what in heaven’s name are we doing here in a cage in the Bronx Zoo?!”

We were not made to be locked in a cage. We were meant to be free. G-d’s contract precedes every other “contract” you might make in life, including those in which you sell yourself to the tyrants of addiction.

Yogi Berra

In 1973 the New York Mets struggled in last place in the National League Eastern division midway through the season. The team’s colorful manager, the legendary Yogi Berra, had done wonders in the past, leading the team to its first-ever World Series championship in 1969, but this season looked to most observers like a wash. Asked by a sport’s reporter for one of the New York papers if the season was over for the Mets, Yogi responded with what has become one of his most famous “Yogi-isms,” a declaration that put an exclamation point on what was to be one of the most exciting comebacks in sports history: “It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over!”

As history shows, it indeed wasn’t over. Yogi Berra’s New York Mets went on to take the National League East division, and capped off the season by winning the National League Pennant and going to their second World Series contest.

In your life “it ain’t over” until G-d says it’s over—and G-d says it’s not over until you win. Your moral and spiritual victory is guaranteed, because “My contract precedes any other.”