Elya K wrote on 16 May 2021 02:40:
The Twelve Steps G-d of my own understanding convinces me that I don’t need prayer books and holidays, rules and laws to confine me to one way of thinking. I can have my own understanding of G-d and I’m sure whatever I decide will be Ok.
This is the thinking of many people in SA today. SA is my new religion, my G-d and if I just listen to my non-Jewish sponsor or my non-religious anymore sponsor, everything will be OK. I’m OK, you’re OK! My mental health supersedes everything and if I want to check my emails on Shabbos or call my sponsor, even if I’m not being triggered. It’s OK. It’s what I want in the moment that counts. After all, Shabbos and Yom Tov are long, boring days and what else do I have to do but check my emails and YouTube videos.
I was thinking about this logic the other day and realized that a part of me feels this way and another part of me feels that if I suddenly start being Mechalel Shabbos and Yom Tov I will begin to do other things which are not permitted and sink lower and lower until I completely forget G-d’s laws and become G-d myself. So I have a dilemma. Do I take the leap into the dark side of creating my own Judaism? I’m sure my fellow SA friends will approve. After all, my mental health is what is most important.
But, if my mental health is most important what will I do with the guilt and shame of suddenly giving up on my religion? That won’t be very mentally healthy, will it? I’ll be torn by doubt, am I really doing the right thing? What will I do with that voice?
This is a very real dilemma which is a plague in itself. Step 11 tells us through prayer and meditation to develop a relationship with G-D as we understand HIM and ask only that we do HIS will. The G-d of the Jews will for us is to keep the Torah and Mitzvos and our sages have given us a broad spectrum of things to say during davening with Kavanah to help us with this struggle and a set of rules and laws to keep us believing where we are today is where we’re supposed to be.
I won’t allow a non-Jewish thought process of making up my own prayers deter me from getting closer to my Creator.
You are so right. This used to bother me too. Then I learned cognitive therapy and I understand what really goes on inside people's brains, and then I realized that a group approach is the only viable approach today. The Torah provides hilchos nazir for this problem, but we choose not to take advantage of them today, so we're stuck with the group approach. And it can work very well, actually. But the literature, like everything else, is subject to interpretation.
To illustrate, I'm just getting into SA and to me it says that I have to _do_ my religion. I have to stop giving myself discounts on what _I_ believe is my duty. And this led me to increase my commitment to Judaism because I know I have to _do_ the SA program in order to stay alive. That means I must act like a Jew while leaning on the fellowship to handle the negative effects of that distorted religion (I distort it.)
But the danger of reading into the text and doing the wrong thing is very real. There are a lot of metaphors, analogies and mysteries in the 12-step literature. It doesn't give an analytical person a warm and fuzzy feeling. It took me years of analyzing it before I decided that it was a necessary approach.
The other day I called my sponsor about a trigger I had, and his response totally surprised me. It's very folkloristic, but it's also very rooted in results. It's an experimental approach.
