The Centrality of T'shuvah
by Rabbi Igael Gurin Malous

Loss. Grief. Fear. Longing. Heartache. Sadness. These are the most challenging parts of our lives and each person must struggle with these feelings. Yet we gloss over them in common conversation. “Hi, how are you?” is almost always met with “Good, OK, even when we feel the exact opposite. Many of us feel disconnected, alone and unhappy.  This element of our human condition, which could not be felt more profoundly these days, challenges us to examine the very depths of ourselves and is also key to our ability to reach the heights of our potential growth.
 
I see it in my work every day. As the spiritual director at Beit T’Shuvah, a residential addiction recovery center in Los Angeles, California and as the rabbi and founding director of the nascent T’Shuvah Center in NYC.  Both institutions center our work on Jewish thought and spirituality as a core value toward recovery. I meet many people and families hurting and in need of help and direction. 
 
We are taught in our tradition that the ancient Temple was destroyed because of senseless hatred; a community that did not embrace acceptance, authenticity and compassion. Hatred is a result of not seeing other people’s pain and suffering, not recognizing other people’s humanity and denying our own by doing so. We often want to box-in people we meet so we don’t have to recognize our part in their pain. The addict, the felon the “other,” is what we choose to see. If we looked beyond it and see the person in front of us and not the label we have given them we would have to face ourselves as well.  We often blind ourselves to other people’s pain. Yet when we are open to our feelings, our ability to connect to others is enhanced.
 
Who among us has not been touched by the disease of alcoholism? Drug abuse? Gambling? Or plain misery and feelings of loneliness and disconnect? Who among us has not transgressed or did something we are ashamed of?
 
So, I ask myself, how do we respond to life’s challenges? How do we return to a state of peace and equanimity within ourselves? How do we repent? Our lives are filled with daily actions and decisions. How do we know when we have made the right decision and how do we acknowledge when we have not?
 
The answer to these questions, and the remedy to our condition, is to practice acceptance for all who are suffering and to promote connection. Our ability to transform our actions and our points of view hinges on our ability to accept all those around us and see their pain and struggle as our own.  Our charge to invite and connect to all who seek shelter, nourishment (both physical and spiritual) resounds in my heart!  We must look each other in the eye and seek that which connects us. We must practice deep and meaningful compassion.
 
But how? The Jewish idea of t’shuvahhas three meanings. To repent, to return and to answer. T’Shuvah, real t’shuvah, that is, real repentance, has in turn three main parts we can use to examine ourselves: truth, remorse and responsibility.
 
Living in truth one must ask oneself, “What did I do wrong?” and then “Why did I do it? What was the justification I gave myself?” We tell ourselves something when we are about to do something we should not (things like I deserve it, I don’t have time to cook a healthy meal, I’ll go to the gym later, s/he started it, it’s been a long day, I don’t want to feel like this anymore, it’s too hard, etc.).
 
By honestly looking at our actions and understanding the lies we tell ourselves, we pave the way to awareness.
 
In feeling remorse, we have to acknowledge that our actions always affect someone else. We must ask, “Who is affected by my actions? How are they affected by my actions?” The wreckage one person can have on the lives of others is immense, and we tell ourselves lies when we say that we are only hurting ourselves. Seeing what we mean in the world and our interconnectivity is key.
 
Which leads to responsibility. Now that I looked honestly at my actions and their effect, I can see if I can change. What have I learned about myself? What is my plan to change and strive to be better?  Practicing compassion changes us. Glossing over someone’s pain becomes impossible. We recognize all, who, like us, just want to belong and want to be seen.
 
Creating communal spaces such as at the T’Shuvah Center where we can learn from our cultural heritage to create a better world for all of us is a moral and spiritual necessity for our community, inviting back all who want to return, all who are seeking an answer, and all who want to become better today than they were yesterday. It is our t’shuvah.

Rabbi Igael “Iggy” Gurin-Malous is the CEO of T’Shuvah Center, long term residential Jewish recovery home and community for addicts of all kinds opening in New York in September 2019. T'Shuvah Center integrative approach includes Jewish wisdom, text, and ritual; psychotherapy; the 12-Steps; and spirituality to help those who are suffering find a path to recovery. Learn more at www.tshuvahcenter.org

FJMC Convention Health Wealth and Retirement Highlights
by Richard Gray

As the 4th Pre-Convention Wealth Management Conference this FJMC Convention we will be going to MaRS, not the planet but something better nearby in Toronto. Check it out at Marsdd.com, there is too much to say for this note.  We will be spending an IMMERSION Wednesday morning, July 3, at MaRS.  MaRS supports over 1,200 Canadian science and tech companies that are tackling some of society’s greatest challenges, providing them with tailored resources at every stage of their growth, from startup to scale-up. MaRS focuses on four sectors — cleantech, health, fintech and enterprise software. There will be tours, presentations of new technologies in AI and health care and meeting opportunities.

If you have ever wondered about this most dynamic part of our industrial ecosystem, be sure to sign on by sending an email to Richard Gray at rgray@fjmc.org .  Bring spouses and friends at no cost – just another perk for our men and women who have demonstrated the vision to help FJMC reach its full potential through the FJMC Foundation for Jewish Life (FJL) as Fellows or through Legacy commitments.  This event is not part of the formal convention so it requires a special sign up.  Space is limited.

Other Highlights for our HW readership at Convention are listed on the Convention webpage and include:

• a wealth and retirement planning seminar on “Intergenerational Wealth” by Wealth Advisor, Dan Goldfarb,
• the FJMC FJL sponsored keynote on Creating a Life of Legacy (not your wealth) by Rabbi Daniel Cohen, and
• the FJMC FJL initiated program “Imagine Life” A Mental Wellness Initiative – Before it is too late, introduced by Steven Mandel.

Gramping
by Mark Rudin, Past New England Region President

So what do you do when you wake up one day to find out that someone has created a never-before-used new word, a name for something you have been doing for years? This is what happened when I came across an article on Gramping last month. Gramping means skipping over a generation and traveling solely with your grandchildren. The article was highlighted in “Planning Pointers” a weekly email produced by Freedman Financial, Peabody MA (Vol.11, Issue 22, May 31, 2019). The article contained a link to the full story in Travel+Leisure (travelandleisure.com).
 
My wife Anita and I have been taking our two grandsons on week-long summer road trips for 10+ years; the boys are now 16 and 13 years old.  The major difference between our experience and the gist of what is contained in the Travel+Leisure article is that we take the grandkids on separate road trips vs. both together. There are several reasons for this, including:

1. we get a higher level of quality and bonding time with them when we have just one of them,
2. the grandson left home has a week by himself with mom and dad,
3. with an age difference of 3+ years, their interests are different and we can tailor the road trip specifically to what the grandson with us would like to do, and
4. we avoid the times that brothers get into spats with each other that can spoil the trip.

This has been, and continues to be, a fantastic experience for us, our grandsons, and their parents. We are blessed that we have the time and resources to do this, and that the grandsons and their parents are willing and eager participants in this adventure.  We live in Danvers, Ma, a suburb about 20 miles north of Boston. The trips average seven nights on the road and have included touring/sightseeing in Vt/NY, Niagara Falls, Ottawa during Canada’s 150th Birthday, New Brunswick Canada, Philadelphia, a wedding in Lakewood NJ, visiting cousins in Monsey NY, and many more. Typically the older grandson helps us select a new destination, which the younger grandson more often than not asks to go to the following year.

The best part of these yearly trips is having the grandsons and their parents look forward to them and bring up specific highlights years later. We are creating memories and forging relationships with the grandkids that give us so much pride and happiness; now looking forward to the 2019 road trips!