This Ritual Life Archive

Welcome to This Ritual Life.

Here you will find out about ways to enhance your holiday experience, to celebrate or mark a meaningful life cycle event, and to deepen your experience of the everyday. Our authors are especially interested in hearing your responses to what they have written. So after reading, visit the Ritual Life discussion forum where you can join in conversation with CLAL faculty and other readers.

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QUITTING SMOKING

A chassidic tale is told: Rabbi Isaac Vorecki once woke up in the middle of the night with an urge for a pinch of snuff. He reached across his bedside table for the box, which was just beyond his grasp. "Should I get out of bed and get it?" he thought to himself. He began to debate the matter in his mind: "If I don't get out of bed when I need something, I'll become lazy! But if I take a pinch of snuff then I'll be giving in to my cravings!" So the Rabbi made the following vow: "I will get up and get the box, but I will resist my impulse to take a pinch!" (Yalkut Sippurim)

MEDITATION

Kol ha'neshama tehallel Yah, Halleluyah! Let all my breath sing Halleluyah! (Psalm 150)

Like Your rainbow, each breath I take is the sign of a covenant I shall try to honor. May I be freed from this addiction, and committed to protect this body that you have given me.

RITUAL

As you mark your commitment to quit smoking, go to a natural setting, preferably a beach or mountain stream where the air is pure, so that you can breathe in deeply. In this place of fresh air and new beginnings, bury or dispose of your ashtrays and left over cigarettes.

BLESSING

(As you take three good, long breaths) Barukh atah she'matir asurim.

Blessed is the One who frees those who are held captive by difficult habits.

TEACHING

Hold fast to discipline, do not let go; Keep it, it is your life. Do not walk on the path of the wicked; Do not walk on the way of evil. Avoid it, do not pass through it; Turn away from it, pass it by…. The path of the righteous is like radiant sunlight, Ever brightening until noon. (Proverbs 4: 13-18)

How puny the mind which is ruled by desire, and how great the one ruled by the soul! (Israel Salanter, Iggeret Ha-Musar)

The evil impulse has a sweet beginning and an evil end. (Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 14:3)

Quitting smoking is an accomplishment, but it is a loss as well. We smokers know there is a close connection between our personalities and our smoking. We turn to smoking for comfort; it brings us relief from tension at anxious moments. Even though we really want to stop damaging our bodies and polluting the air, quitting makes us feel profoundly ambivalent. For when we give up smoking, we give up an aspect of ourselves and change who we are. That's scary.

(CLAL faculty)

CLAL's National Jewish Resource Center develops and publishes rituals that help to bridge the gap between our contemporary lives and the ancient wisdom of the Jewish tradition.