Luke Ford

So I’ll meet women and I’ll think, this one has the personality, and this one has the looks and this one has the brains. Why can’t one woman have it all? And if she did, would she want me too?

At age 46, my options have narrowed. I’m trying to figure out how much mental illness I can handle in a woman.

When I fall for a woman and don’t want to live without her, all the comparisons I’m prone to fall away. Though sometimes I’ll think about how A in my past was great at X and B was great at Y and C had awesome attributes and D was smooth…

I had the hell beaten out of me as a kid and whenever anyone comes up from behind me or I get startled by an unexpected noise, I instinctively jump. Adrenalin surges through my system. I freak out. I feel like I’m about to get beaten again, even if it is only a friend unexpectedly from behind putting his hands on my shoulders. My most frightening memory from childhood was getting held underwater for about ten seconds by the kids in the grade above me at Pacific Union College.

People who work with me can tell that I have that beaten dog syndrome. It’s a certain look in my eyes when I get yelled at.

My upbringing’s influence is so difficult to disentangle. I keep thinking I’m past it and then it rears its ugly head again. I used to tell my therapists to focus on the present, but stuff from my past keeps warping me, so we might tiptoe back there a bit. It’s useless to say you forgive people in your past without realizing clearly what happened, what choices others made that negatively effected you, and then when you face that, then and only then can you effectively choose to let it go. Otherwise, you’re stuck playing out stuff you won’t look at.

So this new friend went to South America and took native drugs and vomited and defecated for a day or two and then came home completely changed. His negative imprinting from childhood was gone. He has appropriate confidence in himself. He wears bright colors. He’s kicking ass. Can Native American throw-up drugs really do that for you or is he fooling himself?

When I started listening to Dennis Prager on KABC radio in 1988, I quickly came to see Judaism as a step-by-step system for making a better world. In late 1989, I decided to convert. I thought that by observing the law, joining the holy community, and immersing myself in Torah that I would morally transform myself.

It didn’t work. My corruption, my emotional addictions, my psychological baggage destroyed almost everything I tried to do.

On the other hand, I think I’ve made some moral progress over the past year as a result of a decade of psycho-therapy, three years of Alexander Technique teacher training (which retrained my reactions to stimuli) and 18-months of 12-step work. This work has allowed me to get more benefit from Judaism. I’ve cleared away some of the junk that was getting in the way of my becoming a decent person.

It’s far easier to become religious or spiritual or observant or saved than to become decent.

I used to hold by all these moral guidelines for myself that I learned from Torah and from my upbringing, and then when the rubber hit the road, I was more often than not in moral free-fall, just falling, falling, falling and feeling that there was no one to catch me and knowing that I should catch myself but waiting nonetheless for others to intervene to stop me from myself and curious to see how much I could get away with, and then when others intervened and put a halt to my shenanigans, I hated them for stopping me from my fun. I react badly when others put strict limits on me. I don’t like feeling like a child again even though I know I’m acting like a child.

When I was a little boy, my parents would put me down for a nap after lunch. And every day they did this, I’d scream and rage. I hated it. I hated being told what to do. And then I’d fall asleep.

Q: Do you have rage against God?

L: I don’t have a relationship with God. Or if I do, it is distant. I am not conscious of having any emotions towards God, except some awkward gratitude for being alive. I’m cognizant that God judges. That He is the lawgiver.

Q: Do you obey God?

L: I try to.

Q: How does that play out in Orthodox Judaism?

L: Orthodox Judaism is primarily a set of practices. It doesn’t matter practically whether or not you have a relationship with God. What you need to have to be a part of Orthodox Judaism is fidelity to a set of behaviors.

Q: So you don’t have to deal with God?

L: Not really.

Q: What about the rabbis?

L: I’m wary of rabbis. I used to get close to them but then they expected too much from me in return. So now I usually keep my distance so I can have the freedom to say what I want.

Q: Do you rage against authority now? Against the rabbis?

L: At times. I have less rage in me than I used to have. Through 12-step work, through psycho-therapy, through age, I’ve calmed down and have greater maturity than I did. I’ve learned to let go of resentment and much of my fear. I no longer build cases against people in my head.

Q: Is there any spirituality?

L: I’m not a spiritual person.

Q: Do you keep that private?

L: No.

Q: Spirituality is not part of Orthodox Judaism?

L: For a few. For the Hasidim.

Q: You don’t consider spirituality a religious practice?

L: It can be.

Q: What about kabbalah?

L: I’m not interested in that.