Searching for God in the Garbage

by Bracha Goetz

W & B Publishers

232 pages; $17.99 on Amazon

 

 

My very favorite is Hashem’s Candy Store because it demonstrates how wondrous fruit and vegetables are, so children can enjoy eating more healthfully, and I love the delightfully whimsical illustrations that Dena Ackerman created for the book. I am also very grateful for the ways in which books like Let’s Appreciate Everyone, Let’s Stay Safe and Talking about Private Places are helping to sensitize our children in a pleasant way to serious issues.

 

I don’t think I ever imagined, while I was writing in my diary or journal or composing letters to people, that they would someday become a book. It was when I discovered them all again when I went back to my parents’ apartment that I got the idea to make them into a book. As I started reading them, I was astonished at what I saw – that my yearning for something missing started so young, and how that yearning evolved and became more and more intense as the years went on. 

One of the readers of my memoir gave me this insightful feedback a couple of weeks ago. She said that when I was writing in my diary, it was my way of talking to G-d, and I never realized that before. I’m actually learning a lot from the feedback that readers are very thoughtful to give me.

 

I wrote the book right when the book finishes, when I was 32.  I had been living in Eretz Yisroel for 10 years at that point, and I hand-delivered the manuscript to a very well-known non-observant agent in Israel. She read through the first part of it and called me up so excited to say that she had never read anything like it and she was very excited about publishing it. When I later called the publisher to ask if she had read the second half of the book, the half where I became observant, she wasn’t at all interested in the book anymore. When I then sent the manuscript to Orthodox publishers, none of them were interested in publishing it because of the first half of the book. 

I continued to look for an agent or a publisher for the book off and on through the years – for nearly 30 years. Recently I found an agent who was different than all the other agents.  She is a religious Christian who deeply appreciated the manuscript. She was very determined to find a publisher for it, and she finally did. When I thanked her for helping it to finally emerge, she said it was G-d’s work, not her efforts.That’s the kind of person she is.

 

I edited the manuscript every few years, so in a way, I can say that this book took 50 years to write, since I started it just before I turned 12.

 

I did not have any doubts about publishing it, but I was still frightened before it was released about whether people would react to me differently afterwards. Not that it mattered so much to me, to prevent me from wanting to have it be in the world, but it was still an uncomfortable feeling. Many years ago, one Orthodox publisher had read the manuscript and asked me why I would want to publish a book like this when I had such a beautiful family. She was upset, and protectively, she was asking me why I would want to leave myself open to ridicule by publishing it. Her words did disturb me, but I had asked a Rav about publishing the book, and I was told that I could go ahead, so I kept trying.

I feel one of the reasons I am here on Earth is to make the realizations in this book clear. I want to reach the girl I used to be, and everyone else to whom this book could be illuminating. Thank G-d, my wonderful husband trusts me to do what I feel I need to do, and all my amazing grown children who now have their own amazing children, thank G-d, have been supportive.

 

I hope that this book can reach and help many people with all types of addictions, as addictions are widespread. I have distilled a practical take-away from the book. It is designed, specifically, for people with any type of food addiction, but it could be adjusted to help people with any kind of addiction. When people are overeating, they can ask themselves this simple question: Am I continuing to eat now because my body is hungry, or am I trying to fill my soul? And once that question pops up into one’s consciousness, many wonderful ways to fill one’s soul can come to mind. 

Then the person can step outside and breathe in some nature, do an act of kindness for someone, like calling or texting someone who may be lonely, put on lovely music and get up and dance, learn some ancient wisdom, slowly count one’s blessings, etc. The choices are endless, but even just the awareness of these possibilities raises the consciousness of the individual, so that spiritual pleasures can be chosen, and the soul filled. 

So the memoir is a tour inside my being to see how this realization came to be. I am praying that the book can help to free many people from their addictions, so that they can enjoy much more deeply pleasurable lives. And that’s what all my children’s books have in common with this book for older people. As Reb Noach taught, the purpose of life is to have the greatest pleasure possible. That’s why G-d created us – to give us this pleasure. So by letting our souls shine, as children and as adults, that’s how we can experience the greatest pleasure possible. That ‘s the goal for all my books, to hopefully help that happen.

 

I’m working on two more children’s books right now. One is about tools for children to get along and not fight with each other based on tools from the Ahavas Yisroel movement for women, and the other is about the importance of honesty in Judaism. 

I would love for Searching to be made into a movie. I’m glad you can picture it too!

 

I believe that I have fulfilled one of my purposes for being in this world with the publication of this book now, so I would encourage anyone that wants to – to experience this same awesome pleasure. It’s simply wonderful to let one’s soul shine and help people in the process. I heard that people are beginning to get the book for their clients, family members, and students with whom they work who have anorexia, and I hope that can extend to helping people with other food addictions, and a variety of addictions  because the same basic consciousness raising can be beneficial to all hopefully. Once we recognize our divine, infinite, yet invisible souls, we can discover what joyously fills them.