Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 13
“Among the many things that religious tradition holds in store for us is a legacy of wonder. The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. (God in Search of Man, pg.43).
Following up yesterday’s quote/lesson with these two sentences above makes perfect sense to me. Insights are expressions of our experiences of wonder, I believe. They ensure our continued search for, grasping of and acting on our insights as well as being open and excited about the insights of another(s). Legacy relates to our inheritance, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that wonder is an inheritance, a birthright, and, in being maladjusted to the ways I have understood these words before, a way of being that is imperative for us to adopt in order to have a true sense of God, of our world and of ourselves/our lives.
Insights lead to wonder, wonder leads to insights. We have to keep alive this legacy, we have to keep growing our inheritance. We have spent so many years squandering it, we have stopped replenishing our storehouse, bank account, 401K, IRA, etc with wonder that it almost seems as if there is none left in us and for us. We are being bombarded with noise that is determined and destined to bankrupt our wonder account and leave us empty vessels that just robotically follow orders. Our insights are put down, our ears are growing deafer and deafer to the call of God, to the music of wonder. Our eyes are getting blinded by the prejudices of another(s), by the spectacles people are making of themselves that seem to engender power and prestige. Our tongues have forgotten what we pray 3 times a day: “God guard my tongue from evil, my lips from speaking guile”. We have come to worship these ways of being rather than living from wonder/radical amazement.
31 years ago, to paraphrase what a psychiatrist by the name of Dr.Stephen Marmer said at a conference in Los Angeles on the subject of addiction in the Jewish Community: We have spent the moral capital of the past generations and not put anything back into the bank account. These words were wringing true then and even more now. People are not interested in truth, in wonder, in our inheritance, they are interested in their interests, their desires, their power. Power is wielded for the sake of the powerful, not for the sake of God. We have picked apart our religious traditions so much as to make the religious experience a mental exercise rather than an experience of wonder, of ecstasy. We have bankrupted our spiritual nature, we have walled off our souls and we are suffering a Spiritual Pandemic.
We take so many things for granted, we have forgotten how to be surprised. We are so interested in consuming, we have taken for granted our climate, our freedom, our friends and family. We are unaware of the grandeur of living a life compatible with being a partner of God. We have stopped believing in our insights, in our ability to wonder, in our being called to a higher purpose than our own self-interests. We have stopped being loyal to God, loyal to each other and we live in a constant state of being afraid of being betrayed and betraying another(s) for our own gain. We take people for granted, ideas for granted and ‘facts’ for granted. We take our selfishness and self-centeredness for granted and see the world through both of these states. We are suffering from the disease of prejudice, a prejudice of ‘what’s in it for me’, a cancer of winning is the only thing. We are at war with our own inherent nature and we are defeating our innate sense of wonder. Taking things for granted causes us to go to war everyday rather than seek the wonder and connection that is our legacy, our inheritance and our way of replenishing our moral and spiritual bank accounts.
In recovery, we are amazed each and every day that we are able to put back the moral and spiritual capital we stole from ourselves and another(s). Prior to our recovery, we used up everything in sight, what was ours and what was yours. In recovery, we celebrate our spiritual nature, we know each day is a gift and we are careful not to squander this gift. We practice gratitude, not just say it, we know our strength comes from God/Higher Power and we seek to grow and improve our legacy of wonder daily.
I continue to live in a state of wonder, I continue to be surprised and I continue to put back into the world wonder, gratitude and love. Living in wonder has brought me to, at times, put faith in the wrong people, not that they are bad/evil, just that I saw them for who they could be and not for who they are in the moment. I am been surprised both negatively and positively, I am surprised at waking up each day, I am guilty of taking things for granted as well. Each time I take something for granted, I make errors and find myself in messes of my own making and another(s) taking advantage of my miscues. Not taking things for granted is how I keep my love of my siblings, my nieces and nephews, Harriet, Heather, Miles Stuart, friends, communities fresh, alive and I stay aware of what is happening. Living in Wonder is not a protection against being hurt, disappointed, etc.; it is a path of responding to whatever the day brings with pathos, joy, excitement, love and truth. Taping into my inheritance of wonder allows me a safe, warm, kind and loving space to gain more insights, more creativity and more surety in the higher logic of spirit and God. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark