Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 21
“The concern for others is not an extension in breadth but an ascension, a rise.” (Man is Not Alone pg.139).
Learning Rabbi Heschel anew each day is a blessing. Each day brings new riches in inner/spiritual knowledge and how to live better each day. While he is relentless in his call to us to rise up to our humanness, as he has been in the past few days, he also has deep faith and unwavering hope that we can and will. In today’s writing, we can see an ulterior motive for the “concern for others” because it is “an ascension, a rise” in our level of living and being. And I am reading this rise as a goal we seek in order to be more human. Of course “concern for others” is defined here by me as intervening when someone is doing wrong/evil, calling people to their higher selves, engagement in helping people succeed in doing well and being a help to them in their own ascension. It is not to help them do evil to another human being!
Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that our ‘need’, ‘call’ to be human creates in us a thirst that cannot be quenched or drowned out. Even the evilest of people found ways and paths to be human, to have concern for others, at different points in their lives, even while perpetrating evil and inhumanity, the German Soldiers/leaders cared for their children, for their families and the concerns of theirs were of interest to them. It is too easy to label some people as not having this quality in order to hate them, to marginalize them, to rally people around ourselves, and it just isn’t true! Once we begin this ascension, we realize that there are more people on this journey, more people beginning, continuing, slipping on this ladder to the holy. Of course the problem with this way of living is that we can no longer live in either/or, good guys/bad guys, etc. We have to truly live in God’s world, doing God’s work, acting Godly by welcoming the stranger and the enemy, caring for the spiritual health of the rich and poor alike, being concerned with the physical, moral, emotional, spiritual health of all around us and those far away. Wearing a mask is not a political statement, it is an act of ascension. Not wearing a mask is a spiritual statement of descending, as well as a political statement, however.
While it is true that we do a lot to drown out this thirst to be human: drugs, alcohol, power, money, gambling, business, etc. and, in the end, we find that we are unable to escape ‘the call’ to be human, our ‘need’ to be human so we don’t go out of our minds/ want to jump out of our skin. This call to ascend never leaves us and, unfortunately, it is not explained to us as children or adolescents or teens or adults by parents, mentors, clergy, etc. Our religious and spiritual education is lacking, we are not honoring the call of people to be human, we are not teaching all the signs of inner turmoil over not ascending, not having true “concern for others”. I know all about Tikkun Olam, I know all about the many marches, etc. Yet, what we must hear from Rabbi Heschel is to have concern for all people, concern that is personal and immediate, concern for the people we disagree with, etc. I am amazed that Rabbi Heschel could have a cordial/good relationship with Cardinal Be’a who was father confessor to Pope Pius XII! He met with him during Vatican II and worked to have the Church remove “Jews killed Christ” and Conversion of the Jews from the Catechism. Here Rabbi Heschel was, working with a man who knew of the Pope’s atrocities against the Jewish People, his support of and for Adolf Hitler and Rabbi Heschel could rise above because of his concern for Jews, for Catholics and for Cardinal Be’a. This call to reach across the table to the people who are against us, to hear and see their concerns and those concerns become vital to us to help with and, at least, acknowledge and respectfully disagree with is what this sentence is saying to me today.
Rabbi Heschel is calling out to us to release the harmful selfishness, the fear of being seen as a “Freyer” as the Israelis call being a sucker, release our concern with how we look and become more concerned with our humanity and the humanity of another(s). Rabbi Heschel is calling on us to rise above the pettiness and pride, envy and enmity that seems to permeate our living situation and connect with our own humanity by being more human in all of our affairs and, by ascension, living a life more compatible with being a partner of the Ineffable One.
What we recovery in our recovery, is our humanity, our integrity. In recovery we know that we have to be concerned with the interests of another. We know we cannot hate another and we have to pray for them. In recovery, we are constantly searching our inner life to embrace our call and need to be human, to ascend to a place worthy of being God’s partner.
I am overwhelmed with awe, joy, rebuke and faith right now. I see how Rabbi Heschel is lovingly rebuking me with a powerful dissent and painful rebuke. I have not always had “concern for others” in my recovery years, never mind the ones before. I realize that when I was hurt by another, I dropped my concern and became barricaded in and put on my armor. This is/was wrong as I am reading today’s writing because I stopped being human and the person(s) who hurt me so deeply became objects of my scorn and anger. I also know how much more I have lived these words and have ascended. I am more holy today than yesterday, than 30 years ago! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark