Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 24
“Distant ends, religious, moral and artistic interests, may become as relevant to man as his concern for food. The self, the fellow-man and the dimension of the holy are the three dimensions of a mature human concern.”(Man is Not Alone pg.139)
Finishing the paragraph we began on Monday leads us to a powerful conclusion, statement, goal and truth. As we rise vertically to the dimension of the holy, we are more aware of the distant ends that our soul is seeking and God has called us to. In this journey of ascent, these ends become clearer to us and whether we can see their fruition in our lifetime or not is less important than furthering our work towards them and leaving the rest of the journey to the next human being. This idea reminds me of the same story told many different ways in different spiritual/faith traditions: an older person is planting a tree, a younger person notices and asks the older person: “do you think you will live long enough to enjoy the fruit of your planting?” The older person replies: “ I don’t know” and the younger person asks: “Why bother with it then?” The older person explains: “Maybe I won’t enjoy the fruits of my labor, however, my child, my child’s child, etc will enjoy them and this is my legacy.” In this story, we see how distant ends have become as relevant as food to many of us. We forget this truth, this goal in our pursuit of false self drives. We all have a legacy to leave, we all have the power and opportunity to leave our corner of the world a little better than when we found it. We all are divine needs and divine reminders, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, these distant ends set a path for us to follow, for us to fulfill and for us to teach another(s) what is important in life.
Without religious, moral and artistic interests becoming as relevant to humanity as our concern for food, we will stay in hunter/gatherer mode. In this mode, the “survival of the fittest” is the distant end. Creativity, covenantal community, works of art that give us joy, make us think, etc are irrelevant to the hunter/gatherer unless it can make them money, give them power and bring them prestige.
Yet, some people have become so aware and so clever they have made it seem as if they are pursuing/supporting moral, religious and/or artistic interests and in actuality they have bastardized them. When religious leaders speak in the name of self-interest, self-preservation, extolling mendacity and lies, giving cover to the rich and not caring for the widow, the poor, the stranger and the orphan; they fail God and all of us. We see different personal issues being decided by a small “religious” minority who do this for power, not for Jesus, not for Buddha, not for Mohammed, and certainly not for Adonai/God.
Morality has also become for sale to the highest bidder. Our college institutions have been “selling” admissions way before the College Admission Scandal. We have seen over the last hundred years or so the decay of many institutions that were created to uplift the living condition of those in need and they did for a long time. Until they became more interested in perpetuating the organization than perpetuating the mission. We have see this over and over again; we hear about it in the scandals that we read about, the collapse of 2008/9 was due to such moral decay. The ways people are being routinely disenfranchised, continually silenced is an example of our moral decay. When we cannot talk with one another, when we have to speak at one another, when we are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water, when everything becomes about gender, race, religion, discrimination, someone getting up in arms about something, when white supremacy is validated and extolled by political leaders, we are not reaching up to/for the holy dimension.
There are many religious leaders who speak out against the charlatans getting the most press, giving religious exemptions, etc. People like Dr. Susannah HeschelJohn Pavlovitz, Father Greg Boyle, Reverend William Barber, Rabbis Jill Jacobs, Sharon Brous, Aryeh Cohen, and so many more are fighting the fight some of us have fought before, fighting the fight that Rabbi Heschel has left to us as his legacy. We have a solution to the charlatans: TRUTH. We all need to and are able to influence the people around us by patiently, kindly and firmly spreading truth, teaching people about the distant ends we are privileged to serve. We all need to stop the “on the advice of counsel”, the sue anyone about anything mentality, the stealing of ideas and ways from another as well the disavowing of responsibility and placing blame and shaming another human being as a way of being powerful and rewarded financially way of being that is so prevalent in our world today. Instead we all need to admit our foibles, ask for help from people who can help us, help those people we can help, take responsibility for our success’ and our ‘missing the marks’ so we can ascend to the holy dimension and bring another(s) with us.
In recovery, we are seeking to reach out to another human being who is in pain, suffering, and lost. We see reaching out, answering the call of another human being as the only path to the holy dimension we desperately need to live in. In recovery, we are aware of what happens when we stop ascending, we crash and burn our lives and the lives of so many people around us. Not only are we unable to add to our corner of the world, we take away from our corner of the world.
I am going to write more about this tomorrow, stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark