Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 18
“The peace of mind attainable in solitude is not the result of ignoring that which is not the self or escaping from it, but of reconciliation with it… A vital requirement of human life is transitive concern, a regard for others, in addition to a reflexive concern, an intense regard for itself.”(Man Is Not Alone pg. 138).
What I am understanding from Rabbi Heschel this morning is that it is important to take time to oneself and for oneself in order to get over and out of oneself! So many of us seek solitude in order to find oneself and, while Rabbi Heschel seems to agree with this school of thought, I hear him also saying in order to find ourselves, we have to reconcile our self with another(s) self and with God. In solitude, I am realizing, is where we see our need for another self, our need for connection and caring for another self as well as needing another self to care and connect to us. In solitude, my “peace of mind” comes from this realization, from reconciling this truth with my self-deceiving beliefs that I, alone, must do everything, and from the deceptions that society perpetrates upon me to believe my self-deceiving thoughts. While “peace of mind” may not last long for some of us, it is a place to return to each and every time we pray, study, hear/play music, meditate, dream. I am hear Rabbi Heschel’s words call to us to engage in this reconciliation so we can envision the Divine Need we were created to fill, fulfill this need and welcome the fulfillment another(s) fill in us.
To reconcile comes from the latin “to bring back together” and the Hebrew is “to cause wholeness”. The path of solitude, the path of reconciliation can and must be different for all of us and the destination is the same, bringing ourselves back together in wholeness, harmony, truth, and love. We spend so much time escaping this basic human need: to need another(s) and to be needed by another(s). We spend so much time believing the lies of the people who say: “I alone can save you” “I alone know the way” “Only through Christ/Torah/Koran/Buddha/etc and only the way I interpret them can you be saved” that we stop believing our own self/non-self. We have stopped hearing the call of our soul and the call of God because the other voices, both inside and outside of us are so loud. We need solitude each and every day to hear the self which is not me and reconciling the voices of negativity, mendacity with the truth that we hear during study, prayer, meditation, etc.
Rabbi Heschel is not denying the reflexive concern that we all have. In fact in the last sentence above, he calls it an “intense regard for itself”. I believe he is also telling us that the transitive concern is part of the intense regard for oneself. This vital requirement of “regard for others” is part of our spiritual DNA. This is why, I believe, Rabbi Heschel uses the word ‘reconcile/bring back together’. We see this when infants and toddlers share their toys, when they come to a parent or relative or stranger and touch them when they are crying, seem troubled, etc. “Regard of others” is part of the first directive from God in Genesis, care for the earth/world that I am giving you. Throughout the Torah, at least 36 times, we are told to; Care for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor because you (we) were strangers in the land of Egypt. Yet, we forget these words, we deny what is in our spiritual DNA and we live lives of “quiet desperation” as Thoreau says. Yet we don’t have to live this type of life, we can follow what Rabbi Heschel is teaching us and begin/continue a daily practice of reconciliation, study, action, prayer, meditation, to begin to bring our whole self back together and join with another(s) whom are beginning to bring their whole self back together to reconcile/bring back together, humanity and the world.
In recovery, we “seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God…”. The 11th step is a critical part of our continued recovery, our continuing growth as human beings, not homo sapiens. We are so very aware of the self-deception we perpetrate on ourselves and then on another(s) and we work hard to be constantly on guard to recognize and seek help from another(s) to not fall into the traps our self-deceptions set for us. We are also acutely aware of our propensity to fall into believing the deception of another(s). In recovery, we release our desperation to “be right” to “win at any and all costs” and embrace the caring for and from another(s) human being.
One of the daily practices of solitude for me is this daily writing. I have found new meanings and new insights that have helped me reconcile the care I need to have for myself and the care I need to have for another(s). The “peace of mind” I have received began in my soul and came up to my mind. My experience is when I listen to my soul and reconcile my mind through the truth of my soul, I am bringing all of my parts back together. I also am able to help another(s) bring their parts back together and our mutual concerns are not transactional, they are covenantal. My regard for myself wasn’t intense enough in the areas that needed to be shored up so I mistakenly believed the people I cared for would always care for me and this just isn’t true, it is a delusion. I help another because God shows me the path to do this, it is in my spiritual DNA to do this and I have learned to have no expectations that they will reciprocate and I know the Universe will. This is my experience and it is my saving grace. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark