Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 56
“Zeus is passionately interested in pretty female deities and becomes inflamed with rage against those who incite his jealousy. The God of Israel is passionately interested in widows and orphans.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 144).
Continuing his thoughts about the Divine Concern and comparing them to the Greco-Roman system, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us what it means to be human, what it means to be a person of faith, and what it means to truly serve God in these words.
Zeus and Greco-Roman culture, when these mythologies were written and up to today is passionately interested in things, in beauty, in one-upping each other and being jealous of another(s). We see this in their stories and we see this in our culture. To make the cover of magazines, one has to be one of the “beautiful” people, either in looks, status, and or economic/celebrity fame. We are a society that is intent on having the “perfect” body, house, job, bank account, cool-factor, etc. We are a society that feels bad/shame when someone else succeeds and, whether we are successful or not, feels jealous rage at the good fortune of another.
This jealous rage comes out in so many different ways and it is seen in business, religious institutions, politics, academia, and even in personal relationships. In my years as a Rabbi, I have found people suffering from this comparing and competing way of living and it brings them self-loathing, disconnection, despair, depression, and anxiety as well as physical ailments, addictive behaviors/disorders and ruined interpersonal relationships. We see this in the political sphere with all of the vicious polarizing hate speech and disdain our political leaders speak to one another with. We see this in the rallies calling for harm to be brought to people of color, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, anyone who isn’t “us”. We see this jealous rage in the ways that business’ compete with each other, they use the language of war when speaking about their competitors. We see this in the way we speak about a person whom we know, or don’t know, belittling their achievements as “lucky”. We see this jealous rage come out in the ways people manipulate one another through mendacity, deception and fear.
Passion for sex, for conquest, for jealousy, for ‘being #1, is a hallmark of Greco-Roman society, I believe. In this passion, there are no rules except winning. There are no ‘unfair’ ways to win. As a thief, my associates and I used to say, “if I can take it then it is supposed to belong to me”. The self-deception used by us and by many so-called “legitimate” people is huge and we engage in it so we can assuage ourselves while doing what is wrong, immoral.
Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that God/Higher Power/Force of the Cosmos/the Ineffable One is concerned with those most at risk of being taken advantage of. The Biblical path, unlike the Greco-Roman path, is to end the rivalries, end the jealousy, end the rage, end the mendacity and the self-deception. It is to raise up and protect those most vulnerable, those most at risk, because without doing this, we cannot really serve God, we cannot raise up humanity and we cannot Be human. This distinction that Rabbi Heschel is drawing is so powerful. He wrote these words 70 years ago, at a time that Americans like to think of as “the good old days” and for him to write these words and give us those teachings, he must have seen how the inside was rotting while the outside was working hard to polish itself.
We are still hard at work polishing the outside and the inside of society and of individuals are rotting and stinking like old fish. Yet, we persist in using wax to see ourselves as good while the most vulnerable are dying, suffering and pleading for help. My religious colleagues who are willing to decry “the other”, make the vulnerable guilty of anything so we can shirk our God-ordained responsibility towards them, claim they are in this place because God doesn’t love them so much, are deceivers, liars, snake-oil salespeople and part of the Greco-Roman system while proclaiming their allegiance to God. They are idol-worshipers of the worst kind. We have the power to stop their message by letting go of our need to be deceived, letting go of our own self-deceptions and serving God’s passions and interests instead of our own or the ones we buy into.
In recovery, we know what it is like to be at-risk and vulnerable, we are everyday. We know we are at risk each and everyday of falling back into old habits and paths. We know we are vulnerable to our self-deceptions and the deceptions of another. We know what it is to be a “widow/orphan” because we were without connections and without community by our own choices. Each day we commit anew to living in recovery and letting go of our old ideas.
I have fallen prey to my jealousies and ‘why don’t they see me’ voices in my recovery. I am not proud of this fact and it is a fact. I know that my jealousy stemmed from my own lack of awareness of who I was/am and what I brought/bring to the table. I have overcome these jealousies through a lot of inner work, given who and how I am-there was not a false polish I could use to fool people. Most of all, I stopped fooling myself. I do not wish anyone harm, I have joy for the success’ of people I know and those I don’t. I am no longer engaging in this Greco-Roman path, I am continuing and improving my dedication to God’s interests and passions. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark