Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 61
“Creation in the language of the Bible is an act of expression. God said: “Let there be”; and it was. Creation is not an act that happened once, but a continuous process. The work Yehi, “Let there be,” stands forever in the universe.”(Man is Not Alone pg. 144/5).
The first sentence above takes my breath away. I am sitting here, stunned by the impact of it. Creation is an act of expression is not just a biblical experience, rather I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s words to explain to us the origin of the word creation, the truth of the meaning of the word creation, and, maybe, the recognition that, since we have the power to create from God, we need to realize what our creations are expressing. Immersing ourselves in this sentence, we could, and in my opinion, need to, review our creations and ask what do they say about us?
What does our family life express about us? Are we raising a family that believes in creating good things to express the goodness, joy, hope and responsibility God has imbued us with? Are we raising a family that creates good things only for themselves to express scarcity, fear, prejudice, controlling, etc that God has given us the free-will to choose to do? Am I as an individual creating things that help another, hurt another, control another, free another? In a ‘cancel culture’; ‘micro-aggression’; ‘fear of losing control’ society, what are the ways we have created expressing about ourselves? In a ‘white society rule’; a ‘power for the sake of self’;’the one with the gold rules’ society, what have we expressed through our actions?
Rabbi Heschel’s teaching here, hopefully, causes us to take a pause and ask ourselves what do our actions/creations express about ourselves. What does it mean to create goodness? Do I have to do everything altruistically to create goodness/good things? Can I make a profit, even get rich from doing good? Of course! Most people who make money, become famous, etc from what they create/their actions are decent hard-working, kind, caring people who look to make their community better and are responsible to and for their community. Of course there are a few bad apples who use their money to create chaos, create mendacity, create wars, create obstructionist policies/ways to stop progress and/or another person’s creation. Yes, we focus on these bad apples more than on all the good, giving them power to create more chaos, more destruction, more mendacity and more obstructions to our own creations.
It is time for us to immerse ourselves in this first sentence above. It is time for us to stop the negative self-talk that obstructs our creative nature and creative/problem solving ways of experiencing life! We create many barriers for our own selves, for our own creative expression through our negative self-talk, through our self-deceptions, through listening to the nay-sayers around us. We create more chaos and doubt, we create sadness and despair, we create self-defeat and self-loathing when we allow our negative self-talk to ‘win the day’.
We have the tools, the power, the assistance and the spirit to overcome our negative self-talk. We can use all of these to truly fulfill the Divine need we are created for, the song/niggun of our soul, the gifts we bring to the world in order to make it one grain of sand better. To do this, however, we have to look at what our actions/creations have expressed and ask ourselves what do we need to repair/recreate from these expressions. Once we do this, we are able to continue our study of our inner life, through texts and individual spiritual counseling, and discover the song of our soul and create new actions to express this melody, this song. It will not happen in a day, week, year and we have to constantly check in with our soul because the song changes, once our creation can stand on its own, needs to stand on its own, it may be time for us to sing the next song God is giving us!
In recovery, we are blessed to clear out the negativity we have lived from and lived in. We leave this negativity, not completely and enough that it no longer controls/rules us, in order to create anew, to hear the true song of our soul, to act in ways that express the love, kindness, truth, justice, etc. that God has imbued us with. In recovery, we are acutely aware of how our actions and creations are acts of expression and we are much more careful as to what our acts of expression are.
I have been a creator of good and of negativity throughout my entire life. I look back and see that I have made errors, I have allowed my own negative self-talk to create negativity and I am sad, remorseful and ask for forgiveness from the people I have harmed that I know about. I also realize that I have been deaf to the new song(s) God has given me because I was too busy, too needy, too scared to leave the old one. I also know that I have helped to create an amazing place, an amazing community, Beit T’Shuvah and I am grateful that it expresses/expressed my deep belief in the power of T’Shuvah, the power of return, the power of God’s love, the power of Truth, the power of community, the power of belonging, the power of creativity and seeing each person as different, worthy and healable. I know I created a space of caring and concern for another human being. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark