Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 45
“Inner freedom is a miracle of the soul. How can such a miracle be achieved? It is the dedication of the heart and mind to the fact of our being present at a concern of God, the knowledge of being a part of an eternal spiritual movement that conjures power out of a weary conscience, that, striking the bottom out of conceit, tears selfishness to shreds.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 142).
Immersing oneself in Rabbi Heschel’s teachings is a wonderfully, arduous, exhilarating painful journey as evidenced by the teaching above. “The dedication of the heart and mind to the fact of our being present at a concern of God:” is a fragment that is too large for most of us to imagine. It is an experience that we shy away from and work hard to ignore. The word ‘dedication’ comes from the Latin meaning “to devote/consecrate” and the Hebrew is “Hakdasha” which connotes “holiness in the action”.
Rabbi Heschel is teaching us that without holiness, without devotion, without consecrating our hearts and minds, the miracle of inner freedom will not occur, as I am understanding him today. I agree wholeheartedly, I also hear Rabbi Heschel reminding us that our hearts and our minds are separate entities from our soul. Our souls are in direct communication with God and want us to be “present at a concern of God”. Our souls are our Image of the Ineffable One that each of us have, so we are already in a state of “Hakdasha”, of consecration when we are one with our souls/let our souls lead our actions. The challenge, as I am reading Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom today, is to bring our hearts and our minds along. Too often we talk ourselves out of what our souls know to be right through the logic of our lower consciousness, the ‘reasoning’ of our intellect and/or the emotions/desires of our hearts. Rabbi Heschel is pointing out to us that, while we think we are serving ourselves and some made-up ‘greater good’, we are actually harming our souls, our authentic selves, sending authenticity, spiritual health, inner freedom farther and farther away from us. Thereby, sentencing our selves to a longer prison sentence, for some-a life imprisonment, yet, we always have the option of parole. We can parole our selves whenever and wherever we begin to consecrate, devote, elevate our minds and hearts to serve our souls, to serve another human being, to serve God/Higher Power/Higher Consciousness.
We are living in a time that sorely needs this dedication, this devotion, this consecration of concerns of God, and the soul(s) of another(s) human being(s), elevating our selfish desires by devoting ourselves to serving something greater than our power, prestige, obliviousness to the call of the needy, the poor, the stranger, etc. We see how authoritarians are using our vulnerabilities against us, accusing good people of doing bad, just like Goebbels employed as part of the Nazi propaganda; how these people are gaslighting the rest of us in order to keep their power and have minority rule, rather than decisions by the majority, as our democracy calls for. We see this way of being in families, in organizations, in companies, etc. The lack of devotion, the lack of consecration, the lack of elevation and holiness people engage in to ‘make a buck’, stay in power, tear down another person to make themselves feel better, is at a tipping point and we need to heed Rabbi Heschel’s words and turn our society away from the impending doom and destruction we are headed for.
We can only dedicate our hearts and minds when we realize that every human being has the same value as we do, every single life has meaning, a purpose and is entitled to dignity and respect. We can only achieve this when we cure the “cancer of the soul” that prejudice is, when we change the lens’ we see another person through and welcome them and their concerns into our lives, into our spaces, - not push them away, not treat them as less than human or at least having less worth than we do, no longer separate ourselves from our community at large. We achieve inner freedom when we dedicate, consecrate, elevate, make holy our connection with God/Higher Power/Higher Consciousness, when we realize what we do matters, when we appreciate the moments we spend with another human being-not fixing them, rather, hearing them. When we realize and respond to the interests/concerns of another human being and in doing so, we serve the concern has put in front of us , not the self-centeredness we default to. In Ethics of our Ancestors, we are taught: “Nullify my will before Your will” to remind us who we are serving.
In recovery, the third step in AA teaches us to “turn our will and life over to the care of God as I understand God”… so as to get out of our selfish self, to leave the prison of our desires and reasoning. In recovery we learn how to use our reasoning to serve our souls, to serve God, not to serve selfishness and not to serve power for the sake of power.
In my recovery, I have been blessed to devote, consecrate and elevate my living and the living of another(s) by being present at a concern of God. There is much more I have to write on this topic tomorrow. I know that being present at a concern of God is so much better than being stuck in my selfish concerns. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark