Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 46
“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).
As I was speaking about yesterday, the thoughts and teachings expressed above, as with all of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teaching, go right to the core of being human. They are in keeping with Rabbi Heschel’s belief that to be human we are to “enable the common” and “the knowledge of being a part of an eternal spiritual movement…: “ is the path forward. Herein lies our challenge, our solution and the war that happens both in our inner lives and the ones we begin, face, react, respond to in our outer lives.
We are fatigued, as people, as individuals, and as countries. The Covid-19 Pandemic only amplified the fatigue most people experience. It is a fatigue born out of selfishness, conceit, seeking of power for power’s sake, xenophobia, poverty of the economic variety, poverty of moral fortitude, and poverty of the spirit/soul. We have become people who are so fearful of ‘losing everything’, that we live from a scarcity mentality while living in the most abundant of times. We live in suspicion of everyone around us, not believing that someone could be kind because they are kind, that someone could reach out because they know they are part of this “eternal spiritual movement”, that we are able to and want to be present “at a concern of God”. Because of our suspicion and our fears, because of our experiences and those of our ancestors, because we are unwilling/unable to dedicate our hearts and minds to being presented with a concern of God and, hence, not responding to it, we remain a “weary conscience”.
This does not have to be the case, however! We, the people, need to rise up and demand from ourselves and from one another as well as from governmental leadership that we all change course, we all turn inward to seek the inner freedom Rabbi Heschel is speaking about, we all truly dedicated our hearts and minds to being present at a concern of God and acknowledging we are all part of an eternal spiritual movement. We may not nor should we agree on the solutions to today’s challenges, we may not nor should we agree on the priorities of solving today’s challenges, yet we will, once we seek inner freedom, see one another as humans just like ourselves, we will seek out compromise rather than ‘my way of highway’ obstructionist behaviors. As we seek our own inner freedom, we become so interested, excited and engaged in helping another(s) attain their own, sometimes overbearingly so.
What this knowledge of being present at a concern of God and knowing we are part of an eternal spiritual movement does is infuse us with an energy that keeps regenerating. This spiritual energy is the fuel that keeps us going, keeps us in the battle against those who are stuck in inner slavery, stuck in self and stuck in ‘poor me’, ‘need to have power’, ‘where’s mine’, etc. The knowing, the deep experience of our soul’s knowledge, pushes us closet to God, closer to the honor, joy, wonder and awe of being present at a concern of God, which is another human being’s suffering, caring for our planet, treating each person as having infinite worth and dignity, believing in the possibility of change/tshuvah, and so much more. Every day, we are confronted with the gift of being present at a concern of God, it is a gift because we are given the opportunity and the power to be part of the solution, we are given the gift and the power of getting out of our conceited ways, our better than places to share with God and another human being an experience of connection. We are, every day, being given the opportunity and the power to “tear our selfishness to shreds” through service, through awareness, through connection, through learning together with community, friends, family and foe alike.
In recovery, we are constantly seeking out our self-serving ways in order to “tear selfishness to shreds” and be of service to people, whether we know them or not, whether the result is what we hoped for or not. Being part of the solution is one of the keys to our recovery and, in recovery, we leave the results up to God and this is how we are aware God is both concerned and present.
As I have been writing this, I realize inner freedom comes from heeding the prophet Isaiah’s words to beat our swords into plowshares and we will stop learning war. I am not able to be enslaved to all of the bullshit that life wants to throw at me, when I am engaged in putting down the tools of war and meeting another human being and God in the concern God has presented to me in this moment. I have dedicated my mind and heart to being present at a concern of God, I have much experience of being infused with God’s power, the power of my soul to meet a challenge and concern of another human being that God has put in front of me. I am certainly not shy about showing up, I certainly am not always the pretty package people hope for when they call a Rabbi, and I certainly show up and am strong enough to do battle with the Angel of death, literally and metaphorically, physical death, emotional death and spiritual death and never tire in this battle. I am grateful to Rabbi Heschel for opening up this knowledge in me and I hope I do for you as well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark