Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 89
“God is unwilling to be alone, and man cannot forever remain impervious to what He longs to show. Those of us who cannot keep their striving back find themselves at times within the sight of the unseen and become aglow with its rays. Some of us blush, others wear a mask. Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone pg. 91)
Rabbi Heschel’s words are so important for us to immerse ourselves in so we can let go of the armor and impervious way we have chosen to live. Impervious comes from the Latin meaning “not having a way/passage through”. This is a very positive and Holy statement by Rabbi Heschel, it shows his absolute faith in both God and humanity. He is speaking to us that we cannot, will not remain “not having a passage way through” for God and what God wants us to see. How exciting and how nerve-racking!
Rabbi Heschel is calling us all out to do a Spiritual Bypass surgery on ourselves in order to open up a passage way through to our souls, to our hearts, to our minds and emotions. We are in the midst of a pandemic of Covid-19 and a pandemic of remaining impervious to what God wants to show us, one another. We can do this Bypass surgery in so many ways and it all begins with the second sentence above; we have to allow our striving to go forward, find ourselves in the sight of the unseen and allow the rays of this experience to radiate out. Much like Moses when he came down from Mt. Sinai the second time and he was aglow with the rays of God, so too can this happen to all of us. We need to do Spiritual Bypass to make this happen, however. We can do this bypass for each person, the making of a “passage through” from God to our souls will by nature and need be different, there is no “One-Size Fits All”.
We begin this Bypass surgery by, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, immersing ourselves in text, whichever Spiritual text speaks to you, for me it is Torah and Rabbi Heschel as well as other Jewish texts. Immersing oneself, to me, entails letting go of the old ideas and thoughts I have about something, the old prejudices and sureties I have held are left in the past and I am open for a new experience of something that I have seen, studied, read, experienced before. Rabbi Heschel defines prejudice as an “eye disease” and “a cancer of the soul” in his book Insecurity of Freedom. Most of us need Spiritual Bypass surgery because of the prejudices we hold onto, the “eye disease” of seeing something the same way, having a repeat experience of text, wisdom, another person, job, family, etc rather than a new experience with life and living. Continuing to see text, wisdom, life as ‘same shit different day’ is a sign of a cancer of our soul, our Spiritual pathways are blocked and getting more and more diseased each day, yet we do nothing. We need this Spiritual Bypass to save our souls, to save the souls of another(s) human being, to see life with new and fresh eyes each day and to connect with God and one another.
Besides ‘same shit different day’ there are many more signs of our diseased spiritual arteries, of our need for Spiritual Bypass, of our blocked spiritual passageways. Waking up and being sad that one woke up and/or afraid of what is in store for us today is a sign. When we are not grateful for the opportunity a new day brings to us and we are unable to see the opportunity of this day is a sign that a Bypass surgery is needed. Taking the day, the job, the home, the people in our lives, the stranger we pass, our health and our tsuris for granted is a sign of a blocked Spiritual artery or 2,3,4. Greed is another sign, forgetting to give our 10% to help the poor, the needy and the stranger, our inability to do T’Shuvah, take stock of ourselves and see what we did well and not so well each day, is a sign that we are seeking to remain impervious, we are seeking to “keep their striving back”. Our preoccupation with self-deception, being deceived and deceiving another(s) is a sign, our engagement in mendacity regarding facts and another group(s) so we can feel superior and ‘right’ is a sign we are stuck being impervious, that we are unwilling to strive towards what God “longs to show”. More on this theme tomorrow.
In recovery, Spiritual Bypass is one of the first experiences we have in order to be in recovery. In fact, we are recovering from the Spiritual Bypass surgery we, another person, an experience, God has performed upon us. We may or may not be willing participants, we may or may not even know we are ‘going under the knife’, we do know when the Bypass is finished and our experience of the “usual thing” is different and new, fresh and exciting. Spiritual Bypass surgery is, of course only the beginning. We have to continue to “grow along spiritual lines” in order to keep our arteries clear and the spirit we are blessed with continue to flow throughout us.
I had this Spiritual Bypass some 35 years ago and I need to continue to keep my Spiritual Arteries clean and clear. Writing this today, I realize that my outbursts are at times, my way of doing a Spiritual Angioplasty on myself. They come, usually, from a place of having gone along to get along, seeing something that I thought was okay and finding out it isn’t, having faith and belief in another person to find out I was just being used and my outburst is so I don’t allow the plaque of mendacity and fear, material needs and desire to be liked block my connection to and need for God. I also know that my outbursts at times have caused more plaque to form. Writing, praying, connecting, are ways that keep my spiritual arteries open and widen my passageway to the Divine. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark