Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 93
“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)
The wearing of a mask is not only to hide from God and another human being, it is to hide from oneself. Many years ago someone asked me and Harriet: “If I keep living my false persona, doesn’t it become real?” We were taken aback by this question and, ultimately, responded with a NO. While many of us want to believe that if we are false long enough, if we wear a mask and work to be someone/something other than our authentic self, the mask will actually become our face/our truth. The error of this type of thinking is enormous.
The Torah, the Commandments, common decency, and morality allow us to transform the negative impulses we all have into doing something positive and right, sometimes called ‘acting our way into right thinking’. These guides, standards are here to help us discover our authentic self and the best way for each of us as an individual to serve our souls, our community, higher consciousness, God, etc. The purpose of every spiritual tradition and discipline, of the psychoanalytic methods are to help an individual find their authentic self and learn to live from it.
The wearing of a mask, to hide an erroneous belief that there is something wrong with us, is a practice of mendacity and self-deception. First, believing there is something inherently wrong with one’s soul, one’s core being is a lie we tell ourselves and/or a lie someone else has perpetrated upon us and we have bought into. Each of us are created in the Divine Image, we are not defective nor do we have any defective character defects at birth. Yes, there are, unfortunately and tragically, human beings born with defects of the physical and emotional nature, however this is not the rule nor does it stop someone from living authentically. A child with Downs Syndrome lives more authentically, I think, than the rest of us-they live a life of love and joy, they are only sad when someone else is and/or when someone is mean to them. A Downs Syndrome person is a person who can teach the rest of us to be fearless in living authentically with whatever ‘imperfections’ we may seem to have and rejoice in our unique purpose and gifts. If only we as individuals and as a society would take our masks off and learn from them and embrace them, life would be elevated, holier, kinder and we all would stop being afraid of being seen for who we truly are.
Human beings wear a mask out of fear, fear of not being “enough” mostly. While no one can define what “enough” is and/or when they achieve it, some of us know we are “enough" and have no need for masks. People who keep trying to achieve being “enough” in different areas of living; money, property, recognition, sports, accomplishments, beauty, etc are really trying to be perfect so no one will be able to touch them. They have bought into the myth of perfection and the belief they can shield themselves from harsh critiques both from self-examination and the judgement of another if they are “enough”. There is no “enough” that is permanent, we are constantly growing and changing, what was “enough” yesterday, can’t be “enough” today because today is a different day, needing different solutions and nuanced skills and tools to navigate and grow. A mask to show we are “enough” denies the truth that we are doing the best we can and that is enough, it is all we are asked to do and anyone who asks us to do more is stuck in their inauthentic, mask wearing mendacity!
In recovery, we remove our masks when we acknowledge everything we cannot change and the things we should change, as the original Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr teaches us. We are able to continue to learn how we fall back into old habits that don’t serve us and another(s) well along with the old habits and new ones/new way to employ them that do serve us and another well. This learning comes from a daily inventory, a constant inner check-in and taking of our spiritual temperature. We know we are removing our masks when we make an amend and admit we are wrong, when we don’t need to be the smartest person in the room and when we speak to and with someone else rather than at them, when we embrace rather than push away, when we see the humanity of another person and allow them to see ours.
The mask I have worn the most in my recovery is the mask of strength. Not that I am not strong, I just have worn this mask to never show the hurt that people have perpetrated upon me. I may get mad, I may ‘fight back’, I just have not shown the pain and the hurt I experience when someone I work with ‘goes out’, when someone I have a connection with (or thought I did) just drops me without explaining why, when I am exiled because of being me, being authentic; this pain is so excruciating and I never wanted anyone to know how badly I was wounded, mistakenly thinking that I would get over it and move on. Writing this shows me how much I need to remove this mask so I can be healed by the universe, by the people I know I can count on and by my own soul. Stay Safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark