Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 115
“God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance, which means a deep certainty that it is better to be defeated with Him than be victorious without Him.” (Man is Not Alone pg.92)
Focusing on the end of the teaching above is of crucial importance, I believe. Living in a world of ‘win baby win’ and ‘zero sum’ can cause us to believe the lie of ‘winning at any and all costs is all that matters’. Many people believe this and practice this. We keep trying to capture the ‘market’, gain a bigger ‘market share’, use bribes, deception, etc to get ahead, and so many other ways we engage in being “victorious without Him” as Rabbi Heschel reminds us above. This life of win/lose, either/or belies a deep truth that is known to most of us and we hide from and run away from: Being human means to wrestle with our dual natures of animal/earthly and angel/divine. To be human involves letting go of old ideas and our self-deceptions, relinquishing our need to ‘win at all costs’, open our self up to hear the call of God/Higher Consciousness and respond to this higher calling, path of living.
We find ourselves in an era of great mendacity and deception in order to win. We see this in our political realm with the denial of the Voting Rights Act, the new laws allowing state governments to overturn the popular vote of the people of their state, the denial of a woman’s choice to have a baby or not, the turning away of immigrants at our borders who are suffering and in need of refuge, the lies being promoted by people who know better, the idolization of a demagogue and the hero worshiping of people who tried to stop the certification of free and fair elections. All of this done by the very people who claim to revere the constitution and our founding fathers. The fact that they are so supported by the ‘religious right’, aka charlatans and idolators, is beyond belief to those of us who believe and live, however imperfectly, a life of God being “of supreme importance”.
Yet, these deceivers have tapped into the animal/earthly instinct of fear and panic that we all have and need God’s help to keep in check. These deceivers, these liars these idolators, these charlatans have tapped into the reptilian brain of survival and fight/flight. Their appeal is they are telling the people whom they have deceived ‘you don’t have to flee, I will fight for you’ all the while lining their own pockets, getting vaccinated and boosted, wearing masks and obtaining the best medical care possible because of their status while telling their followers to stay the course, don’t vaccinate, don’t wear masks, get the snake oil we are selling! Having just observed the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference and Holocaust Remembrance Day, listening to these ‘religious people’ who have so bastardized Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc is frightening and a prime example of what happens when winning is more important than “walking in God’s ways”.
We see this in business affairs, no one really cares about truth and what is best for the consumer in the Corporate World today-they only care about serving their shareholders and only the top of their shareholders. Insider trading is still happening under different disguises, denial of guilt and responsibility happens all the time as these same companies pay out large fines that are just the ‘cost of doing business’ for them because the profits they gain far outweigh the fines. We reward these CEO’s with bonus’!
In recovery, we come to realize the numerous ways we deceived ourselves into believing life was a zero-sum game, believing that we could ‘win’ it our way and not have to hear and listen to our higher consciousness/God’s call. We tried drowning out the call of truth inside of us and it worked for a while until it didn’t In recovery, we learn how to deal with our opposing inclinations and harmonize them to work together for the greater good of self, another, and God.
I am reliving the empty victories I won without God being “of supreme importance”. I am shivering over the memories of how many people I harmed and used for my own ‘win at all costs’ mentality. I am guilty of mendacious behavior and self-deception prior to my recovery in 1988 and I have made my amends to as many people as possible and continue to live differently as a living T’Shuvah and Tikkun/repair. Yet, I also know that there are times in these past 33+ years when I acted in ways to win without God being “of supreme importance” and, each time I realize this, I do my T’Shuvah. I am also realizing that I have become less and less patient with people who continue to deceive and fool good people into believing they are acting with and for God, all the while acting for and with themselves only! It enrages me because I see a reflection of what I used to be and my fear of someone falling prey to the machinations of a charlatan as people fell prey to mine causes me to stand up and scream: “the emperor has no clothes”. There are people who have heard me, there are people who have used my way of being against me and to enhance their deceptions and there are people who have used the idolators, the charlatans to defeat me for their own reasons. Knowing I have made God “of supreme importance” in my living allows me to suffer these ‘defeats’ with joy, resolve and hope. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark