Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 97
“Some of us blush, others wear a mask which veils spontaneous sensitivity to the holy ineffable dimension of reality. We all wear so much mental make-up, we have almost forfeited our face. But faith only comes when we stand face to face-the ineffable in us with the ineffable beyond us-suffer ourselves to be seen, to commune, to receive a ray and reflect. But to do that the soul must be alive in the mind.” (Man is Not Alone pg 91).
“Spontaneous sensitivity to the holy ineffable dimension of reality” is a truth that goes unnoticed by and denied by so many people. If we can’t feel it, touch it, taste it, see it; many people don’t think it is real, or so they say. Some of us are unable to believe what we see when someone else’s voice is in our ears-we deny what is happening in front of us. We hear the words and don’t register the actions so we are continually deceived and deceiving ourselves. The words spontaneous and sensitive come from the Latin roots “of one’s own accord” and “feel”, having nothing to do with our tactile senses, rather with our spiritual beingness. I am using holy to mean, “elevated and connected”. Ineffable means “not able to express in words”.
Rabbi Heschel, some 70 years ago, warned us and is warning us about a human trait that is within our nature and that we need to transform, our need to deny our desire, pull towards answering and connecting with something greater than ourselves that we don’t understand, can’t comprehend, and is always calling out to us. This is true for some ‘people of faith’ and their leaders as well as everyone else. I believe most people at one time or another have experienced a ‘call’, a ‘pull’ a ‘eureka’ moment and either ignored it, dismissed it, or answered it. This ‘call, pull, eureka’ comes from either deep within us and/or our connection to a dimension of reality that we are unable to express. Yet, it is totally real, it is absolutely valid and it occurs daily, if we attune our hearing to this elevated dimension of reality.
Our problem, of course, is that we are afraid to attune our ears to this elevated dimension of reality because we are afraid of being ridiculed. Look at the people who are being ridiculed and disowned by their own people for standing up for truth that we can actually document, much less standing up for one’s inner experience that is almost impossible to describe, what I call: “knowing something in my bones”. Many people are afraid to follow this call for fear of being wrong, being shunned, being exiled, being not seen nor heard, being laughed at, etc. We have seen throughout history how often the people who are the most connected, the people who speak the truth of their experiences with the “holy ineffable dimension of reality” are shunted to the side, not given their due, and ignored. Rabbi Heschel had this experience and, unlike many of us, he kept writing, he kept speaking, he kept protesting, he kept standing up for God’s principles no matter what. Rabbi Heschel never stopped responding to God’s call, continuing on his own accord to connect to the indescribable dimension of reality and, by doing so, changed our world for the better.
We have the same opportunity, to hear and respond to the call of a higher reality, our souls, God, a higher truth. Our challenge is to respond no matter what someone else thinks. It is to, in a way, be like Don Quijote and fight the windmills of mendacity. Stand up for what we “know in our bones” instead of what someone else wants to prove with their sleight of hand tricks. Life is not a three-card Monte game, life is serious and joyous. True living is when we, on our own accord act on the feeling/vibration/call we receive that is from an inexplicable source and experience the connection with the higher dimension of reality. This is not a one and done proposition, this takes a spiritual practice that is constant, consistent, always changing and growing, and trust in one’s own ability to connect with, hear, decipher, and act on the call of this higher dimension of reality. It also takes spiritual counseling with a physician of the soul.
In recovery, we begin by scraping off the barnacles that have grown on our soul and the armor, the walls we have built up in our inner life that has made it impossible for us to hear any voice except the voices of deception, ours and the ones’ of people with whom we have called ‘our friends’. This scrapping begins with admitting that we need to live differently than we have been. It is the process of having our inner and outer ears cleaned of all the wax that has built up over the years which blocks our hearing the call of the higher dimension of reality.
I began to hear the Ineffable call in jail in 1986 and, with the help of my Rabbis, my teachers, my friends, my siblings, my daughter and wife, I hear this call more and more often and I respond with, at times, reckless abandon. I see and hear things in texts, in living that many people don’t, so I am ignored, tolerated and used when convenient by some. By many others, this connection to the Ineffable dimension of reality is sought out, appreciated and used to help them. I want to be liked and appreciated and I know that it is impossible for everyone to understand me and join me. For those who hear the call of the Ineffable and don’t want to follow it or want me to not confront them with it, they need to silence me, marginalize me and I understand and forgive them. I also know that my delivery isn’t for everyone and I am more committed to speak to people in ways they can understand, not just the ways I like to talk. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark