Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 28
“The ultimate requirement is to act beyond the requirements of the law. Torah is not the same as law, as din. To fulfill one’s duties is not enough. One may be a scoundrel within the limits of the law. Why was Jerusalem destroyed? Because her people acted according to the law, and did not act beyond the requirements of the law.”(God in Search of Man pg.327)
Now what are we to do? We have celebrated new beginnings, we have cleansed our selves of our past errors (we hope), we have brought in the harvest of our actions and rejoiced over the ending and beginning of a new year of reading, studying Torah, so what do we do today? Rabbi Heschel’s teaching above is one of the best responses I have ever heard. Today, the day after the celebration, the day after the Holidays, is the day to commit to living in the spirit of the law, to go beyond the “requirements of the law” not to be more precise to the letter of the law, rather to immerse our self in the teachings of the Torah, in the spirit of the Torah, to understand the laws are here as an entry point to our souls, the key to unlock our connection with God, our connection with community, our connections with family and with our own soul. We can’t do this if we are so focused on the requirements, if we are living our life to check the boxes, if we are holding our self and everyone else to a standard of perfect adherence. We cannot go beyond the letter of the law if we fail to see that the law is the beginning and not the end.
Herein lies the issue for every human being-what end am I trying to achieve, as opposed to what end is the Divine calling me to? Our ends are too often trying to either be the best at fulfilling the law, skirting the law, and/or bastardizing it. We see this in the recent scandal in the Los Angeles City Council. While all of the participants in the racist comments and despicable name-calling were entirely within the law of Freedom of Speech, they showed themselves to be everything they complained about had happened to them, to their people, showed themselves to be racist and anti-semitic all the while staying within the requirements of the law. To go beyond the requirements would entail these people who got caught and everyone one of us, to examine our bias’ and our prejudices, to cut out these cancers of our soul and correct the eye diseases that cause us to be so intolerant. To go beyond the requirements of the law means we have to have a spiritual awakening from all of our celebrations, all of our Holy Days. We have to immerse our self in the life affirming and life changing experiences of each and every day.
We have to see that the law is not the end all/be all. Passing laws to restrict people’s rights and freedoms, keeping people ‘in their place’ are not paths to fulfilling the spirit of any of the laws of Torah. Torah is the big book of recovery from our human condition, as Harriet Rossetto teaches, and it tells us the story of our condition and how being connected to God; loving mercy, doing justly, walking in God’s ways; brings us to living a life full of joy and heartache, error and forgiveness, love and loss, mendacity and truth, and how to lean into joy, love, forgiveness, compassion, justice, mercy, and truth! It only happens when we use this day to lift up our actions because of yesterday’s learning, it only happens when we are more concerned with connection and spirit than with power and prestige. It only happens when we let go of our need for control and we are controlled by a power greater than ourselves, by God. Not the false gods that some people are quoting as prosperity gospels, as the one who wants the infidels killed, the false god of vengeance, the idolatry of blaming misfortune on the ones experiencing it rather than accepting that “nature does not go against itself” as the Talmud teaches.
Rather, we have to see how to use the law to fulfill the commandment: “You shall be holy because I, God, am holy.” We cannot be holy when we are living in mendacity, we cannot be holy when we are living in self-righteousness, we cannot be holy when we think we are the power, the smartest, etc. We cannot be holy when we are stuck in the minutiae of the letter of the law, we cannot be holy when we are engaged in religious behaviorism. We cannot be holy if we do not grow spiritually each day.
In recovery, we recognize that the steps are here as suggestions, and they are very good ones! We also work with sponsors who help us apply them to our life, to our understandings and help us grow in the spirit of our program of recovery. We are recovering from living in a black and white world to once again see the colors, the grays, the blues, pinks, oranges, etc so we can live immersed in what truly is rather than what our eye disease has been showing us.
Each day is the day after for me. I have always believed this, I have immersed myself in more than the requirements forever, for over 23 years in order to skirt the law and I got arrested for my efforts more than once-a real slow learner am I. In these last 35+ years I have worked hard to learn and grow each day. I am reflecting on the many times I went beyond the letter of the law, I am reflecting on the times when I thought I was and, in retrospect, I wasn’t. I know each day has helped me cut the cancers on my soul away and that going beyond the “requirements of the law”, growing spiritually each day is the Chemotherapy I need and use to guard against the cancer of rigidity from returning. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark