Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 29
“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)
Rabbi Heschel is really disturbing for many of us in this teaching. What does he mean “to fulfill one’s duties is not enough”? I have pondered this sentence for years and I have come to understand Rabbi Heschel calling to us to go beyond the boundaries and limitations of our duties to immerse ourselves in our duties so we change our inner dialogues, our inner emotions and our inner experience. It is easy to follow the rules, it is easy to fulfill a duty, it is much more difficult to have the rules and our duties change us. Hence, the following sentence “One may be a scoundrel within the limits of the law”.
We live in a society that allows people to skirt the law in a myriad of ways. Gil Cedillo, Keven de Leon have not resigned from the LA City Council after being unmasked as participating in racist, mean-spirited conversations about groups of people and individuals. They are within the law to do this, they can even say they are fulfilling their duty as elected officials to stay in office, yet, they are scoundrels because their motives are purely selfish and self-serving. They are not unusual, unfortunately. Many of our elected officials have been ‘outed’ as supporters of racism, anti-semitism, etc and the establishment wants to reward them-just look at Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene. While our congress people are elected from a particular district and/or state and they are to serve the interests of their constituents, they also take an oath to serve the entire country. Yet, instead of serving the whole country, they serve special interests that keep them in office, that keep them in power and “fulfill their duties” while being “scoundrels within the limits of the law”. We see this also with corporations and individuals who will pay fines and not admit guilt, who will sue the people they have harmed, who seek to win at any and all costs while keeping on ‘the right side’ of an issue and/or a law.
As individuals, we can “fulfill one’s duties” and still be scoundrels as well. This occurs when we take advantage of another person’s ignorance, take advantage of another person’s vulnerabilities, manipulate people to go along to get along, etc. We seem to be unable to live into our duties in a manner that changes our inner life. We seem to be controlled by FOMO, fear of missing out. We seem to believe that if we can put someone else down, we build our self up. We act in ways that “fulfill our duties” and harm another(s) without any remorse or repentance. It is an accepted mode of living in society, we call it survival of the fittest. Let the buyer beware is one way we justify being “a scoundrel within the limits of the law”. Another way is blaming our victims, another way is trying to control the actions of another person through money, legislation, and bastardization of holy texts. This way of living has led to our society being addicted to pleasure, wealth, power, greed, war and hatred of “the other”. It has led to blame and shame of anyone who is ‘different’ from us in ethnicity, race, creed, religion, etc. It has led to a deterioration of our morals, ethics and decency and has put freedom on a collision course with authoritarianism.
Rabbi Heschel’s demand above, however, gives the antidote to these seemingly benign activities. When we go beyond the letter of our duties, when we go beyond the letter of the law, when we stop doing things for our own gain only, we are in recovery from this terrible dis-ease of more, of power, of greed, of selfishness. We are able to do this when we remember whom we are serving, God, people, something greater than our self. Going beyond the mere “fulfilling our duties” becomes a path of inner wholeness and clarity, a path towards self-satisfaction and connection with the universe, with humanity and a sense of accomplishment of service and living our particular mission. The path to this is to be fully engaged in doing the next right thing with intention, with passion, and with purpose. We no longer do things by rote, we no longer ‘mail it in’, we engage in the action with our whole self, not being distracted by what is next, not being distracted by our devices, not being distracted by worries from our past nor fears of the future. We are present in this moment, we are immersed and listening for the wisdom of our inner life, our souls’ knowledge and we begin to transform our FOMO’s, our need to be right, our greed and thirst for power into knowing we are in the place we are supposed to be, knowing when we are right without needing to prove it, realizing we have enough for the moment, and we are enough always!
This is the path for all of us who are in recovery. We let go of our old ideas, realizing they have not served us in positive ways. We seek to improve our inner life and mature our intuition while recognizing and rejoicing in our newfound truth that we are imperfect and will never be perfect nor are we expected to be perfect. We engage in life with a spirit of curiosity, passion, gratitude, excitement and acceptance. We learn a little more each day about living well, about joy, about authenticity and connection. All this happens because we go beyond the “requirements of the law”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark