Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 - Day 15
“Godliness is an absolute reality which exists through itself. It existed prior to the creation of the world and will survive the world in eternity. Sovereignty can exist only in a relationship. Without subordinates this honor is abstract. God desired kingship and from that will creation emerged. But now the kingly dignity of God depends on us.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity)
The last sentence is almost too much to bear! “The kingly dignity of God depends on us” is a difficult concept to grasp for most people. If God is everything, if God is “King of the Universe” as the prayers on Yom Kippur say, why would God’s dignity depend on us? Isn’t it inherent? I believe the correct response is it is both inherent and dependent upon us.
We are responsible to follow the laws/ways of God, the sovereign of the universe, the creator of all. If we don’t believe in God, follow the laws of the universe, follow the moral call inside of us that so many people ignore, discard, trample. If we are not following these laws/ways of God, there is no respect for God, there is no respect for the power of the universe. There is only me, there is only humans are the king of the world and if I can beat you up, you have to give me dignity, you have to pay tribute to me, etc. And, as soon as we engage in this behavior, God’s “kingly dignity” goes away and we replace it with our own false dignity. As I write this, I am realizing, maybe for the first time and maybe once again, our inherent infinite human dignity cannot be seen nor activated until we honor and acknowledge God’s “kingly dignity”.
As we can see in our politics, in the world’s affairs, there are people so bent on never giving God “kingly dignity” because they want all the fear, dignity, kingship for themselves. Putin in Russia is not giving God “kingly dignity”, he is trying to gain dignity and sovereignty through fear and semi-strength. He is a bully who has nuclear weapons and he has to be stopped by those of us who do give God “kingly dignity”. In our current political world, sovereignty is all that is important and many politicians believe they can have the power through mendacity, through fear-mongering, through scapegoating, etc. These ways fly in the face of “kingly dignity” because God doesn’t like false witnesses! Yet, we allow and listen to the lies of the politicians with an ‘ho hum’ attitude, we hold our noses when we vote, we engage in shouting at one another instead of finding our similarities and working out our differences with compromises and kindness. We allow ourselves to be so frightened by Putin’s nuclear threat that we watch Ukraine be decimated, we wring our hands and we worry about our own well-being.
One cannot give “kingly dignity” to God without standing up for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor and the needy. One cannot give honor and respect to God while trying to “kill our competitors” in business with ruthlessness, with mendacity, with industrial espionage. One cannot give “kingly dignity” to God by giving lip service to God’s ways through religious behaviorism, through taking actions and never being moved in their inner life by these actions, by looking good rather than being moved to good in our higher consciousness. One cannot give “kingly dignity” when one is hellbent on being right, incapable of doing their own inventory, asking for forgiveness for their errors and forgiving another(s) for theirs.
There is a path to solving this dilemma, however. It is the path of repentance, the path of T’Shuvah, the path of moving forward. It is the path of the “Road less Travelled” as M.Scott Peck’s best selling book is titled. It is the path of wonder and radical amazement as Rabbi Heschel teaches. It is the path of God in Search of Man as Rabbi Heschel writes in his book of the same name. It is the path of trial and error, it is the path of truth overcoming our fears, it is the path of kindness trumping winning at all costs, it is the path of compassion for self and another rather than the expectation of perfection. All of these paths are the ones we commit to on Yom Kippur and then forget about until next Yom Kippur. Most Jews are not moved to admitting what they know that God’s “kingly dignity” is dependent upon them because they are not willing to be that in tune with their inner life, they have mistaken their inner life for their mental health, their inner life for their happiness. Our inner life is full of challenges and, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, the deeper the challenges, the richer the life!
In recovery, we are constantly seeking to align our will with God’s will, we are constantly seeking to give God dignity and respect. It is inherent throughout the first 3 steps of AA and in all forms of recovery, whether one uses the word God or some substitute.
In doing my inventory, I find the areas where and the missed opportunities to give “kingly dignity” to God and I am saddened and emboldened. Sad because it pains me, it makes me ache to realize my errors and emboldened because I am more committed to extend “kingly dignity” to God and to all of God’s creatures more and more. What I have found, however, is that arguing with God ala Abraham and Moses is also extending “kingly dignity” and arguing with one another does the same when it is for the benefit of principle and not personality, when it is for a moral value and not an ego boost. I have engaged in arguing for both principle and personality, moral value and ego boost. I am committed to increasing principle and moral value and lessen personality and ego boost, which are less this year than last. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark