Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 2 Day 38
“The ancient Rabbis knew that excessive piety may endanger the fulfillment of the essence of the law. “There is nothing more important, according to the Torah, than to preserve human life … . Even when there is the slightest possibility that a life may be at stake one may disregard every prohibition of the law.” One must sacrifice mitsvot for the sake of man, rather than sacrifice man for the sake of mitsvot”. (God in Search of Man)
To live a spiritual life devoid of the politics surrounding us, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s words above, is to live a life of selfishness and, actually, not be spiritual at all. While many confuse religion with the way some people interpret and practice it as fundamentalists, religion enhances our spirituality and our spirituality enhances our religion as I learned from Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man over 32 years ago. As soon as we separate one from the other, we are beginning a descent into self-deception and mendacity. Many people wave their religious behaviorism as a flag/banner showing how pious they are while being devoid of spirituality, while not adhering to Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom above. Others proclaim their superiority by ‘being spiritual not religious’, again a specious argument. Spiritual disciplines, religious rituals, all lead us to the same place, a sense of and a commitment to a “Power Greater than ourselves”, “Higher Consciousness”, etc. We are being challenged today, just as we were in 1955 when this book was published, just as we were in the 30’s and 40’s, just as we have been throughout our history, to be human, to care about human life as much as God cares, as much as the Universe cares, as much as the Spiritual forces of the Cosmos care.
What does the phrase “to preserve human life” mean to us today? We are witnessing the destruction of human life in so many ways. We have put the dollar ahead of human life, we have put our power ahead of human life, we have put satisfying our needs ahead of the life of another human being. We have forgotten that “to preserve human life” we have to first get in touch with our own humanity. We have to, as our religious leaders and spiritual leaders teach, see the dignity in our self, see the Image of the divine in our being, experience the theta waves of oneness with the universe in order to be in concert with the humanity of another.
We fail to realize that our selfishness is not preserving our own life, it is killing our souls and then, naturally, we murder the souls of any and all people. The excessive piety of the Maga crowd, like Stephen Miller, Marjorie Taylor Greene, et al leads to their inability to see the humanity in anyone else, especially anyone who is not 100% in agreement with them. The excessive piety of the far-left with their Anti-Semitism and vitriol against anyone who is not 100% in agreement with them has caused many to ignore the humanity of those who may be allies at times, as well as the people they are arguing against. In both cases, excessive piety, as I am understanding Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance above, leads to the ignoring of human suffering, the ignoring of human dignity, the ignoring of human needs.
Our excessive piety towards any philosophy, religion, spiritual discipline, idea will always lead us to ignoring the human condition of our self and of everyone else. We will fake it for a while, however in excessive piety we are unable to truly care for our self, we are so intent on fulfilling the rules and rituals, following the philosophy and being ‘perfect’, we are unable to allow our self our imperfections, let alone the imperfections of another(s). We get so caught up in ‘doing it the right way’ we become blind to the myriad of ways to fulfill any mitzvah, we become blind to the commandment to care for the poor, the needy, the hungry, the stranger! We are so caught up in our need to be right, our need to be perfect, our need to disassociate from what is in order to achieve some type of nirvana, that we fail to see how we are killing our own humanity, how we are stomping on the divinity in another(s) human being, and how we are heading for disaster, heading for slavery, heading for destruction.
In recovery, we “continue to take personal inventory and promptly admit when we are wrong”. We have to keep a daily, hourly, record of what we are doing well and not so well. We have to “promptly admit when we are wrong” so we don’t fall into the trap of rationalizing our mistakes, blaming things on another, shirking our responsibility. Our daily inventory keeps our humanity front and center for us, it keeps the humanity of another(s) in the forefront of our living and we are able to be kinder and gentler with our self and with everyone else.
I have to vote for people who care about human beings in need. I pray that most people will let go of their excessive piety towards a personality and vote to keep the soul of democracy alive. I have devoted the past 35 years to this goal and I have fallen short at times and I know I have hit the mark more often than not. I work hard to not blame my self, another, the universe for what has happened in my life and I take responsibility for my part. I am also responsible for what I do today, how do I help another human being out of their suffering? I am blessed to be able to reach out, lend a helping hand, need nor expect anything in return and know that this makes today a good day. Helping a human being who suffers takes precedence over anything else in life. Doing this helps me be more human, kinder to myself as well as to you and keeps me in line with the divine demand to me. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark