Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 155
“I shudder at the thought of a society ruled by people who are absolutely certain of their wisdom, by people to whom everything in the world is crystal-clear, whose minds know no mystery, no uncertainty.” (Who Is Man pg. 114)
Immersing oneself in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom reminds me of the introduction to the book Path of the Just by Rabbi Chaim Moshe Luzzatto, where he tells the reader not to bother if the reader isn’t going to keep re-reading the book because everything in it is truth we all accept yet, precisely because we accept it, we forget these truths and act in opposition to them. The same, for me, is true with Rabbi Heschel-no matter how many times I immerse myself in his wisdom, I learn something new, I see a nuance that I had not before and I am disturbed by my blindness to some of these truths and the ways people bastardize them.
Sitting with this sentence for more than a day, I keep coming back to the carnival barkers of religion. “Follow my way and you will be saved”, “Turn your troubles over to God and don’t worry about a thing”, “I know the one right path for everyone”, and other such poppycock gets blared from vans, street corners, Church and Temple bulletins, from the Pulpits of so many different religions and sects. Yet, we know deep inside of us that these ‘religious’ people who are so sure of their ‘rightness’ can’t be correct. There cannot be just one way for everyone because we are all created different and unique, at the Red Sea, every Israelite and every other person who left Egypt with them had their own unique experience-hence the statement “this is my God”(Exodus 15:2) is in the singular. Each person standing at Sinai had their own unique experience of hearing God speak the silent letter Aleph, we are told there are 70 ‘faces’ to Torah-70 ways to understand each verse, chapter, book-so how is only one way possible? It isn’t and the promoters of ‘one-way to God, one-way to happiness, one-way to anything’ are just that, promoters, cons, grifters who use the vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of human beings to make their name, line their pockets, and/or sit in the seat of power/next to the seat of power. God’s Will is simple, as I immerse myself and learn from Rabbi Heschel, other Holy Texts, other teachers and guides: Do the next right thing, be a decent human being, listen to the call of one’s soul and allow one’s soul to be the arbiter of one’s actions. How to fulfill it is much more difficult. Yet, we keep finding the grifters who are clear-eyed and “absolutely certain of their wisdom” selling their cons to the world and with such fervor it is difficult not to get swept away with them. Especially because they look successful-having money, property, prestige, etc-not realizing they got it through the same grifting, con artist methods! We keep seeing this scenario play out over and over again and I wonder how is this possible. This morning it hit me!
We begin to believe in the certainty of another in our families. As infants and toddlers, we need to believe in the absolute certainty of our parents, we need them desperately in order to get food, clothing shelter, love, care, etc. Parents think they have to portray their infallibility so their children will feel safe and this is the disease model of family systems. Rather than allow children to correct their parents, we are told “children should be seen and not heard”, “honor your father and mother means not to correct them in public”-which has morphed into don’t ever correct them in many homes. We have a need to be secure and to have certainty which is counter to the fragility of life. Our need for certainty and security has led us to the martyr’s question:”Why Me?” Our response to the need we feel for certainty and security is to portray our infallible self, our absolute certainty and deceive everyone into believing ‘he is right’. If we get enough followers, enough likes, enough votes, enough … to win and be in power, this is all that matters.
In recovery, our response to the uncertainty of life is to embrace it, live a life of principles and openness to learn, and connect with people on a soul-to-soul experience. We don’t need to prove anything to anyone and we no longer have the absolute need to convince another person of our ‘rightness’. Rather, we continue to “grow along spiritual lines” “seeking spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection”. In recovery, we let go of our old ideas of ‘just one way’/‘my way or the highway’ thinking and acting and embrace the both/and of living in uncertainty and rejoice in the experience we are having.
I also thought my father was infallible, until at age 7 I saw him on a gurney going into an ambulance because he had a heart attack. He looked so small and so frail. I experienced the fragility of life and didn’t understand what to do with it. I kept believing everything would be okay-my father was my superhero. At our dinner tables we had lively discussions and, at times, my father would speak of his failures, his errors and even allow one of his sons to win an argument and say-you are right and I am not. From the time I was 10 or 11, my father kept giving me lessons, gifts of wisdom and knowledge that I was too young for and he knew it-he also knew his time was limited because of his heart condition. I forgot, didn’t know how to use these lessons for a long time and I am grateful my father taught me them and showed me how to show up, no matter how fragile and uncertain one is. I have been open to change for the past 35 years, I have incorporated many pearls of wisdom that I have gleaned from other people, I have made it a practice to stay teachable and Rabbi Heschel shows me how each and every day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark