Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 165
“What is the truth of being human? The lack of pretension, the acknowledgement of opaqueness, shortsightedness, inadequacy. But truth also demands rising, striving for the goal is both with within and beyond us. The truth of being human is gratitude; its secret is appreciation.” (Who is Man pg 114)
The last sentence above captures Rabbi Heschel’s vision, promise and belief of what it means to ‘be human’. It also represents Rabbi Heschel’s hearing of God’s demand and call to him and to all humans. While there is a lot of imperfection in being human, there is so much more to appreciate and be grateful for from another human being, from God and to oneself. Every rising and striving, every demand answered, every acknowledgement of opaqueness, shortsightedness, inadequacy brings appreciation and gratitude to us because we see and hear truth, we can take steps to repair our errors and learn from them and be a more kinder human. What I believe Rabbi Heschel is telling us in this subchapter on embarrassment is we are able to find gratitude and appreciation in all of life when we are fully immersed and living our lives.
The Latin root of gratitude is ‘pleasing/thankful’. The Latin root of appreciate is ‘to price’. Reading Rabbi Heschel’s words this morning, I understand that being human is to be thankful for the myriad of gifts, friendships, assistance we receive and be able give pleasure/help to another, to accept the help, the gifts, the friendship, the covenant of another human along with accepting same from God. Living our lives with this attitude of gratitude, thankful for what another human being gives to us and the world, finding pleasure and being thankful for what we can bring to another human and the world is the key to living well, to using our embarrassments to catapult us to a higher plane of existence from the base dog-eat-dog, zero-sum ways we have become accustomed to. When we appreciate our being human and the being human of another, we are saying that this is the price of admission for me to live well and be of service and it is the price of admission for someone else to enter my intimate living space, either friendship, intimate relationship, etc. It is the way we raise our children and how we relate to our family, we set the price/value of our self and another self at being human. While it is not a usual way of seeing our existence, I believe the more we engage in being human in all our affairs, the kinder, the more connected, the less violent and our need to enslave and have power over another human being to feel alive and human will dwindle.
Yet we continue to avoid the experiences of gratitude, appreciation, being human. We are afraid of what life would be like and who we would be. The prophets speak of “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall men learn war anymore”, yet the most ‘god-fearing’ people continue to spew hatred and seek power and glory for themselves through using the words of the Bible-Hebrew and Christian-to crush people’s spirits, to make them into robots, to ridicule their being human in their missteps and preach for them to be subservient to another human-saying God sent ____ to save us.
We have yet to see the Messiah in our time mainly because we are unwilling to recognize her/him in our midst-each one of us. Danny Siegel adapted this from a Yiddish Poem; “if you always assume the person sitting next to you is the Messiah, waiting for some human kindness; you will come to weigh your words and watch your hands. And, if the person chooses not to be revealed in your time-it will not matter.” We have the power to bring the words of the prophets to fruition, the ability to live the words of this poem and we will only actualize both when we appreciate/set the bar for ourselves at being human, when we are grateful for being human with all of our foibles and no longer hide our opaqueness, our shortsightedness and our inadequacies. When we stop needing to crush our fellow human beings, when we, instead, help them be more human, showing kindness, love, justice, compassion and being in truth with them. When we accept the covenant with God as our blueprint and our commitment and we strive and rise to each occasion in life with our humanness and not our ego, our seeking of power and prestige, our need to put another down, etc-we will experience gratitude and appreciation, joy and wholeness, love and connection-all the ingredients for living well.
In recovery, gratitude is a foundational principle as is appreciation. We set the price of our being human at kindness, concern, service as well as acknowledging our imperfections and repairing the harm we wrought and improving one grain of sand each and every day. We are pleased and thankful for every gift we possess and every time we help another of God’s creations and for every gift of love, kindness, direction and assistance we receive from another and a higher power.
I am grateful for all that I have, even my own tzuris/troubles. I set the price of life for myself at being of service, asking for help, accepting the rejection of another and living my covenants with God and with the people who want to have a covenantal relationship with me. I am thankful for all that I have experienced and learned from. It has taken me a long time to fully be human in these ways and, because of Rabbi Heschel, Harriet, Heather, family and friends, I am here more often! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark