Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 175
“This is the most important experience in the life of every human being: something is asked of me.” (Who is Man pg.108)
As today begins Holy Week for Christians, continuation of the month of Ramadan for Muslims and the week of cleaning house for Jews prior to Passover, I am hearing Rabbi Heschel call out to all of us to not get so lost in the details, so focused on the ‘task at hand’ that we miss the true ‘ask of God’ to and for us as individuals, communities and humankind. That all three of these times of introspection, celebration and connection coincide with one another, as we are entering the endemic of Corona, is a sign that something is being asked of all of us, all of humanity is being called to remember what is important: connection, co-operation, consideration, along with justice, mercy, love, truth, kindness.
It seems as if we have lost the ability to have this “most important experience” because we are willing to sacrifice our higher hearing, our higher calling, our higher humanity, at the altar of personal profit, success, optics, self-importance. We are seeing the insanity of Putin and his invasion of Ukraine for no reason other than he wanted to-is this really what is being asked of Putin? We are seeing the rest of the world deal with him and with Russia carefully for fear of nuclear war which is listening to what is being asked of our leaders-stop a madman and don’t destroy the world. Terrorists are killing Jews and non-Jews in Israel for the “sake of Allah” when it is really only for their sake and believing the lies of their leaders, secular and religious. God is not asking any one to take innocent lives, not Putin, not terrorists, not Assad, not the street gangs, not the criminals. God never asks us to kill innocents, in fact, there is a story about even killing the guilty that says if a court carried out a death sentence once in 7(some say 70) years, it was considered a murderous court! Yet, all of these entities, including the good citizens who sit on a jury, seem to mishear the ask of God in times when the ask of their own ego/emotions are in charge. We are mis-attuned to God in these moments and, as we have seen over and over again, the destruction that comes from this way of hearing is deadly.
In our country, we seem to be having a renaissance of deafness to God’s ask to and for us. Rather than hear the ask to care for the stranger, the poor and the needy; which is what the Torah commands and what Jesus preached; we seem to be hearing the ask to blame the poor, the needy and the stranger. Rather than see the humanity of each and every person which is another ‘ask of God’, we seem to be seeing the differences and using the needy, poor and stranger to gain political points, rather than see them as the ask God has put in front of us. We have to hear the ask of God to care for one another, to never let another human being suffer and starve, work to end the slavery of one another and care for the best interests of one another even when we don’t want to.
This Holy Week, month of Ramadan, this week before and then of Passover are moments to remind us of the ask of God, to remind us to search our inner self for the ways in which we are enslaved. These next two weeks in the Jewish calendar, 3 weeks in the Muslim calendar, and 8 days in the Christian calendar are gifts to us: to clean out our ears, so we can hear the ask better and clearer; to clean out the puffed up parts of our ego and our emotions so we can rise to the need God has created us for; and join hands across all of the man-made boundaries we have set up to embrace one another and to acknowledge our need for one another so we can leave the bondage of Pharaoh and the bondage of our ego.
In recovery, we are acutely aware of the “bondage of self” that is lying in wait for us, hiding in plain sight and calling to us with such logic and reason that we get fooled by it. Our egos are so cunning in the myriad of ways they trap us into believing that something selfish and self-centered is actually good, holy and right! In recovery, we do the best we can to guard against our egos enslaving us while knowing that we need our ego to propel us and our ego must help us hear and carry out the ask of God.
Staying attuned to the ask of God is to stay attuned to the ask of another human being. Hearing the call of the soul of another, being an advocate for the soul of another, begins with hearing the call of my own soul, being an advocate for my soul. I have not always been able to do this, I sadly report. I have allowed my ego to run shit at times in my life and I have not cared for my own soul well enough at times to hear it’s crying out to me. I have been an advocate for the soul of another at times to the detriment of my own soul and these moments have always led to my being bombastic and, some would say, difficult. I realize the slavery I need to leave this year is the slavery of being too busy to hear the call of my soul and the new ask of God to me. While the ask contains using my skills, I am realizing that the ask changes as I change, the ask grows as I grow and the ask is softer and louder as I “circumcise the foreskin” of my heart, my soul, my mind more and more each year. Cleaning out the Hametz, the leavening from my inner life has begun and, I pray, will be completed by the beginning of Passover! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark