Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 183
“The world is such that in its face one senses owingness rather than ownership. The world is such that in sensing its presence one must be responsive as well as responsible. (Who is Man pg.108)
So, Rabbi Mark, what owing are we to sense, someone asked me. I thought, what a great question. One of the owings is found in the first chapter of the Bible, take care of our corner of God’s Garden, this world. Rather than exploit our natural resources, care for them, use them wisely, for the benefit of everyone-not just for the few. Remember, oil and gas come from God, not humans, ergo, they should be shared with all-not used to enslave people, not used as power, rather used to benefit all. Make a profit, don’t price-gouge just because you can! Our food is another resource, we are told to tend God’s Garden and too many of us forget this. We think it is our land, our crop, when all belongs to the world, we are merely tenants and travelers passing through, we die and the world remains.
We owe ourselves and everyone else dignity. As we learn in the Talmud: “Anyone who destroys a single soul it is as if they destroyed an entire world and anyone who saves a single soul it is as if they saved an entire world”. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg taught my Rabbinic Class that this means every soul has infinite dignity and value. We owe it to ourselves to treat our self with this dignity and value. This means, as I am understanding Rabbi Greenberg today, we have to stop denigrating ourselves, we have to stop believing the lies we tell ourselves, we have to let go of our great desire to be deceived by another and buy into our own self-deceptions. We have to acknowledge the goodness of our being, we have to appreciate our uniqueness and our talents. We have to stop comparing and competing because we are unique and our task is like no one else’s. We have to see the dignity in all human beings. We have to stop seeing allies and enemies and see fellow travelers with whom we share a planet, climate, land and air for breathing. We have to cease and desist from our self-deception of superiority over another human being, another race. We have to recognize and honor the dignity and worth of everyone, whether we like them or not, whether we agree with them or not, whether we are from the same ‘tribe’ or not. After all, we all are created in the Image of God, we all are of the species-homo-sapiens, ergo: we all belong to the same large tribe, humanity!
We owe one another and ourselves freedom and release from slavery. We cannot give this to another person without first realizing our own enslavements, many of them enumerated above. Yet the greatest enslavement, in my opinion, is the enslavement of false stories, false narratives, mendacity itself. One of the largest false stories and narratives we tell ourselves; ‘not my monkey, not my circus’, ‘not my problem’, etc. We are called upon to care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan to teach us everyone matters, everything matters and to not be indifferent. Indifference is the greatest mendacity we engage in. When we feel powerless, often we become indifferent, when we feel frustrated, we become indifferent, when we see evil, we do nothing from fear and from indifference, when we experience the pain of another, we do nothing for fear of being ridiculed so we become indifferent. When we watch or listen to the racism that is rampant in our country and the world and we do nothing to stop it, we are being indifferent. When we buy Russian products, including their Vodka, while Putin massacres innocent Ukrainians, we are being indifferent. When we see people convicted of crimes because they “were driving/walking/standing while black and do nothing, we are being indifferent. When we stand idly by while people are made fun of, the butt of jokes, because they are fat, skinny, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Catholic, black, brown, etc we are being indifferent. Indifference leads to and lends a sympathetic hand to these evils and more. We owe it to ourselves to engage in seeing the truth, of being in reality when facing the world, not the self-designed, self-seeking reality of indifference and narrow vision, the reality that the world is showing us, the reality of kindness, truth, love, justice, mercy and compassion.
In recovery, we acknowledge the debt each day through prayer and meditation as well as action. We reach out to people and let them know they matter, we look for opportunities to be of service and aid another. When asked, we do not refuse a service request unless we are truly unable to fulfill it. We know that we have to be self-supporting through our own contributions and we have to provide for another who is less fortunate. We have to also be able to ask for the help we need and receive it with grace and dignity. In recovery, we realize we owe our lives to a power greater than ourselves, we owe the people around us the dignity they so richly deserve just for being human and we know we owe it to ourselves to treat ourselves with dignity, kindness and love.
I am guilty of being indifferent at times and writing this made me realize the subtle ways I have succumbed to this terrible way of being. I also recognize the dignity and worth of another and always try to, even in rebuke, speak to the soul of another. More tomorrow, God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark