Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 193
“Man cannot think of himself as human without being conscious of his indebtedness. Thus it is not a mere feeling, but rather a constitutive feature of being human. To eradicate it would be to destroy what is human in man.” (Who is Man pg. 108)
Here again, Rabbi Heschel is discerning the difference between being our classification of Homo sapiens and being human. We keep confusing these two ways of relating to our self and another self. In every era, this confusion leads to hatred, strife, war, genocide, riots, etc. As we are commemorating the LA Uprising today and yesterday we commemorated Yom HaShoah, it seems like a good time to stop confusing these two ways of relating to one another and to one’s self.
The Shoah, the LA Uprising, the massacre in Rwanda, the Ethnic Cleansing of Bosnia, Syria’s chemical warfare against its own citizenry, Putin’s invasion and destruction of the Ukraine, etc all have at their core the misguided belief that being human is the same as being homo sapiens. Rabbi Heschel’s teaching comes to nullify this lie. Would that the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity have been conscious of their indebtedness, none of these desecrations of human life would have happened. While this may seem a little Pollyanna-ish, it is also both a goal to strive for each and every day.
The LA Uprising is not just the riots that occurred after a jury in Simi Valley, Ca. decided to be unconscious of their indebtedness to our Creator to treat “Love thy Neighbor” as a colorblind command, as a way of seeking righteousness, holiness and justice for all people, in other words, be human towards everyone regardless of race, color, creed, etc. The Shoah, Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia, Massacre in Rwanda, all because the people in power believed as homo sapiens they were the ones ‘owed’, they believed the people who they were supposed to serve actually “owed them” and were indebted to the them and this gave them the right to slaughter their opponents, potential opponents, make enemies so no one would see their incompetence, their selfishness and their rape and theft of the countries they were leading. Assad and Putin believe the same, everyone owes them because they are ‘strong men’ and doing so, each of these killers have called themselves human beings while actually just being a member of homo sapiens.
Many of us are afraid to admit to ourselves as well as anyone else how indebted we are, we are taught from an early age to be self-sufficient, self-reliant. Yet, this is not the self of being human, this is the self of being a member of homo sapiens. We are taught, some of us anyway, to be grateful for a kindness and we are taught that needing something, being indebted will only give someone else power over us. EUREKA, this is it! Society is afraid to give God, the Ineffable One, the Universe, credit for creating the world, giving us life, sustaining us, etc because then society would have to acknowledge that WE OWE! We are so engaged in power struggles; ruling class v rest of the people, money wars-is the golden rule really the one with the gold rules, male versus female, white versus people of color, my country against your country, ad nauseam. Yet, we can stop all of these false ways people get a sense of security, we can end the senseless hatred of one another, we can bring about the Messiah through being “conscious of” our indebtedness. This is the solution, while simple, so difficult to achieve.
Religious people may pray to God for guidance and, at the same time, not acknowledge their indebtedness because their prayers are petitionary, not repaying. While it is good to pray for another human being, I hear Rabbi Heschel’s words calling me to be aware and conscious of my/your indebtedness so the prayers for another are also a commitment to help heal another human being. Prayer is not ‘get me a new car’ or ‘make another subservient to me’; prayer, in Hebrew, is to look inside oneself, to do an inventory of our daily living and see where we need to improve, and where we need to repair, where we need to return and where we need to use the wisdom, understanding and knowledge we are endowed with more and how to enhance our being human!
I have been conscious of my indebtedness prior to my being able to identify it, prior to even being able to speak it, and I ran from it for a long time because when I tried to repay it as a child/teenager, I was ridiculed, made fun of and shunned. “Why do you want to hang out with that colored kid?”, “will you do this for me and I will do something for you-ha, ha” and other such experiences pulled me from what I knew to be true-repay the debt-into a life of misery for myself and everyone else around me! My recovery has been based on my awareness of I OWE. I owe God for sustaining me, I owe my parents for raising me, I owe my siblings for their love and their staying with me through the terrible times I caused, I owe my daughter for her allowing me to return, I owe my wife for her steadfast love and support in the face of ridicule from others. I owe my teachers and friends for their learning and wisdom, I owe my community for their taking our learning and doing great things with them. I am constantly aware of my indebtedness and it makes me BE human a little better each and every day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark