Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 174
“Over and above the din of desires there is a calling, demanding, a waiting, an expectation. There is a question that follows me wherever I turn. What is expected of me? What is demanded of me? (Who is Man pg. 107-108)
We are witnessing a seminal moment in the history of humanity, again. There have been many such moments throughout the millennia and, as we prepare for both Passover and Easter as well as Ramadan, we have seen the unimaginable heroic and courageous stands that our ancestors have made precisely because they responded to the call, the demand and the expectation of something greater than themselves. Herein is the call of Rabbi Heschel’s questions, writings, teachings and wisdom. Like the prophets of antiquity, Rabbi Heschel is reminding us that we are more than our pettiness and pride, envy and enmity, we are human beings created in the Image of God, we are able to rise above impulse-driven ‘needs’ to serve a higher, truer and greater cause-our humanity and the humanity of another.
Vladimir Putin is not our problem, our problem is the fear we have of Putin, the selfish desires to use Russian Oil, etc rather than rely on other sources because the other sources are price gouging. Our problem is the belief in what someone is saying rather than what we are seeing. Our problem is the spiritual fortitude of our leaders to say NO to atrocities, NO to war-mongering, NO to dictatorships, NO to senseless hatred and killing. We have had this problem forever, and we continue to do the same things we always have, Einstein’s definition of Insanity. Hitler, Stalin, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Congo, to name a few eras and places/people where these ‘war crimes’ have occurred and how the world turned a deaf ear to the pleas of those being persecuted.
“What can I do” we cry out, we are only one person-yet Christ was one person, Mohammed was only one person, Moses was only one person, each soldier that liberated the camps in Europe and in the Pacific was only one person. Rabbi Heschel is calling us out to be one PERSON, a real person, a caring person, a person committed to being human. Stop caring about the money and start answering the call of our fellow suffering human beings. Stop worrying about being re-elected and pass the legislation needed to end the suffering of the very constituents who elect you! Stop worrying about nuclear destruction and worry about the spiritual and moral destruction that is, and has been, happening! Each of us can respond to the call, the demand and the expectation by being human, caring about our human race. Because of our inability to see the human in every race, color, creed and religion, we have lost our ability to be human, we have lost our ability to pay attention and respond to the call, the demand, the expectation Rabbi Heschel speaks about. We owe one another, we owe ourselves, we owe God for our lives, our livelihoods, and the bill is due and payable. We pay it with our responses, we pay it with our decency, we pay it with our compassion and we pay it with our humanity.
We are at another crossroads in our human history, be it how we deal with the criminal Putin; how we deal with the criminals in Congress who want to deny voting rights to “those non-whites”, and/or who want to deny the attack on Jan. 6, 2020, and/or who want to accuse everyone who doesn’t agree with them ‘friends of pedophiles”, and/or who cater to the rich and treat a corporation as a person; the criminals in State Governments who want to decide the outcome of elections based on their bias’ not the will of the voters; the criminals who rob the dignity of another through using their vulnerabilities against them; etc. There are many criminals roaming our country and our globe, not mentioning the criminal price-gouging of gas, goods from China, etc, and we have to answer the call to bring justice, kindness, compassion, caring, love and truth to respond and confront these criminalities and enjoin and enforce the ways of Christ, Mohammed, and Moses-the real ways, not the bastardizations that some people have made them into.
In recovery, we had a seminal moment that brought us to our surrender, our acknowledgment that we were in spiritual and moral bankruptcy. We had a decision to make, continue down the path we were on causing more damage to another and to our self or be defeated by a higher truth, a truth that demands and expects us to be human, to care, to be just, to love, to practice kindness, to speak and hear truth and have compassion for another and for our self when we fall short of these ways of being.
I have spent the past 35+ years making the decision to hear the call, the demand and the expectation. I realize my ears are not what they used to be (actually Harriet told me my hearing was going bad) and I now have hearing aids. I also have been improving the hearing of my soul, my conscience, to be attuned to the call of God, of my fellow human beings and of my teachers and friends. I lost my hearing and my sight for a little bit and I am regaining both, hearing and seeing better than I every have before! I have faced many seminal moments in my life and I am committed to making the choice to hear the demand and respond, meet the expectation and exceed it, listen for the call and be honored to answer it. There are many such calls, demands, expectations in life and they all have the same essence-will you BE human and be good stewards of God’s world for the next generation? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark