Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 204
“The power of being human is easily dissolved in the process of excessive trivialization. Banality and triteness, the by-product of repetitiveness, continue to strangle or corrode the sense of significant being.” (Who is Man pg. 114-5)
A “sense of significant being” is what is at stake in every action we take and/or do not take as a nation, a community, a family and an individual. Without this sense of significance, we can never achieve the sacred mission, respond to the call of our inner life/soul, hear and advocate for the souls of our friends, family, strangers, and realize the importance of living in this moment, using this experience to enhance my future and being present, not calculating, in the here and now. Without this sense of significance, we would either destroy the good works of another out of jealousy and/or give up our own agency and creativity becoming just robots, cogs in the machine, etc. Without a sense of significance, relationships become almost exclusively transactional rather than covenantal, business becomes a battlefield to prove the strongest, we would return to the Greco-Roman idea of putting people on rocks to die when they have no more use to the state, everyone would be trying to prove they are the strongest, smartest, richest, etc. Therapists offices, Psychiatrists offices, Bars, etc are full with people who are seeking to be reassured that their life has significant being. Yet, the belief that one is unimportant, boring/ordinary, stale is rampant in our world or at least the fear of being this way. There is a solution and it begins in the family and is infused into the individual by family and grown in one’s family life so this solution is lived into, leaned into, and grown in all of our affairs.
The solution that families can/need/do provide is to remind each and every child that they MATTER! Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski told me that he and his wife added a candle to light each Shabbat for every child they had and then for every grandchild they had. What an amazing sight that must have been, they had a kids and grandkids galore:). However, each child knew they mattered, each child was told often and in every way possible that their being brings more light into the life of the family and the world. Another friend of mine told me about his father telling him daily that: “every room you walk into is better because you are there” and he believed his father. This belief kept him on course through the trials and tribulations of his business life and his home life. He, in turn, gave his kids the same message and, I believe, has kept them moving forward in their lives. Every family has the power to enhance the “sense of significant being” of their family and their family members and/or to trivialize, strangle and/or corrode this sense. Good family communications, actions which back up the words, You Matter, I love you, your ‘quirks’ are actually your unique gift and can be used to enhance your self and those around you, etc. Every family has to let go of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and stop worrying about optics, how things look, what will the neighbors think, etc. Every family also has to be careful to not indulge the victim, unfair, immature, aspects of the character traits of a member and/or the whole family. The solution is to make the family the center of spirituality for its members, the hub and safe space for each family member to be real, free to speak, cry, ask for help and be responded to in ways they can hear. The solution is for the family to stop trying to make the members over into the “image” they want to portray and assist every member of the family to grow into the Divine Image they have been created in. The solution is for families to welcome the stranger in each member, not need its members to conform to their ways and embrace each and every member for their uniqueness not in spite of it.
In recovery, we are desperate to recover our “sense of significant being”, as I write this I believe this is what recovery is all about. This sense has been beaten out of us, we moaned and groaned over its loss and never realized we could, with “a little help from our friends” who have their “sense of significant being” recover our own. In recovery, we learn that we matter and so does every other person in the world.
My father spoke to each and every one of his sons in ways they could hear, if he had a favorite, we all thought we were it! Until my sister came along and we knew she had our Dad’s heart and we were not jealous. Each one of Jerry Borovitz’ sons knew they mattered to him, not just in words, in actions as well. He never missed an event we were involved in, he bought a business instead of staying a traveling salesman(which he loved and was his calling) so he could have dinner with us each night. He took each of us for drives, to the business alone so he could have one on one time. We all knew we mattered to him, we are were taught we mattered in the world. I forgot this lesson, I dishonored the memory of the most important person in my life, my dad, by forgetting this lesson and trashing the name he had built up, ignoring my own “sense of significant being” because of my pain over his loss when I was just entering my teen years. I also ignored the need of my daughter Heather by being in and out of jail and prison so much in her early years. I believe I have let her know how much she matters and I believe I have made my amends to my Dad as well. I am sorry Heather, Dad, Stuart, Neal, Millie and Sheri, to my cousins, aunts and uncles whose help and teachings I rejected, and to those I harmed through my corroded sense of being. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark