Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 205
“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)
We are always in danger of being pulled into these soul-crushing, spirit-killing ways. We are and have always had societal pressures to “go along to get along”, become enslaved to ‘making a living’ rather than make a life, have our creativity crushed, laughed at, etc because someone else is afraid of our creative powers, denied our “unalienable rights” because of someone else’s need for power. This has been happening to us for as long as humanity has existed. We have bought into the lie “we are only one person, one vote-what difference will I make”, we have bought into the lie ‘stay in your lane and know your place’, etc, etc. These lies and the megaphone of society that keeps blaring these and other lies have their effect on the majority of people.
Most people, unfortunately, do not engage in critical thinking, they let some TV, Radio, Powerful personality do their thinking for them and they follow along like ‘little lambs to the slaughter’. I use the word slaughter because whenever we engage in these actions, we are surrendering, giving up, killing our own “sense of significant being”. We engage in the banality of life daily with our lack of originality, our rote behaviors, our escapes through social media, mind-numbing activities, inability to connect with another human being. We engage in “following orders” like the good German Adolf Eichmann did, whether these orders come from the Bible, the mind, the mouths of the authoritarians in our life, and/or the self-deceptions we have come to accept as truth. It is easier to let someone one else do the thinking for us than have to immerse ourselves in the thoughts, ideas, nuances, whole picture of life. Give us the cliff notes as we used in school when we didn’t want to read the book. Doing life by cliff notes is the surest way to strangle and corrode our “sense of significant being”. We are denying the Divine Image and the Divine need we are created in and for. We are denying our uniqueness and infinite value and relinquish our infinite dignity when we live life by cliff notes. Banality, triteness, excessive trivialization are dangerous paths to go down because they are so seductive, so deceptive and so ensnaring.
And there is a solution! Every day when we arise, we say a prayer, meditate, on how grateful we are to be alive. We open our eyes, our ears, our hearts to the truth that today is a new day with new possibilities and new adventures. We begin with gratitude, meditation, study, writing, planning and spontaneity, openness, seeking connection, excited to learn something new today and make a decision to find joy today. We commit ourselves to being in the solution, adding our talent, gifts, wisdom to solve a bit of the issues that make our corner of the world banal, trite and trivial. We engage with one another at more than a surface level, when we say we care, we actually act in caring ways. When we pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and for which it stands we hold everyone accountable for the freedoms we are promised. We no longer ‘stand on the sidelines’ thinking someone else will fight our battles because we don’t want to ‘get our hands dirty’. We engage in truth and transparency rather than hiding and guile. We speak truth, we engage in learning by knowing we do not know it all, we are not the smartest person in the room and we don’t need to control everything and everyone, only our need to be right, our need to be in control, our character traits that are out of proper measure need to be controlled by us. Every day we commit to being original, unique, fresh with our actions, our thoughts, our love and our devotion to one another, humanity, nature, peace, kindness, justice and mercy. Every day we root our the indifference and the evil that want to attach themselves to us like barnacles on a boat. We have to stay involved and aware of our spiritual life, spiritual condition and no longer allow our minds and emotions to override what we know to be true.
In recovery, this is the main thrust of our new life, leaving the banal, the trivial, the trite ways we had been living and engage in fresh, new, original paths to find our true selves, live an original life and an authentic life, be a servant instead of a master and add to the lives of people whom are close to us and total strangers rather than taking from them like we used to.
I have been practicing living authentically, originally and uniquely and I am happy to report that this has given me a “sense of significant being”. I also have succumbed to the ‘powers that be’ and let them convince me to “rub” my originality away, follow their orders and be boring, seek solutions that are safe, not ones that honor the uniqueness of me and the person/people I am trying to help. I have succumbed to these corrosive ways when I have been afraid of rejection, afraid of financial loss, afraid of being made to look foolish. Each time I have succumbed, however, I have been foolish, rejected and suffer loss. Each time I have succumbed, I have lost me-my uniqueness, my path, tarnished my authentic self and I commit to not do this anymore! Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark