Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 207
“Events and the sense of surprise are not only inherent in the quintessence of reality and authentic consciousness, they are the points from which misunderstandings of human existence proceed.” (Who is Man pg.115)
Reality and authentic consciousness are important terms for us to consider and ponder. We are so enthralled with falsehoods and deceptions that many of us no longer have an authentic consciousness, most of us are engaged in creating ‘our own reality’ and have the expectation that everyone will go along with us. We are living in a time of ‘alternative facts’ and the misuse of the internet to spread whatever falsehoods, inauthentic consciousness we are able to. We see the rise in authoritarianism again and we stand by and wring our hands over everything we see rather than engaging with the reality of what is and working to change it to what ought to be.
Because we are ‘free to be me’ many people have decided to take this event, freedom, and use it as a club to subdue an individual and/or a large group, even a country. While we are, of course, ‘free to be me’ and need to be our true self, this is not the same as free to enslave you, free to do whatever I want to and free to abstain from adding to our corner of the world. Freedom, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, is an event, not a constant. Many of us believe we are free while be enslaved to ‘the way things were’ and the false belief that freedom is a one and done experience. This is an example of an event that leads to a misunderstanding of human existence. Because people have the false idea that freedom is a constant, they do not guard it well, they take it for granted and it begins to erode. Freedom is a surprising experience because we no longer are tied to the lies and deceptions of our minds, of another person(s) and we can truly “smell the roses” authentically. It is a surprise to many of us how capable we are, how connected we are and how needed we are. We see ourselves and everyone else as partners in creation or at least potentially partners in creation, we see ourselves and everyone else as sharing in the greatest gift of religion-freedom from being enslaved by another person and freedom to search for and find our authentic way of being.
Yet, we can easily get lulled into the false belief that freedom is a one and done event and, as we see in the world; freedoms once attained have to be cultivated, nurtured and respected by all, otherwise they will atrophy, they will be challenged by the ‘enslaving’ group that did not want the first place and we will fall asleep at the wheel under our false beliefs and taking things for granted. We are involved in such a time right now. The White Supremacist movement that radicalizes men and women to such an extent they stage mass shootings, the Radical Islamists who are willing to blow themselves up for a false claim of martyrdom, the followers of Kahane, the radical left who have blown up people and places, the anti-abortionists who kill doctors, blow up buildings, and many other splinter groups. All of these have taken advantage of the freedoms our founding fathers and mothers and subsequent generations fought and died for. They are able to bastardize the event of Freedom because we stopped seeing it as such, we took it for granted and, in the process, became “indifferent to the sublime wonder of living” as Rabbi Heschel teaches in God in Search of Man. We are responsible for the misunderstanding of human existence as much as the people who take advantage of our misunderstandings are.
While we are not the bad actors, (I hope), we are responsible for their actions in so far as we have not cared for and continued to experience freedom and other states of being as events that are not one and done, continued to think that we don’t need to nurture and grow our authentic consciousness and continue to do a reality check on ourselves and with everyone around us. “In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible” Rabbi Heschel said regarding the Vietnam War and it is important to repeat this teaching over and over again as we have allowed people to point the fingers at us and use the finger pointing to deny freedoms and truths. We are also guilty of doing the same to people around us and far away from us. Most of all, we are guilty of not staying fresh, not staying alert, not staying authentic and allowing the snake of hatred, like the snake in the Garden of Eden story, to flourish and insinuate itself into our consciousness.
In recovery, we are aware of our guilt of being irresponsible, our guilt of bastardizing freedom and of misunderstanding and promoting the misunderstanding of human existence for everyone we came in contact with. We are hyper aware of our need to experience life on life’s terms and “put principles before personalities” so we can have an authentic awareness and consciousness of reality and live a life compatible with being free.
I have misunderstood the essential and intrinsic values of events and sense of surprise. I have bastardized them and, in doing so, enslaved myself. For the past 36+ years I have been extracting myself from the falsehood of one and done, from the falsehood of blame and shame, from the indifference to the sublime wonder of living. I know I have a ways to go and I am proud of the distance I have travelled. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark