Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 208
“The question is not where is the event and what is the surprise, but how to see through the sham of routine, how to refute the falsehood of familiarity. Boredom is a spiritual disease, infectious and deadening, but curable.”(Who is Man pg. 115)
I am struck at the powerful images the first part of the first sentence above brings to mind. We are so enamored with and engaged in looking for where the event is, what is the next event, making sure we don’t get ‘left out’, that we are unable to see the and experience the authentic, exciting, important events that are happening right in front of our eyes. We have become so obsessed with rubbernecking, with searching for the celebrity, slowing down to see an accident, looking past what is for what might be, we have lost our ability to see what is at the end of our nose, what is right in front of our eyes and what is true and real. I know that our need to not be ‘left out’, our need to be ‘part of the next event’ and our fear of boredom has led us to a life that is vapid and meaningless. It has led us to seek to blame, hate, lie about, enslave anyone ‘not like me’ and be susceptible to the deceptions of another to follow them down the path of mendacity and boredom. This past weekend we saw two terrorist attacks, I call them terrorist attacks because they were meant to terrorize all of us, to make all of us feel unsafe, to get us to capitulate to the hatred, racism, anti-semitism, of the few so they can feel powerful and strong. By continually seeking “where is the event” and “what is the surprise” we allow ourselves to become diseased, infecting all around us and dead to the here and now, dead to the call of our higher selves.
We love the routine and the familiar because it gives us the certainty we crave. We will follow the person ‘who has all the answers for us’ to the ends of the earth because there is a certainty and comfort in this way of being. Remember all of the cults who were willing to die at the command of their leader, ie Jonestown. Remember all the people who are willing to kill because of Q. See all of the people willing to become radicalized White Supremacists through the Internet and follow the call to arms by Trump and his minions. See all of the Republicans who are kowtowing to Trump for fear of losing their elections. See all of the progressives who are willing to exclude people from the table if they don’t agree 100%-I remember this happening in the ‘60s as well. This need for certainty is infecting our ability to see what is in front of us. It is putting blinders on us so that the routine looks perfectly normal and good for us. “Same shit different day” is a motto that rings true for so many people precisely because they crave the certainty this statement brings, they crave the comfort of knowing what is going to happen today and it will be the same as yesterday and tomorrow. My friend and Rabbi, Ed Feinstein, calls this the definition of Slavery. When everything becomes a routine, when certainty is the most important principle in our lives, we enslave ourselves!
Rabbi Heschel is giving us the path to life, seeing through the “sham of routine”. How do we do this? We have to let go of our need for certainty, we have to let go of the past traumas and fears, we have to let go of our need to be perfect, need to be anything other than who we authentically are. We need to be noticed and heard, we need to stop ‘going along to get along’, we need to stop selling our souls and our minds to the people who say they have all the answers. We have to begin to notice the event that is happening right now, I am writing this and you are reading this-here is an event. Waking up in the morning is an event that usually goes unnoticed. We are able to think, see, touch, feel, hear, love, connect, use our gifts and talents daily; these are all events that go unnoticed because of the sham of routine. When we pay attention, we see all kinds of events that we have been missing because we are stuck in the routine and the profane.
In recovery, we make it a point to notice what is, not what we want. We know that if we do the same things today as we did yesterday, we will be moving backwards. Just as the earth is constantly rotating, we too have to move forward in our living well each and every day. Otherwise, we fall into the old traps of mendacity and self-deception. Otherwise we miss the events that are happening in our lives today and we are bored instead of surprised.
I realize how subtle the shift from being present and aware of the events unfolding in front of me to the “sham of routine” and the “falsehood of familiarity” is. I am guilty of not being aware enough to see it, I am guilty of blaming another when it is my false belief in certainty that causes my problems. I have always known that there is no certainty, yet because of my father’s death when I was young, I have craved it and fallen prey to the dangers and damages that this craving brings. I am acutely aware of the traps I have fallen into because I have lived a routine routinely instead of with awareness and newness. I am acutely aware of the damage to my soul and to the souls of people that my succumbing to this “sham of routine” has caused. I am also rededicating myself to seeing better and truer. Yesterday, I received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies for 20+ years of service and I saw people I haven’t seen in 20+ years and this event of reconnection was so powerful. Harriet woke up a few minutes ago and I saw her and knew this was an event. I am excited to live today and everyday as an event, rather than just another day. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark