Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 220
“The biblical words about the genesis of heaven and earth are not words of information but words of appreciation. The story of creation is not a description of how the world came into being but a song about the glory of the world’s having come into being. “And God saw it was good” (Genesis 1:25). This is the challenge: to reconcile God’s view with our experience.” (Who is Man pg.115)
Fundamentalism is, as I am immersing myself in these words above, the root of indifference. As the Latin root of the word means, indifference is “not differing/not deferring”. Fundamentalism in all of its forms is black and white thinking, absolutism thinking, and, I would add, addictive thinking. I have heard from many people who have fundamentalist beliefs and practices and they all have the same refrain: “I am certain of this”; “God doesn’t want any deviation”; “it says so in the Bible”; “I am right and you are wrong”; and other such lies. When we cannot defer to the Glory of God, the Glory of creation, the Glory of the world, we become unable to see what truly is. We become stuck in a story that is static and stale, a story that is cemented and unchangeable. This leads us to no longer appreciate the “genesis of heaven and earth”, no longer sing the song of glory that there is a world nor the miracle and majesty of the world coming into being and our role in growing/making better the world we are in. When differentiation becomes a ‘sin’, when we are unable to distinguish between information and appreciation, when we are unable to discern between a description and a song/poem, we become a minion, a “thing” as Rabbi Heschel described earlier in this subchapter.
This is the state we find ourselves in again, still. So many people are stuck in the old ideas and ways ‘things were’ that they miss the beauty of appreciating the world coming into being. They are singing both off key and the wrong words to the songs of the glory of being in the world that God has created. Our insistence on being right and knowing the answers has led us to forget the true questions and have answers to the wrong ones. We are losing one of the key elements that make us human; the ability to distinguish, the ability to differentiate between information and appreciation, between singing the song that God has placed in us and singing the song our egos, our fears write for us. Hence, we find ourselves in a state of turmoil, a state of unrest, a state of fear, a state of hatred, a state of polarization, a state of racism, antisemitism, anti-muslim, anti-immigrant, etc. We find ourselves in a state of guns, death, senseless hatred and an erroneous belief that we can ‘recapture the good old days’.
The Bible is a terse document, it is open to interpretation and is in need of interpretation. We are told there are “70 faces of Torah”, 70 ways to understand, interpret, live the words of the Bible leading us to not get stuck in one-way thinking and living. Each person who was at Sinai heard the Word(s) of God in their own way, each person was spoken to individually we are told. This is the Bible’s way, God’s way of telling us that the only absolute is God, the ways to fulfill God’s Will, the Bible’s way of living is open to our interpretation and has to change in every generation and no two situations are exactly alike. The majority of the arguments found in the Jewish Compendium of Law, the Talmud, end with the phrase: we will know for sure when Elijah the Prophet comes to tell us the Messiah is coming. Even the Rabbis of old were not sure they were correct and had the humility to know this and acknowledge this.
We need to spend more time in appreciation and less time in ‘being right’. We have to stop wrapping ourselves in the flag, in our mendacity, in using the Bible to make ourselves right. We need to sing the song that God has placed in us, the song that is uniquely ours and blend it, harmonize it with the songs of every other human being. We need to stop ‘needing to be right’ and begin to join in song and prayer with every one so we can revel in the glory of the world coming into being. We can and must begin anew to let go of our need for certainty, let go of our need to be noticed, let go of our need to rule another(s), let go of our need to wear blinders. We can and must begin anew to hold on to our knowing we can never be 100% sure and move forward as our soul/song guides us, hold on to our knowing that we are a divine need and reminder, hold on to our knowing that we have to constantly and consistently see each day as new, hold on to our knowing that the world and life is dynamic rather than static, hold on to our knowing that living in wonder and/or radical amazement is the only path to wholeness and joy.
In recovery, we relearn how to discern. We are constantly seeking to peel the layers of the onion to discover more and more of the beauty of living. We engage in doing the best we can in this moment, knowing our best is ever-changing and not static. In recovery, we are constantly seeking more appreciation, more acceptance, more clarity.
I realize there are times and areas where I have become static and stuck. I realize this truth during these writings, prayer, golf, etc. I also am acutely aware of the awe, wonder, radical amazement I live in each day. Writing this today, I realize the only times I am truly stuck is when I forget to sing my songs of glory and appreciation, when I feel I am unable to sing these songs. Yet, I am also realizing that these are lies I tell myself. I am always able to sing these songs, I just have to be willing to get over ‘me’ and join with God to be a ‘we’. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark