Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 229
“We, however, live on borrowed notions, rely on past perceptions, thrive on inertia, delight in relaxation. Insight is a strain, we shun it frequently or even permanently. The demand, as understood in biblical religion, is to be alert and open to what is happening.” (Who is Man pg. 115-116)
The last sentence of Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom, warning and teaching above is the key to a good life, a life that is “compatible with being a contemporary of God”, a life that “reconciles God’s view with our experience”. It is the key to living in radical amazement, honoring the moments of insight and our response to them. Yet it seems to be the key that many people have lost and/or misplaced. We are living in a time where, it seems to me, the majority of people have lost their alertness and openness to what is happening around them. This is for the ‘woke’ and the ‘unwoke’, the conservatives and the progressives, and, most of all, for the majority that live in between the extremes. We are living in a time where the liars are alert to the advantages they can take, the money they can make, the power they can grab. They are not alert to their exposure to being taken in by a better liar/con, their being overpowered by a stronger authoritarian, being ‘outwoked’ by a more ‘woke’ person, being fleeced by a better flimflam man/woman. They are not aware of the damage they are doing to the very systems that allowed them to take advantage, to engage in mendacity, to propose ‘alternate facts’ and to steal from everyone who listens to them.
While it can also be said that these mendacious human beings do have their fingers on the pulse of the anger, the fear, the mood of the people (especially white people and those who get convinced that white supremacists are their friends); being “alert and open to what is happening” as I understand Rabbi Heschel’s brilliance today, is to fulfill God’s view, God’s call, God’s demand. These calls, views, demands include: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” “care for the stranger, the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan,” “don’t follow the false prophets who arise,”“you must redeem your kinsman,” “love mercy, do justly, walk humbly with your God,” et al. The liars, the flimflam people we see propagating their lies and their unvarnished seeking of power use all of God’s demands, God’s views, God’s calls as the pathways of suckers, the weak, the stupid. Their view of themselves is so great, their belief in their own minds and abilities so overwhelming, they are unable to be “alert and open to what is happening”. There are liars on both ends of the spectrum, let us not forget. In fact, I would posit that to be all the way on either side of the continuum of life, you have to lie to your self. This is the danger of the either/or way of thinking, living, acting.
The “demand” is to live into the both/and. Living in a manner that is both just and righteous, living in a way that is both alert and open, living in a way that is willing to be wrong, to do T’Shuvah, living in a manner of forgiveness for self and for another, living in a manner where “love your neighbor like yourself” is no longer a slogan but a daily practice of self-love and love for all, even those with whom you disagree and have harmed you. Living a path of communal responsibility, personal responsibility, asking for help and offering the same when needed. No longer seeing good through the eyes of achievements and agreements, rather seeing the basic goodness of every human being, seeing the divine image in every person, animal, all of nature, etc. Acknowledging that along with the goodness and divine image in ourselves and everyone else, we fall, we fail and we err which doesn’t negate the goodness and the divine image. One ‘oh shit’ no longer wipes our 100 ‘atta boy/girls’, rather we live in the tension, the marriage, the joy of both being true. We fall into self-deception at times and we hear, see, act on the demand of our higher consciousness, God, etc at times as well. This means we are not all good nor all bad, we no longer wrap ourselves in the cloths of good/right and/or wrong/evil; we no longer define another(s) in these terms either; we see that we are both and so is everyone else!
In recovery, we are alert so we do not fall back into old habits and ways of being unkind to our self and to everyone around us. We learn to be open to what is happening in the moment so we can respond in new and fresh ways rather than react in old ways that harmed everyone involved. In recovery, we work hard to find the middle ground, knowing the only absolute is to cease and desist from the actions that blocked our goodness and our authentic self from flourishing.
I am thinking of all my alertness and openness and I am overwhelmed with gratitude and joy at my achieving this state of being most of the time. I am also painfully aware of the times I was not alert, was not open to what was happening in real time and the scars of those times that I live with. That they are scars is progress because for a while, actually too long of a while, they were open wounds that I would not let heal. I have found that being alert and open to what is happening means allowing old wounds to heal, old traumas to stay in the past and not have them rule this moment, put trigger locks on the things that used to send me over the edge. I live with serenity/clarity and joy, even when things are not going my way, even when I am afraid of what is happening, I am able to be alert and open so I can better hear God’s demand. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark