Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 231
“Every moment is a new arrival, a new bestowal. How to welcome the moment? How to respond to the marvel?” (Who is Man pg. 116)
We recorded the Jan. 6 hearings and began watching them yesterday. I am so saddened and outraged at the assault on our democracy, at the mendacity of elected officials, and so proud of the men and women of the Capital Police and the other Law Enforcement agencies who did not stand down even though they were injured, outnumbered and assaulted with clubs, etc. Then I read this wisdom from Rabbi Heschel and wonder how do we stay so willfully blind to the truth of the first sentence? I wonder how can we denigrate the words of the people who fought so our democracy could stand? How can the very people who were saved by the Capital Police, these fine Republicans who are the “guardians of our democracy”, who encouraged the rioters at the Ellipse, who joined in promoting the ‘big lie’ of Trump, who are basically calling the police who died, were injured, were traumatized defending these Republicans’ lives, liars! I wonder how they can ignore the arrival of each moment, the bestowal of grace, love, kindness, clarity, truth, compassion, mercy that each moment brings. I wonder what they believe they will gain by surrendering to mendacity, promoting words and phrases of deception and feeding their addiction to kissing the Tuches’ of Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, et al. Most of all, I wonder how they face themselves in the mirror each day knowing they are treating the arrival of each moment as they are treating the arrival of immigrants to our country-with disdain, with haughtiness, with inhospitable treatment, etc.
Yet, it is not only these charlatans who call themselves ‘good Americans’, like Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, et al, it is all of us who fail to treat each moment as “a new arrival”, a new opportunity, a new possibility, “a new bestowal”. We fail to experience each moment as a gift and an opportunity to learn anew, a chance to do inventory and T’shuvah, a renewal of love and fidelity to God, to our principles, to our spouses, to our families, community and country. Each moment is a gift to be able to redo the errors of the moment before, of moments in the past and to be present and looking forward at the same time. Each moment bestows upon us the gift of wisdom and new insights, we are able to realize we are arriving at new places in each and every moment.
Failure to treat each moment as a new arrival is the foundation of being stuck, believing the lie of ‘same shit, different day’, giving into ‘it’s my fate’, or one of my favorites ‘it must be God’s will for me to be stuck, there is a reward in heaven for my suffering!’. The reward for this pitiful and pathetic way of being, which society fully accepts as a conventional notion, is being a victim, holding onto and/or gaining power, validating through deception behaviors that go against all morality, all decency and all faithfulness to God, and, the old standby of those Republican cowards who deny the bravery of the Capital Police and the lawlessness of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and the rest of the mob who gathered at and breached our shining symbol of democracy, the People’s House, the Capital Building, white supremacy-white people are better equipped to have power than any other race and white Christians are at the top of the hierarchy of whiteness! All of these lies and self-deceptions are employed by people to validate their failure to treat each moment as “a new arrival, a new bestowal”.
There is a cure for this disease to see each moment as one saw the last, the disease of deception of self and/or believing the deceptions of another, the descent into the conventional notion of believing someone because they are ‘rich’, ‘successful’, etc. The cure, the chemo to put this disease of mendacity and willful blindness in remission is this moment. Treating this moment as “a new arrival” means being open to the wisdom of the moment, the preciousness of this moment, knowing this moment will never be repeated and welcoming it like we welcome friends and family to our homes, in our houses of worship, at the supermarket, school, reunions, etc. Living in the moment, being excited for it’s arrival and being present in it, knowing each moment brings us new wisdom, new chances for a ‘do-over’ and bestows upon us the ability to change the course of our living in this new moment based on the new information we take in from the last gift of a moment. Living in this moment, means we have to give up the deceptions and mendacious patterns that have governed my living, everyone has some deceptions and tells themselves lies sometimes. We have to renew my faithfulness to truth, a higher and truer way of life and to our ability to see what is and not be willfully blind. We get to welcome this moment as we welcome life each morning upon arising.
In recovery we know that it is one day at a time, one moment at a time. We are becoming more and more aware of our need to take in each moment, appreciate each moment and use each moment wisely as we are beginning to use our lives wisely as well.
I am constantly living in the moment and seeing where I am blind to the moment’s bestowal and when I have failed to welcome it’s arrival, which is an affront to God, to the universe, to living well. I will write more on this tomorrow, as we watch the hearings, let’s honor the service of heroes and not fall into the mendacity of politics and liars. God Bless, Rabbi Mark