Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 234
“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)
Living each moment as the marvel it is takes a lot of training and retraining. We have to retrain ourselves from taking things for granted, namely that one moment is the same as another. We have to stop believing we have all the time in the world and/or no time at all. We have to retrain our brain to not overwhelm our soul with rationalizations, conventional notions and mental cliches in order to ‘prove’ an illegitimate point of view, a false and self-deceptive way of being. We are in desperate need of welcoming the moment and responding to the marvel in our society today. While we have always been in desperate need to do this, it seems especially crucial in today’s world.
Russia invades Ukraine and makes a fortune in the sale of oil to the world, Saudi Arabia kills a journalist who is living in the United States and reaps the benefits of the Trump era and the oil gouging. Oil Companies, out of fear of losing money and their business are helping to put us into a recession and one of the causes of inflation, so they can make more. Covid-19 begins to ravage the world, over 1 million deaths just here in the US, and we are told lies and given remedies like bleach, that will kill us from our “fearless leader” and people believe him, refuse to wear masks, don’t get vaccinated all because we are still allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by our own need to deceive our selves and the need of another(s) to deceive in order to gain/hold onto power. This is part of the retraining we need to engage in so we can “respond to the marvel” as Rabb Heschel is imploring us to do.
In order “to respond to the marvel” we have to remind ourselves that respond comes from the Latin meaning “to pledge again” and marvel from the Latin meaning “wonder at”. So we have to stop being so sure of ourselves, being so smug and blithe about life and this moment and we have to “pledge again” to appreciate and be aware enough to “wonder at” the joy, uniqueness and gift this moment brings.
“To respond to the marvel” entails a training of our inner life, our souls to stop taking this moment, this day, etc for granted. We need to experience a debt of gratitude for this moment, not an entitlement. We need to retrain our inner life to recognize that this moment is a marvel, that our breathing is a marvel, that our life is a marvel and marvelous as well as a debt and we are here to fulfill a divine need as Rabbi Heschel speaks about in his interview with Carl Stern 10 days before his death.
We are in desperate need of both being aware of the marvel and responding appropriately to each and every moment. We are in need of heroes like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Bennie Thompson, and the rest of the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and treasonous actions by Trump, some Senators, some House members who worked to not certify the true and fair election of Joe Biden and were willing to support not having a peaceful transfer of power. I don’t know if the rest of our government can show the courage of these House members in the way they navigate us out of our current economic crisis or one party or faction wants to block every way to help the people they are supposedly ‘serving’ so they can hold onto/regain power.
“To respond to the marvel” is to let go of our need for power over another and have our soul, our spirit, our ‘gut’ have power over our intellect and our emotions. This is the retraining of recovery, it is the retraining a life of faith and spirituality so we can “pledge again to wonder at” the beauty of the moment, the possibility of the moment, the ability to fulfill a purpose in the moment and to be humble enough to recognize our greatness and the greatness of every other person and the need for every creation God has given us. This is the retraining we are in engaged in when we enter, immerse and commit to being In Recovery. It is the only path we can take to regain our sense of wonder, to be able to pledge with sincerity and to live as free people.
I know how “to respond to the marvel” of the moment and I get waylaid at times by fear, by future-tripping, by giving into my desires rather than fulfilling my needs, by having what I want rather than wanting what I have. I wrestle with these opposing forces and in doing so, I stay in the moment more often, I use this moment to better understand the world around me and the world going on inside of me. I “respond to the marvel” by “pledging again” to improve my ability to surrender to truth rather than the self-deceptions/lies I indulge in, I “respond to the marvel” by opening myself up to show my vulnerabilities even though they may be used against me. I know that if I am not vulnerable enough to be hurt, I am not vulnerable to receive and take in love. I “respond the marvel” by increasing my capacity to be in wonder and awe at all that is around me, people, places, things, animals, mountains, etc. I “respond to the marvel” by improving my connections with God, with the universe, with another people, with life itself. I am no longer interested in bending life to my will, rather I bend my will to life. I “respond to the marvel” by growing in compassion, truth, love, kindness and justice towards another and my self. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark