Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 240
“The secret of spiritual living is the power to praise. Praise is the harvest of love. Praise precedes faith. First we sing, then we believe. The fundamental issue is not faith but sensitivity and praise, being ready for faith.”(Who is Man pg. 116).
As we immerse ourselves in this particular wisdom of Rabbi Heschel, we can find ourselves filling up with both false ego and/or an abundance of love. The false ego comes from the deceptive use of praise, praise for oneself, praise for the charlatan, the grifter, the deceiver. We see this a lot and have over the millennia. People use mendacity to control how another sees them, hears them and follows them even though the people being deceived, the people following the mendacious one usually go against their own self interest! There is another sort, which I believe is as bad or worse than the deceiver, the false egotist, that is the people who knowingly go along for their own ends, for their own power, control and believe they will be able to stop the grifter from ‘bringing down the house’. We have seen these people-all of these deceivers and the self-deceivers throughout history. Whether it was ancient Rome or Greece, Israel or Judea, Assyria or Philistine, all were brought down by their lack of true praise, their inability to put love for something greater than their own selfish needs into action. Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and of course our own country are more recent examples of false egos driving destruction and almost complete ruin. The Tea Party people follow people like Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows who have a lot of shade on them, Jordan for his role(?) In the scandal at The Ohio State University, Meadows with his support and giving aid and comfort to the treasonous actions of Donald Trump. These egotists don’t care about people, only their power, only “white power” and are every bit as ‘down for the white race’ as any white supremacist. Yet, they couch it in politeness and ‘conservative values’. I guess ‘conservative values’ include “slight of hand”, “three-card monte” and other such money scams.
McConnell, McCarthy, Cruz, Rubio, DeSantis, Hawley, Johnson, Gohmert, et al all go /went along with Trump’s grift for their own benefit and, in the ‘name of freedom’, in the ‘name of politics’ are obstructing ways to help people live better, live freer, exercise their right to vote, their right to decide what they do with their bodies, if you are a woman, and then they support not getting vaccinated while they themselves are vaccinated. They support the right for men to control women, the right for whites to control everyone, the right to demonize immigrants (who they come from), and the right to use assault weapons to kill people! And you can see them in Church singing praises to Jesus, while denying the principles Jesus taught, lived and, one could say, died for. Jesus was a rebel, Moses was a rebel, Mohammed was a rebel, Buddha was a rebel; they rebelled against the status quo for the freedom of another, for the spiritual health of another and as advocates for the soul of another.
We need to stop supporting these mendacious grifters, these deceivers who seek power and prestige, money and authority so we can return to the lessons, the paths that Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus and so many since have laid out for us. We need to remember the teachings of MLK Jr., Rabbi Heschel, etc and find the love that is within us; the love of self, the love of our neighbor, the love of life, the love of God/Higher Power/The Ineffable One. We do this by reordering our priorities, by making service higher than selfishness, asking ourselves what is life getting out of me rather than what am I getting out of life, wanting what we have rather than having what we want, a daily practice of gratitude and prayer. As we begin to love our self more, love our neighbor more, we will love life more and be of more service to our authentic self, to the authentic self of another, we will act in loving ways with family and friends and the praise of life will burst out of us. It is not a constant, we have to cultivate this way of being in order to reap this harvest often.
Love is the goal in recovery. Love of self, love of another, love of life. Love is the only pathway than can ensure our long-term recovery from the low-grade misery we were living in before. We cultivate an attitude of gratitude as an expression of our love, our knowing we are blessed and our belief in something greater than ourselves. We cultivate an attitude of service as an expression of our newfound knowing we matter and so does everyone else. In recovery, we grow in love so we can reap the benefit of praise, joy and serenity.
I have cultivated love for my entire recovery, sometimes it grows really well and strong and, at times, it has fallen fallow. For the fallow times, I am deeply sorry to those who were harmed. I also know that the fallow times have been few and far between as evidenced by the connections I have with so many people. I realize more and more each day how the praise I have for another, for God, for family all is bases in love and the more time I spend in service, the more I appreciate and love my true self, the more I have for everyone else and the more I have for God. I send my love to all of you, I believe we can and must let go of our self-deceptions and the deceptions of another to find, cultivate, and reap the love and praise of living well. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark