Daily Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 223
“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)
“To reconcile God’s view with our experience” means to bring back together, as the Latin root of reconcile means, our experience with God’s view; “God saw it was good”. As we approach the Holy Day of Shavuot, which represents the summer harvest festival and the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, we take the night before to do a Tikkun, a repair of our selves and our world to get ready, able and open to hear, experience and act on the words of Torah for this year to come. We ‘get’ to repair our self, reenact the cleansing of our souls and actions as we did some 3300+ years ago when we first heard, experienced and accepted Torah and the covenant with God. We are able, if we are willing, to bring back together God’s view of living things as good, God’s view of human beings as very good, and our ability to be the humans we are capable of being rather than sinking to the lowest common denominator. This is the belief Rabbi Heschel has in us, this is the belief the Prophets have in us, this is the belief that God has in us: we are capable of bringing back together “God saw it was good”, “God saw it was very good” and the way we live, the way we act, the way we encounter and experience each and every day. To do this requires a 2% shift from racism to togetherness, from senseless hatred to acceptance, from mendacity to truth, from power seeking to empowering one’s goodness, etc. We have these desires, we have the capabilities to make this 2% shift, we just need to remember this is the pathway to bringing together, “God saw it was good” and our experience of good.
LIFE IS GOOD, we are good! At the core of every one of us is goodness, kindness, truth, justice, compassion, and love. We cover our core up because of wounds and traumas, we are told from a young age to “not air our dirty laundry” and “shame on you” along with “God is going to punish you” and other such controlling phrases, we come to hide the parts of ourselves we think people won’t like, we come to hide the parts of ourselves that we believe people will think ‘silly or stupid’ like helping people in need, loving our neighbors like we love ourselves, living an authentic lifestyle, etc. AND, we have the teaching above that comes to say NO! Do not fall into the trap our ancestors fell into, believing danger lurks around every corner, do not fall into the same path as the haters and the idolators who preach hate, preach “there is only one way and it is mine”, do not fall into the lure of mendacity and deception preached by those who only seek power for themselves and believe we, the people are here to serve them. Do not fall into the self-deception that God doesn’t care, that there is no higher self, no higher ‘authority’, no higher truth, do not cede your vision, your experience of the Ineffable One, your experience of Radical Amazement to the words and experiences of some self-proclaimed guru/wizard and be a rabid fan not caring about truth, buying the lies of the authoritarians, blindly walking into the death trap of irreconcilable differences with God’s view: “And God saw it was good”.
We can bring back together our experience with God’s view through prayer, study, and action. The V’Ahavta prayer reminds us and directs us how to do this reconciliation by meditating on the words of love and hearing, understanding and teaching our children, writing words of kindness, understanding justice, truth, love and compassion on the doorposts of our homes and on our gates so that we practice them each and every day, making the 2% shift from irreconcilable differences with God’s view to reconciling our ways of living with God’s view. It is not easy and it is simple. Allowing our souls to heal from the traumas and the hurts is the path to wholeness and a clear vision of good and holy. On this Shabbat and weekend of receiving, we get another opportunity to recover our basic goodness of being, our compassion, our kindness, our ways of being loving and seeking truth and justice.
Our recovery is wonderfully encapsulated in this teaching of Rabbi Heschel. We are on the path of reconciliation, the path of improving our vision, and living our basic goodness of being. We are letting go of “old ideas” and no longer have “contempt prior to investigation”, we are open to new ideas, new experiences and being responsible to bring back together God’s view and our experiences.
I have to continually remind myself of this teaching. I get caught up in these old ideas at times and they bring me sadness, anger, disconnection. I am blessed to be able to get the assistance I need to leave these old places, see life clearly and appreciate the good that surrounds me. I continually learn and relearn the lessons I need in order to see the good, relish the goodness that my errors, my hitting the marks, my sadness and my joys teach me daily. I am blessed with and take advantage of my ability to do T’Shuvah, be grateful for what I have and seek to be kind to everyone. I am never perfect in this, I get afraid and worried and then I refocus my vision on what truly is my north star: “And God saw it was good”. I am able to see the lessons this experience is teaching me and rejoice in bringing my experience back together with God’s view. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark