Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 255
“To be human involves the ability to appreciate as well as the ability to give expression to appreciation. For thousands of years authentic existence included both manipulation and appreciation, utilization and celebration, both work and worship. In primitive society they were interdependent; in biblical religion they were interrelated. Today we face a different situation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)
We are in the midst of a great war, both inner and outer, for the soul of our self, the soul of our country, the soul of the world and our connection to the Ineffable One. The news is full of stories recounting the Mental Health crisis of our young and not so young, accounting most of it to the Pandemic. This is another way of deflecting from the root cause of the mental health crisis we face, blame it on something out of our control, blame it on God, on the universe, etc. The first sentence above points to the cause of the crisis today, just as it was revealing the same crisis almost 60 years ago, a crisis of the spirit, a dark night of the soul, a wrestling/struggle between truth and mendacity, indifference and wonder, fulfilling the demand/call of a power greater than oneself/higher consciousness and ignoring the call in favor of power, prestige, wealth, engaging in “treating the stranger well” and taking advantage of anyone/everyone just because we can. This is the crisis we face as individuals and as members of a religion, ethnicity, country, etc. Yet, too many of us are unwilling to wrestle with these opposing forces, too many of us are unwilling to acknowledge our “ability to appreciate” and “give expression to appreciation”.
Why, you may ask, is simple. When we appreciate something, we can no longer denigrate it. When we appreciate a human being, we can no longer hate them, be prejudicial towards them or ‘their kind’, we can no longer treat them as less than and we must treat them with love, kindness, truth, justice, compassion. Just as the Bible teaches: “Love your neighbor as your self”, when we appreciate a person, we see them as our partner, a divine reminder, an image of God, an equal. From this place we can no longer engage in the senseless hatred that has plagued our society for millennia. We can no longer engage in ‘making our self look good by making another self look bad’, we no longer will seek solace in hatred, in alcohol, in drugs, in risky behaviors, in trying to control women, another ethnicity, another race, in treating the stranger poorly. We need to engage in this spiritual dark night of the soul as a people and as individuals. It is difficult, it is painful and it is the only path to wholeness that has stood the test of time, from Jacob in the Bible to today.
Appreciation, of course, begins with accepting what is and finding ways to make our corner of the world a little better. Acceptance is not the same as settling and being stuck. Acceptance is the first step in change, acceptance is acknowledging what is and then finding ways to improve the current situation. I can’t change what I don’t accept as reality, and we can’t accept mendacity, status quo, ‘this is the way it has always been’ as excused to not engage. Remembering that the only constant is change, we are constantly moving even though we don’t feel the earth turning, we can join with other appreciators to end the outer wars we experience with people who are lying about their certainty of action, their certainty of hatred, their mendacious ways of deception and enslavement. We can and must combat their mendacity with our appreciation, combat their hatred with our expressions of love, appreciation, reminders of what is truly important and holy to our mission of fulfilling the divine need we were created to fill.
In recovery, we are told in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: “acceptance is the answer to all my problems today”(page 417). We know we have to accept our powerlessness over people, places, things, substances, etc. We have to be in acceptance before we can control our selfs, have the strength to appreciate the power of our bad habits, stinking thinking, mental crisis’ and spiritual malady. Once we are in acceptance, the path to change, to living well, to understanding the teaching above, to opening our eyes and seeing what is in front of us is clear and we are resolved to change, to make things better, to be responsible for what our past ways have caused and what moving forward in appreciation and truth looks like.
These past 255 days have been an appreciation of Rabbi Heschel’s contribution to my life, I would say his saving my life/giving me a life worth saving. My writing is my expression of appreciation, of prizing his wisdom, of recognizing the value of spiritual health, spiritual connection, of love, truth, radical amazement, justice, kindness, compassion and activism. While I am much louder, more ‘street vernacular’ than Rabbi Heschel, I share his drive for truth, I share and have learned how to be human a little better each day, and I am indebted to him for opening my eyes, my heart, my soul to hear, listen, understand and see the wrestlings I engage in everyday are holy, our natural and are necessary. Appreciation doesn’t always win in the moment, and it always wins in the end for me. I am grateful for my losses, my ‘missing the mark’, my errors in judgement and the hurts I have incurred as much as I am grateful for the victories I have shared with so many, the times I ‘got it right’ and the joys that true connections have brought. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark