Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 270
“Man may forfeit his sense of the ineffable. To be alive is commonplace; the sense of radical amazement is gone; the world is familiar and familiarity does not breed exaltation or even appreciation.” (Who is Man pg. 116)
Continuing to immerse our selves in the phrase above; “the sense of radical amazement is gone” is crucial for our continued existence, using the Latin meaning of “coming into being” and “take a stand for”. We are unable to grow into better, fuller and more purpose-driven selves as long as we stay stuck in commonplace and old ideas. It is not the way of spirit, it is not the way of Jesus, it is not the way of Moses, it is not the way of Mohammed, it is not the way of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, Ronald Reagan, and so many others who have led and worked to make America the land of the free and the home of the brave!
The bravest act a human can take is to live in radical amazement, I believe. Constantly staying fresh in thinking, in actions, in understanding and in spirit is the only way to continue to grow and deepen our connection to self, another, universe. It is the only path to coming into the being we were created to be, to fulfilling the divine demand and call that rings in our soul, our inner life that we continue to run away from. Just as throughout history there have been people who wanted everyone around them to go along with their ideas, their old ways of doing things and seeing things, there have also been people who continually see the world through new eyes each and every day. Same shit, different day doesn’t exist in either their vocabulary nor their thoughts.
Radical amazement is not a one and done experience, nor is it an experience that is out of our reach and realm. It is a way of living that calls for us to let go of the lies we have been telling ourselves, it is a way of being that demands we stop comparing our self to another self, it is an existence that forces us to take a stand for decency, truth, love, kindness, justice and compassion, and it is an existence that reminds us of our imperfect path of coming into being the human we are intended to be. It is a constant nagging from our soul, our inner life to not get stuck anymore in our self-deception nor the deception of another. It is our path to letting go of our need to be liked at any and all costs, our need to ‘get ahead’, our belief that it is better to ‘go along to get along’ rather than stand for what we know is the next right thing to do. Radical amazement is an active, dynamic experience that gives us the gift of questioning every thing we think we know to learn new and different ways to apply the universal truths of faith, spirit, intuition and inner life.
Living this path is not easy nor readily acceptable to society at large. The people we venerate today were not always accepted nor venerated in their own time; the prophets were not loved in the times or places they lived and prophesied, the Rabbis were not followed immediately after the destruction of the Temple in 70ad, Jesus was not followed by the masses when he was alive nor right after his death, Moses could only lead 20% of the Israelites out of Egypt according to a commentary, and a large minority of people still believe the 2020 election “was stolen”! Rabbi Heschel was not celebrated nor understood in his own time and even today, people quote him and do not live his wisdom and teachings. We need to understand that only through radical amazement can we exist in the true meaning of the word, only through radical amazement can we find the strength, the beauty, the wonder and awe to be able to stay content while constantly changing. Radical amazement forces us to immerse ourselves in constant change so we can live within our self, so we can live the call of our soul, use the power and drive of our spirit to find new and different ways to serve God, to serve humanity and to serve our self, to feel the sense of the ineffable daily, to feed another human being with food and kindness and to respond to the call of our inner life!
In recovery we recognize that “old ideas” led us back down old paths and they just didn’t work anymore. We are adherents to Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results; because we have lived this way for years. In recovery, we experience everything anew, we let go of our old ideas, we let go of our “contempt prior to investigation” and we investigate with a desire to learn, not be right. One of the joys of recovery is rediscovering the wonder, awe and joy of living.
People get upset with me when I tell them I am great when asked “how are you”. They think its a discussion stopper, yet to me it is a descriptor of my readiness to learn, to see the world and my life anew, to be grateful for this day, for this encounter, for this experience. I am great everyday because I am alive, I am learning, I am excited, I am in love and am loved, I am a son, a father, a brother, a husband, a Rabbi, a friend, a leader, a follower, a learner and a teacher. How can I not be great? I have bad days, moments, periods where I am in distress about something that I haven’t found a response to that seems right, I get angry about mendacity and optics, cancel culture and “correctness” which is another word for phoniness, and this doesn’t mean that I am not great. Radical amazement brings me core contentment, I am no longer dependent on people, places, things to make me content, I am enough and I know it. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark