Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 284
“Entertainment is a diversion, a distraction of the attention of the mind from the preoccupations of daily living. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” (Who is Man pg. 117)
Since time immemorial, we have sought to distract our selves, our souls, our minds from the preoccupations of daily living. In the time of the Greeks, it was the Olympic Games, in Roman times it was Chariot Races and Gladiators and Christians and Lions, we have sports, social media, games, etc to divert our attention away from the issues of our daily living. While it is not bad to engage in entertainment, it may be necessary to distract our minds for a minute so we don’t get so engrossed that we can’t see the forest for the trees, we are in danger today of only engaging in entertainment, only diverting our selves from what is true and good, true and dangerous. We are in danger of distracting our mind from the truth of daily living, from the path of decent, holy, fulfilling daily living. Herein lies the issue for us today. Are we willing to return to a confrontation of self, a confrontation of another, are we seeking to give attention to the “transcendent meaning” of our actions or are we too far down the rabbit hole of entertainment, distraction, diversion?
Our political system has become one distraction after another, one diversion after another until we are now seeing the fruits of the far right and the far left coming to bear fruit. The “political correctness and optics” of the far left make it impossible for a good person to make a mistake and move on-Al Franken had to resign his Senate seat because he did what men did back in the day, he apologized, he admitted his errors and he was ostracized and forced to resign by the “political correctness police”. There is no perfect person, we all make errors and if we are going to be defined by the errors we make rather than the good we do, when the good outweighs the errors, we are setting standards that are impossible to attain, giving our young people more reasons to engage in risky behaviors and push people farther and farther apart.
The false piety and rigidity of the far right has diverted our attention away from their desire to control women’s bodies, minds and souls, their desire to dictate who is allowed into their country so it stays pure for the White European ruling class, all the while quoting Scriptures in a way that bastardizes the meaning, the intent, the holiness of these words, ideas and pathways. Trump and his cronies stole millions from us, the taxpayers, while we were getting enraged by one thing or another that he was saying/doing. Moscow Mitch and Peter the Great Thiel are diverting attention away from the preoccupations of daily living like wages, freedoms, healthcare, climate, by focusing on the lies they are spreading about the needs of the ‘poor’ corporations, the desperate needs of the 1%, the goodness of Putin, Orban, MBS, and other dictators/authoritarians.
We are in a struggle for the soul of this country, for the soul of our fellow citizens, for our own soul. Because their entertainment techniques are so sophisticated, because their distractions are so blinding, we are all in danger of losing our ability to hear the demand, the call of God, of the universe, of our souls. We have to re-engage in daily living, re-engage in the activities that give meaning and purpose to our living, we have to discover/re-discover our passion for truth, our passion for learning, our passion for love, etc.
In recovery, we are acutely aware of our propensity to distract ourselves, to divert our attention from what is in front of us, to some sort of escape, to a denial of what is, etc. In fact, this is one of the many things we are recovering from. “Life on Life’s Terms” is a constant theme of our recovery, being engaged in what is, dealing with what should be, seeking truth and reality, facing life with the help of friends, people in recovery, and God/Higher Power is our solution to avoiding being distracted from our preoccupation with daily living. We have fun, we entertain ourselves in proper measure and in appropriate ways today in our recovery.
I distract myself to this day because I am fearful of being too intense with my self and with another. I know my desire to help/fix something is so great that I can be overbearing, seem arrogant, act in ways that are not politically correct, and this has harmed another(s) and harmed me. I still am diverting myself with games on my devices, I still watch mindless television to ‘zone out’, and I find myself doing it less, on most days. I am aware of not wanting to confront certain people, not wanting to speak truth to some people, not wanting to engage in a battle with the people who follow the extremes because when I see their phoniness, I want to scream and yell and say “the emperor has no clothes”. Yet, today, I am painfully aware of the phoniness I have been selling myself. I am painfully aware of my seeking entertainment to distract me away from the demand that daily living is putting on me. I believe in confrontation, I believe in truth, I believe in making errors, doing T’Shuvah, and forgiveness. The fact that people who have known me want to continue to put in a box, treat me with disdain while smiling at me is just sad, the reality that I made a mistake, have done T’Shuvah and they are unable to forgive is tragic. Especially because they are proponents of either the far left and/or the far right! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark