Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 285
“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)
Being immersed in Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom and teachings allows us to continually see new and nuanced understandings of both the wisdom itself and how to apply/live it each day. Staying in radical amazement, ie being maladjusted, gives us the opportunity to continually learn and grow. What are the preoccupations of daily living we are engaged in and what are the preoccupations of daily living we should be engaged in? These are the questions Rabbi Heschel is asking me today-this is how he is disturbing me today!
For many of us, making ends meet is the primary preoccupation of daily living. I understand this and am acutely aware of the pressure of this preoccupation and I am also aware, with the gift of age and perspective, how we make ends meet, what we do to make them meet and making sure the “ends” are more than financial are crucial to our long-term survival, physical health, emotional health and spiritual health. There are a lot of people for whom the Pandemic was a life saver! Many people left the jobs they hated, they felt stuck and trapped in, to go out and find a career that gives them work/life balance, a way of making a financial living that no longer sucks their spirit and impairs their spiritual and emotional health. Entertainment is now a welcome diversion as a breather rather than as a distraction for the mind “from the preoccupations of daily living”. Entertainment has it’s proper place in their lives whereas before it did not, it was out of proper measure which in turn threw everything else in their lives out of proper measure. Proper measure is different for each of us, so we have to find our unique proper measure of which preoccupations of daily living are for us to focus on each day, hour, week, month, etc. What we do need to understand, however, is that these preoccupations are the same for each and every one of us. They will differ in intensity, in ability, in focus, in timing, yet they are the same for all of us,I believe.
The first preoccupation, in my experience, is/needs to be with our spiritual life. Too many of us have neglected our inner life, our spiritual life out of a misguided belief that this is about religion and not science. As the Webb telescope has shown me/us, the universe(s) is so infinitely amazing and intricate and we/I am connected to every particle of matter, every atom in this vast expanse by a connection that is indescribable and unknowable and absolutely true. Yet, many of us are so preoccupied with other things, we ignore this primal need and component of what makes us human. As I tell many people who can not believe, God, spirit is the space between us and another human being that makes it possible to connect with one another. Another example of spiritual living is our connection with animals, while our dog, SweetPea, cannot speak-we communicate and live together in a non-verbal manner than transcends my rational mind. Our intuition is an example of inner life/spiritual life, yet so many of us pay little to no attention to it and/or do not grow it into maturity. Most of us do not see the need to mature, pay attention, grow our inner life, our spiritual life and wonder why we feel so disconnected and discontented with our daily living.
A rich spiritual/inner life begins with a connection to another human being, a connection to something greater than our self, a connection to nature, to our soul, to our ‘gut instinct’. This connection is one that doesn’t have to be ‘rational’ and it does have to have an ineffable quality to it, a quality that is too awesome to describe. In other words, we have to get out of the need for “evidence-based” practices that make us the same as everyone else and begin to explore the proper way for us to connect to our inner life, to the universe, to another(s) human being, to the animal kingdom, to nature. We do this through prayer, meditation, study, immersing ourselves in what is, acting in loving ways whether we feel like it or not, as Harriet Rossetto teaches and more. Love is not a rational experience, a biological connection is not the same as love, a co-dependent relationship is not the same as love. Love is, as M.Scott Peck defines it: “going beyond one’s own limitations and boundaries to nurture and enhance the spiritual growth of oneself and/or another.” This definition reminds us of the spiritual nature of love and our need for engaging in loving actions towards ourselves and towards another. I will write more on this tomorrow.
In recovery, our first few steps into a new/old way of being allows us/forces us to engage in spiritual practices. We seek to realize the myriad of ways we are powerless over so many things we thought we should have power over and learn to accept what truly is, become immersed and engaged in, as I said yesterday, “Life on life’s terms”. No longer needing to “be in control”, we are better able to navigate our actions and our inner thoughts, inner experiences and grow to be loving and kind to everyone.
Growing one’s spiritual life never ends, as I have taught, forgotten and am reminded of daily. I am constantly seeking to grow along spiritual lines and remembering, just as the Torah ends with the Israelites poised to go into the promised land, my life will end before I am totally spiritually fit. Each day, I grow my inner life/my spiritual life by one grain of sand and this preoccupation helps me deal with the rest of what life brings a whole lot better. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark