Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 295
“To celebrate is too share in a greater joy, to participate in an eternal drama. In acts of consumption the intention is to please our own selves in acts of celebration the intention is to extol God, the spirit, the source of blessing.” (Who is Man pg. 117)
Someone asked me the purpose of this daily writing and blogging it and I thought about the question with consternation, inquisitiveness and joy. Consternation because I thought the title says it all, this is for everyone to learn and share in the wisdom, brilliance and teachings of Rabbi Heschel for our everyday living. My curiosity was peaked by being asked this question at all, wondering what this person was getting that made the question relevant for her. I am joyous that the question was asked so I could explain, it made me know this is being read and, whether I am clear on my intention or not, it has at least one person thinking about Rabbi Heschel, thinking about how to live well and reading this daily! I want to be clear about my intentions, much like the first sentence above; this blog is a celebration of Rabbi Heschel’s impact on my life, a sharing of the greater joy we, I and all of the people who have learned Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom with me over the years, have experienced and participated in and how this joy helps us participate more fully “in an eternal drama”. It is to let you, the reader, know I am available to help you navigate with purpose and passion in all areas of your life and a snippet of how I help a person apply this type of wisdom to any and all parts of their life.
These past 295 days are my sharing in the “greater joy” of living life on its terms, not the ones I want, not the false narratives that so many people are spouting today. We all have an opportunity to share in the greater joy of living, to participate in an eternal drama if we are willing to follow a few simple paths that God/the Universe has set out for us, the first of which being to “Love God with all of our heart, soul, our everything”. To do this we have to love our self, love our neighbor, love our enemies with all of our heart, soul and everything. Each of us are created in the Image of God, each of us has within us the spirit of the Universe, each of us is endowed with the need for connection, love, service, community. Yet, in false narratives that we make up and/or adopt from another that is made up, we lose sight of these truths, we forget this simple path and we make war, false accusations and dangerous lies against another so we can be all powerful.
Our need to be God causes us to worship idols, to participate in an action that is the antithesis of the “eternal drama” Rabbi Heschel speaks of above. We cannot “share in the greater joy” Rabbi Heschel is speaking of when our joy is derived from mendacity, from ‘winning the war’, from ‘beating the competition’, from showing off how strong, smart, rich, famous, powerful we are. This is the reason so many ‘successful’ people have such utterly sad inner lives, why they are so envied for their outside achievements and in such terrible turmoil in their inner lives. Divorce, being mis-attuned with children and partners, being feared rather than loved, fearful their inner demons may ruin a carefully crafted outer image, etc are all. Writing this blog is a way for me to participate in the “eternal drama” of joy, of life, of love, of service to people who are in need and desire of a more mature and congruent inner life.
We forfeit our share when we indulge in idolatry in all of its forms. When we allow our selves to be ‘bought off’ by money, power, prestige we are engaging in idol worship. When we buy into the lies of Trump and his band of thieves, power-hungry mongers, sycophants, we are engaging in idol worship. When we buy into the lies of religious leaders, spiritual gurus that they have the answer and they alone are the truth, we are engaging in idolatry. When we buy into the lies we tell ourselves that we need to buy these lies, that these lies are actually the truth, we are so spiritually ill that we need a physician of the soul to help us be on the path of spiritual healing and psychological clarity.
In recovery, we are constantly searching for and living a path towards spiritual healing and psychological health. In the 3rd step we “made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, as we understand God”. We are willing to surrender our fears and our self-centeredness, our self-pity and our need to be right, our false ego and our need to be the director of everything so we can “participate in the eternal drama” of living well, so we can “share in a greater joy” and rise above the misery we have been in and we have caused/shared with those around us.
I have to let go of the false narratives I still tell myself, I have to surrender the caricatures of me that I have created, I get to do this by sharing the joy of living that I experience, by not allowing the doings, defining, opinions of people who want to harm me infect me with doubt, despair and/or send me back to idolatry. I have been participating in the “eternal drama” more and more and staying out of the drama people create as well as creating personal drama less and less. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark